Lifeboat Foundation

Micrometeorites originating from icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system may be responsible for transporting nitrogen to the near-Earth region in the early days of our solar system. That discovery was published in Nature Astronomy by an international team of researchers, including University of Hawai’i at Mānoa scientists, led by Kyoto University.

Nitrogen compounds, such as ammonium salts, are abundant in material born in regions far from the sun, but evidence of their transport to Earth’s orbital region had been poorly understood.

“Our recent findings suggest the possibility that a greater amount of nitrogen compounds than previously recognized was transported near Earth, potentially serving as building blocks for life on our planet,” says Hope Ishii, study co-author and affiliate faculty at the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

If humans intend to conquer the stars and spread civilization beyond Earth, we really need to figure out sex: can humans conceive and have babies in places such as Mars, where factors like high amounts of radiation and lower gravity could wreck the adult body, nevermind potentially hindering natural conception and deforming growing fetuses?

A growing number of researchers and entrepreneurs want to tackle those questions. Take this startup called Spaceborn United, which we’ve blogged about previously.

The company is still hard at work, according to new reporting from AFP, with the aim of having a baby naturally conceived and born on Mars in the future.

Ratio between planet and its star is 100 times bigger than between our Earth and the Sun.

Published on Monday, Nov. 27, in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, the catalog serves as a collaborative effort involving 170 scientists globally.

Life on Mercury?

Salt glaciers uncovered on Mercury, the second planet from the sun, could have implications for the habitability of this tiny planet and similar worlds beyond the solar system.

New research pokes holes in the idea that the cosmos expanded and then contracted before beginning again.

By James Riordon

Researchers simulated what would happen if a rogue star were to come within 100 astronomical units of the Sun.

Science 382, 1031–1035 (2023). DOI:10.1126/science.abo0233

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Astronomers have found a massive planet orbiting a small, cool star, and planet formation theories struggle to explain its existence.