Habitability
Planetary Habitability Depends on its Star’s Magnetic Field
The extrasolar planet census recently passed a major milestone, with 5500 confirmed candidates in 4,243 solar systems. With so many…
The Ultraviolet Habitable Zone Sets a Time Limit on the Formation of Life
The field of extrasolar planet studies has grown exponentially in the past twenty years. Thanks to missions like Kepler, the…
What Deadly Venus Can Tell Us About Life on Other Worlds
Even though Venus and Earth are so-called sister planets, they're as different as heaven and hell. Earth is a natural…
Earth’s Long-Term Habitability Relies on Chemical Cycles. How Can We Better Understand Them?
We, and all other complex life, require stability to evolve. Planetary conditions needed to be benign and long-lived for creatures…
The LIFE Telescope Passed its First Test: It Detected Biosignatures on Earth.
We know that there are thousands of exoplanets out there, with many millions more waiting to be discovered. But the…
Dying Stars Could Have Completely New Habitable Zones
Aging stars that become red giants increase their luminosity and can wreak havoc on planets that were once in the…
Is the Habitable Zone Really Habitable?
The water that life knows and needs, the water that makes a world habitable, the water that acts as the…
The Galactic Habitable Zone
Our planet sits in the Habitable Zone of our Sun, the special place where water can be liquid on the…
Astronomers Test an Exoplanet Instrument on Jupiter
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has a high-resolution spectrograph called ESPRESSO, designed specifically to detecting and characterize…
17 Known Exoplanets Could Have Oceans of Liquid Water
The search for life is tied to the search for liquid water. That's why astronomers are so keen on detecting…