abiogenesis
If Earth is Average, We Should Find Extraterrestrial Life Within 60 Light-Years
A new study estimates that there could be 11,000 habitable planets within 100 parsecs of our Sun, the nearest being…
Life Might Have Gotten Started Just 300 Million Years After the Earth Formed
On an outcrop of exposed volcanic and sedimentary rock on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, researchers…
Lightning Strikes Helped Life get an Early Start on Earth
So, you want to create life? You're going to need some ingredients first. On Earth four billion years ago, you…
What are the Odds of Life Emerging on Another Planet?
A new study by Prof. Kipping of Columbia University indicates that extraterrestrial life should be statistically significant, even if intelligent…
Life Could be Common Across the Universe, Just Not in Our Region
The building blocks of life can, and did, spontaneously assemble under the right conditions. That's called spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis.…
All Life on Earth is Made up of the Same 20 Amino Acids. Scientist Now Think They Know Why
A new study has shown that the building blocks of life (amino acids) may have come together more easily than…
Researchers May Have Found the Missing Piece of Evidence that Explains the Origins of Life
A team of researchers have shown how the basic building blocks of life could have arose on a primordial Earth,…
Estimating When Life Could Have Arisen on Earth
A new study by a team of Canadian researchers places new constraints on when life first emerged on Earth, which…
Bayesian Analysis Rains On Exoplanet Life Parade
It's tempting to think that life is plentiful in the Universe, if only we could locate it. But a pair…
Jupiter – Our Silent Guardian?
[/caption] We live in a cosmic shooting gallery. In Phil Plait's Death From the Skies, he lays out the dangers…