organic chemistry

Organic Chemistry: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Universe Today has recently had the privilege of investigating a myriad of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites,…

6 months ago

How Did Life Get Started on Earth? Atmospheric Haze Might Have Been the Key

A recent study accepted to The Planetary Science Journal investigates how the organic hazes that existed on Earth between the…

8 months ago

Venus has Clouds of Concentrated Sulfuric Acid, but Life Could Still Survive

A new study has found that some of the building blocks of organic molecules could survive in Venus clouds, suggesting…

1 year ago

The Raw Materials for Life Form Early on in Stellar Nurseries

Life doesn't appear from nothing. Its origins are wrapped up in the same long, arduous process that creates the elements,…

2 years ago

Comet Impacts Could Have Brought the Raw Ingredients for Life to Europa’s Ocean

Jupiter is the most-visited planet in the Solar System, thanks largely to NASA. It all started with Pioneer 10 and…

2 years ago

It Appears That Enceladus is Even More Habitable Than we Thought

It takes a watery world to support life as we know it, but it also takes a special bit extra.

2 years ago

One of the Building Blocks of Life Can Form in the Harsh Environment of Deep Space Itself. No Star Required

In many ways, stars are the engines of creation. Their energy drives a whole host of processes necessary for life.…

4 years ago

Curiosity Finds Organic Molecules That Could Have Been Produced by Life on Mars

What do coal, crude oil, and truffles have in common? Go ahead. We'll wait. The answer is thiophenes, a molecule…

5 years ago

A Jarful of Titan Could Teach Us A Lot About Life There, and Here On Earth

Titan is a distant, exotic, and dangerous world. It's frigid temperatures and hydrocarbon chemistry is like nothing else in the…

5 years ago

Dragonfly Proposed to NASA as Daring New Frontiers Mission to Titan

The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab recently submitted a proposal to NASA for a robotic mission to Titan known…

7 years ago