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Search for life in space

The personnel of the Japanese Space Agency collect the sample capsule brought by the Yabusa 2 spacecraft. Photo: JAXA

Organic material was found on an asteroid sample returned by Yabusa 2

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Organic materials have been found on meteorites before, but Yabusa was the first time a sample of an "S-type" asteroid was observed to contain organic molecules. It even came directly from the source, and was not subjected to significant periods of time on Earth before being tested.
The Evaporative Preserver SUV. Image: NASA

Mars and beyond: How scientists are preventing Earth's bacteria from contaminating other planets

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And what does it have to do with the Genesis mission that crashed on the moon? For 50 years, government organizations adhered to the accepted rules and laws for self-defense of the solar system against terrestrial pollution. Now they are being joined by an increasing number of commercial space missions. How to enforce the law on them?
The dusty region of the constellation Orion (a region known as the 'Sword of Orion') is illuminated in this stunning image taken from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Laboratory. This primordial nebula is the largest and closest star-forming region to us, and is located about 1500 light-years away [Courtesy: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech]

The building blocks of life can form in the interstellar clouds

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An international team of researchers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can be formed in the harsh conditions that exist in space
An army of fighting machines from Mars destroying England (1906) Illustration for the book "The War of the Worlds" in the Belgian edition of 1906, by the Brazilian artist Henrique Alavim Cora.

The four most promising worlds for extraterrestrial life in the solar system

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The recent discovery of possible biogenic phosphine in the clouds of Venus reminds us that at least some of the ingredients necessary for life exist elsewhere in the solar system. So where are the most promising places for extraterrestrial life?
The surface of Venus and its atmosphere, where phosphines are at cloud level. Figure: ESO

Has a chemical marker for the possibility of life on the surface of Venus been discovered?

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Astronomers have discovered a rare element - phosphine - in the clouds of the planet Venus. On Earth, this gas is only produced in industry or it is emitted by bacteria living in an oxygen-limited environment
Photo: The test site for the exposure of bacteria to space on the outside of the Japanese Kibo module on the International Space Station. The experiment tested between 2015 and 2018 how many years bacteria can survive in space. Photo: JAXA / NASA

Bacteria can survive a journey from Earth to Mars

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A Japanese experiment on the space station looked at how bacteria can survive in space conditions and transfer life from one planet to another.
An intelligent alien. Illustration: from jumpstory

Do thirty communicating cultures share the Milky Way with us

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A planet to my right that is similar to Jupiter, but orbits its sun closely (hot Jupiter). Image: NASA

Hydrogen-breathing aliens may exist on planets quite different from Earth

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The location of the telescopes of the Breakthrough Listen project. PR photo

Breakthrough Listen released two petabytes of alien search data

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The cover of the book: Encounters for the Milk by Hagai Netzer and Ami Ben Best, published by Aliyat HaGeg Books

In the last twenty years we have discovered a lot of planets, so why haven't we found aliens?

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We imagine the aliens as distorted human-like creatures. Not a chance. Illustration: shutterstock

Do invisible aliens exist among us? An astrobiologist explains

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Planets of all kinds. Illustration: shutterstock

Detecting water vapor in the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet is a big step toward discovering life in space

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Artist's rendering of planet K2-18b. Illustration: ALEX BOERSMA, University of Montreal

Water has been discovered on a planet that is in the habitable zone of its star

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Artistic representations of planets outside the solar system that could support life as we know it. Figure: Habitable Planets Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo.

How many Earth-like planets orbit Sun-like stars in the habitable zone?

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An expert in the study of life in the universe: there is no point in looking for aliens in Area 51

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Iconography showing the habitable zone around the planet Teegarden in two conservative and optimistic scenarios, compared to our solar system and other planets discovered in their star's habitable zone. The scale is normalized to the size of our solar system. In practice the planets Teegarden b and Teegarden c are much closer to their sun. Illustration: C. Harman

"The two planets discovered this week orbiting a red dwarf near the Sun are good candidates for the search for life"

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The structure of the substance glycolonitrile and the celestial gram in which it was found [Courtesy: Víctor M. Rivilla & Ben Mills & Herschel-SPIRE 500 microns]

A building block of life has been located in the star formation region of space

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The TESS space telescope against the backdrop of a hot planet close to its sun. Illustration: NASA GODDARD

The TESS space telescope will be launched - will search for rocky planets in other solar systems

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The simulation of a tiny spacecraft being pushed by laser beams from Earth to achieve a speed of about 20% of the speed of light and allow a relatively quick arrival to the nearby star Alpha Centauri. Source: Breakthrough Starshot.

How to fly to the star Alpha Centauri at almost the speed of light

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This image shows the spectacular region of star formation where methyl isocyanate is found. Inside the circle - an illustration showing the molecular structure of this chemical. Image: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/L. Calçada

One of the basic building blocks of life was discovered in solar systems in the stages of their formation

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radio telescope. Photo: from PIXABAY.COM

The huge investment of one hundred million dollars in the search for signals from aliens has not yet brought results

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Super Earth LHS 1140b and the Sun it orbits. Imaging: ESO

A planet has been discovered that may allow liquid water - a necessary condition for life

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Imaging of the Cassini spacecraft passing through the water jets of the moon Enceladus. The close flyby she made through the jets in 2015 allowed her to detect molecular hydrogen in the water jets and strengthen the possibility that the environment in the sub-glacial ocean from which the jets emanate supports the existence of life. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA reveals new discoveries from the oceanic worlds of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn

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Processing of one of the images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in ultraviolet radiation. Note the light blue structures that protrude from the surface of Europa's moon into space (at the bottom of the moon on the left side, 7 o'clock). Further tests revealed that these were most likely water eruptions from the surface of the moon.

Is there life on the moon Europa?

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Simulation of extrasolar planets. Source: NASA

Planets for the most part - there is no life

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