-
Jan 17, 2025 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people A central question for astrobiologists — researchers who, like me, explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life — seems deceptively simple: What’s the best way to detect and identify life? So far, we’ve only managed to launch a single spacecraft mission dedicated to this problem, the Viking landers of the 1970s.
-
Oct 31, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people As we inch closer to the possibility of making first contact with an alien civilization, it’s worth wondering how that contact would go. As much as we’d like “them” to be benign and respectful of other life forms, we might be in for a big surprise. Technical prowess and ethical enlightenment don’t necessarily go hand in hand — our own history reminds us of that.
-
Oct 1, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people For more than 20 years, NASA’s search for life on Mars has hinged on a single, simple strategy: Follow the water. It makes sense. Every living thing on Earth — or every known life form, at least — needs water to survive, so tracing the course of past Martian rivers and lakes could ultimately lead us to the treasure we seek.
-
Sep 26, 2024 | 
nature.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
In hyperarid environments, life can obtain water through salts that draw moisture from the atmosphere. These salts, then, should be a focus of searches for life on Mars. The experiments performed by NASA’s Viking landers may have accidentally killed Martian life by applying too much water.
-
Aug 13, 2024 | 
newsbreak.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
-
Aug 13, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
After examining radar images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010, Leonardo Carrer and his team found that a deep pit discovered 15 years ago in the Sea of Tranquility — the same region of the Moon where the Apollo 11 astronauts landed — appears to lead to a subsurface cave conduit tens of meters long. The researchers believe the site could prove a promising location for a future lunar base.
-
Jul 1, 2024 | 
newsbreak.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
-
Jul 1, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
Lots of living things are asleep most of the time. That’s one lesson to be drawn from a recent publication by Karla Helena-Buena of Newcastle University, who discovered a new natural protein called Balon, ubiquitous in bacteria, that helps them overcome environmental stresses by going dormant. Dormancy as an adaptation strategy isn’t unique to single-celled organisms. Many fungi, plants, and animals rely on it to survive tough environmental conditions.
-
Jun 17, 2024 | 
bigthink.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
On June 1, China’s Chang’e-6 lander touched down in the South Pole-Atkin Basin — the largest, deepest, and oldest impact crater on the Moon. The probe almost immediately set to work drilling into the ground to collect about 2 kilograms of lunar material, which is already headed back to Earth, with a landing in Mongolia planned for June 25. It isn’t just planetary geologists who are excited at what the returning rocks and soil might reveal.
-
May 16, 2024 | 
newsbreak.com | Dirk Schulze-Makuch
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
