Space

Mars hasn’t given us proof of life, but it has handed scientists a new kind of mystery. On the western edge of Jezero Crater, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring Neretva Vallis, a river-carved valley that once fed a vast Martian lake. There, in an outcrop of ancient mudstone called the Bright Angel formation, the rover found one of its most intriguing targets yet: an…

Complex organic molecules that form part of the chain of chemical reactions that can result in life’s building blocks have been found in the watery geysers of Enceladus, almost twenty years after the plumes were first sampled by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Cassini’s mission to the ringed planet Saturn ended in 2017, but scientists are still making findings buried deep in its…

The Perseverance rover’s discovery of a potential biosignature found on a sedimentary rock on Mars is an exciting development in our search for life elsewhere in the universe, but how does it rank compared to other potential biosignatures that have previously been discovered on the Red Planet — and even beyond? “It’s arguably the best evidence that we have so far for microbial…

SpaceX’s Starship megarocket will fly again less than two weeks from now, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX announced on Monday (Sept. 29) that it’s targeting Oct. 13 for Starship Flight 11, which will be the final launch of the vehicle’s current “Version 2” iteration. Liftoff will occur from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas. The window on Oct. 13 will…