Under a crust of fractured ice, Europa may shelter the largest body of liquid water in the solar system – more than Earth’s oceans combined – and that single fact has gripped scientists for decades. The mystery isn’t just whether water is there, but whether the chemistry and energy to power life have persisted in ...
Somewhere beyond the planets we know, past the frozen rubble of Pluto’s realm, something is tugging at our solar system’s edge. Astronomers see its fingerprints in the strange orbits of distant icy worlds, like chairs in a room nudged out of place by an unseen guest. They suspect a new kind of neighbor: a ...
Astronomers have discovered a cosmic goldmine in the whirling disk of a young star 330 light-years away, rare isotopes of methanol molecules possibly holding the key to the beginnings of life. The discovery of HD 100453, a star hardly a million years old, provides an unparalleled window into the chemical soup that generates planets and ...
