Chemistry
Toxic Gas is Leaking out of Enceladus. It’s also a Building Block of Life.
Enceladus' status as a target in the search for life keeps rising. We've known for years that plumes erupting from…
Webb Finds Icy Complex Organic Molecules Around Protostars: Ethanol, Methane, Formaldehyde, Formic Acid and Much More
In the quest to understand how and where life might arise in the galaxy, astronomers search for its building blocks.…
Could Life Exist in Molecular Clouds?
Our search for life beyond Earth is still in its infancy. We're focused on Mars and, to a lesser extent,…
Adolescent Galaxies are Incandescent and Contain Unexpected Elements
If the Universe has adolescent galaxies, they're the ones that formed about 2 to 3 billion years after the Big…
Wow. JWST Just Found Methane in an Exoplanet Atmosphere
If there's one chemical that causes excitement in the search for biosignatures on other worlds, it's methane. It's not a…
A Galaxy Only 350 Million Years Old Had Surprising Amounts of Metal
Astrophysicists working with the JWST have found a surprising amount of metal in a galaxy only 350 million years after…
A Robotic Chemist Could Whip up the Perfect Batch of Oxygen on Mars
Humans on Mars will need oxygen, and Mars' atmosphere is pretty anemic when it comes to the life-sustaining element. NASA's…
Life Might Be Easiest to Find on Planets that Match an Earlier Earth
We're inching closer and closer to reliably detecting biosignatures on distant planets. Much of the focus is on determining which…
Enceladus has All the Raw Materials for Life
Saturn's ocean moon, Enceladus, is attracting increasing attention in the search for life in our Solar System. Most of what…
Spaceflight is Polluting the Atmosphere with Metal
Humans can't seem to interact with the environment at all without fouling it in some way. From plastic bags in…