Scientific American

Isolated Reservoir Holds Ancient Water

Wed, 15 May 2013 23:59:08 EST

Bottled water companies often brag about the purity of their drinks. Just imagine if they found a water source that's been cut off from the outside world for well over a billion years.

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Earth and Moon Got Water from Common Source

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:00:00 EST

Measurements of the chemical composition of Moon rocks suggest that Earth was born with its water already present, rather than having the precious liquid delivered several hundred million years later by comets or asteroids. And in finding a common origin for the water on Earth and the Moon, the results highlight a puzzle over the leading theory for the formation of Earth's satellite.

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Space Scope Spots 3 Possibly Habitable Planets

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:37:08 EST

The search for habitable, Earth-like planets keeps turning up promising candidates. And although astronomers have yet to find an Earth twin, some newly discovered worlds are pretty interesting in their own right.

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Mars-Life Hypothesis Gets a Fresh Look

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:00:00 EST

The New Way to Look for Mars Life: Follow the Salt [More]

Planet-Seeking Spacecraft Spies Water Worlds

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:30:00 EST

NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered two planets that are the most similar in size to Earth ever found in a star’s habitable zone -- the temperate region where water could exist as a liquid.

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Neighborhood Watch: New NASA Mission Will Propel Detailed Investigations of Nearby Exoplanets

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:00:00 EST

NASA’s Kepler mission has been a smash hit. It has discovered thousands of probable exoplanets--worlds orbiting stars other than the sun--more than 100 of which have already been vetted and confirmed. Many of those planets are among the smallest , most Earth-size planets known: of the 25 smallest-diameter exoplanets discovered to date, all but one were spotted by Kepler.

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Anybody Home? Next-Gen Telescopes Could Pick Up Hints of Extraterrestrial Life

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:00:00 EST

Even as astronomers work toward the hotly anticipated milestone discovery of an Earth-like twin orbiting another star, researchers are already asking what it will take to detect the existence of extraterrestrial life on such a planet.

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Diminutive Discovery: Moon-Size Exoplanet Circling Sun-Like Star Smallest Yet

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:50:00 EST

A newfound world called Kepler 37 b could easily blend in to the long and growing list of known extrasolar planets , given its nondescript name. But the new addition to the catalogue of 800-plus exoplanets stands out in at least one major respect--it is far smaller than any planet yet discovered outside of our solar system. In fact, it is just a shade larger than Earth’s moon.

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Earth-Like World May Be Just 13 Light-Years Away

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 06:00:08 EST

Astronomers have searched far and wide for planets that are the right size and in the right place to support life. Well, maybe they should have set their sights a little closer to home. Because a new study suggests that there may be Earth-like planets just 13 light-years away. The results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal . [Courtney D. Dressing and David Charbonneau, The Occurrence Rate of Small Planets around Small Stars ]

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Cosmic Cliff: An Astrophysicist Searches for Exo-Earths, Black Holes and Funding

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:30:00 EST

Martin Still is an expert in endings. At 10,500 meters, onboard a Virgin Atlantic flight from San Francisco to London, he describes blasts that rip apart matter, explosions that destroy stellar systems and cataclysmic events that shake the cosmos. The NASA astrophysicist makes the prospect of astronomical obliteration sound exciting, although a conversation about any kind of destruction is not one most passengers prefer on a transatlantic trip.

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Milky Way May Contain 100 Billion Planets

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 08:25:08 EST

[ Carl Sagan speaking :] “There are in fact 100 billion galaxies, each of which contains something like a 100 billion stars.” Well, Carl Sagan would have loved to get the latest estimate of our galaxy’s planet count.

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Meteorite Carries Ancient Water from Mars

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:10:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Should Mars Get Another Rover?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:44:08 EST

If you’re looking for a public figure with an astronomical approval rating, think Curiosity. The Mars rover has been a huge hit in terms of both public and scientific interest.

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Thicker Atmosphere Still Would Have Left Mars Cold

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:59:08 EST

The greenhouse effect. It’s the mechanism warming the world as greenhouse gas levels rise. But it’s not all bad. If Earth had no greenhouse effect at all, it would be too cold for us altogether. Just look at frigid, dry Mars.

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Hunt for Life under Antarctic Ice Heats Up

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

Nestled in a steep fjord beneath three kilometers of Antarctic ice, the lost world of Lake Ellsworth has haunted Martin Siegert’s dreams ever since he got involved in subglacial research a dozen years ago. Finally, the time has come for him to explore its mysterious waters.

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Star's Habitable Zone Includes Possible Giant Earth

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:45:08 EST

It’s not quite a spitting image of Earth, but a newfound planet just might be similar enough to support life.

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The Exoplanet Next-Door: Astronomers Discover World in Nearest Star System

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:00:00 EST

As humankind's radio and television broadcasts leak out into space and propagate across the galaxy at the speed of light, it is tempting to speculate on who might be listening in--and what they might know about us. A hypothetical civilization 50 light-years away, should they possess the technology to receive and decipher our stray radio waves, would witness a planet enmeshed in the Cuban Missile crisis , the sights and sounds of 1962 only just having reached their detectors.

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Controversial "Arsenic Life" Bacterium Prefers Phosphorus After All

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST

By Daniel Cressey of Nature magazine

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What's Next for Curiosity on Mars

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:26:08 EST

Scientific American contributor David Appell talks with Mars Science Lab Project leader John Grotzinger, professor of geology at Caltech, about the plans for the rover on the Martian surface.

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Curiosity Lands on Mars

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:48:08 EST

Less than an hour after NASA received confirmation that the Curiosity rover was safely on the Martian surface , some principal members of the mission briefed the press. This is an edited presentation of that briefing, which started at about 11:20 P.M, Pacific time on August 5th.

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