Last month, scientists published word that an incredible discovery was made on Venus. They found what is called a “biomarker” in the clouds of Venus. Now, a biomarker is not life, but a chemical that may indicate life is present. In Venus’ case, this chemical is phosphine. It’s hard to explain why phosphine would exist […]
What would happen if we found a message from a civilization on another planet? Chances are, they won’t be speaking English. We can’t talk to dolphins, dogs, or trees. What makes us think we ever would able to understand a message from not only another species, but from another planet? How would we go about […]
The Earth is not the only planet to undergo radical changes in its climate. Even if we look at the nearby solar neighborhood, we can see that Venus and Mars underwent significant changes in their climate in the past. Venus is a textbook example of the greenhouse effect gone haywire. Mars most likely had flowing […]
Everything changes. Even the stars, that seem so constant, will one day burn out. The sky will change. Today, we’re going on a journey to the very distant future of the Universe to see what is in store for us all. The time scales we will be talking about are truly mind-blowing. We’ll see what […]
When we think of geology, we may think of the Grand Canyon. We imagine layers upon layers of geological strata containing rocks that were formed millions or even billions of years ago. But do we ever think about the geological layer that is being laid down today? How will humankind be remembered in the rocks? […]
Far beneath the Canadian ice cap, isolated from the sun and the wind, lies two entire lakes. These subglacial lakes, recently discovered by Anja Rutishauser and her team, seem like they shouldn’t exist at all. For starters, they have a temperature far below the freezing point of water. This implies that perhaps these lakes are unique […]
What makes a planet a nice place to live? If it’s too close to its parent star, it would end up a searing hot furnace, like Venus. Too far away, and it would end up a frozen snowball. To be habitable, or at least to host life as we know it, a planet would need […]
Why haven’t we found life on other planets yet? Perhaps it’s because we are some of the first life to develop in the Universe. I talk to Dr. Avi Loeb, chair of the astronomy department at Harvard, about the possibility that life may be much more common in the distant future around small, dim, and […]