Astrobiology – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

40 years since Viking, scientists still on the hunt for life on Mars

July 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

Four decades after NASA’s Viking landers acquired humanity’s first view of the surface of Mars, a planet whose reality lived in the imaginations of skywatchers for millennia, a definitive smoking gun for microbial life there still eludes scientists.

Cassini images just a taste of Enceladus flyby science return

October 31, 2015 Stephen Clark

Days after a fleeting plunge through the icy plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is broadcasting tantalizing data back to Earth for scientists eager to address the moon’s prospects for life.

Q&A with Jonathan Lunine on Enceladus’ prospects for life

October 27, 2015 Stephen Clark

On the eve of the Cassini spacecraft’s deepest pass through the polar plumes of Enceladus, Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark spoke with Jonathan Lunine, a member of the mission’s science team from Cornell University, about what he hopes to learn from the encounter.

Looking for ET in the waters of Mars and Europa

September 30, 2015 William Harwood

The discovery of intermittent flows of liquid water on Mars, announced with great fanfare Monday, makes the red planet the leading candidate for the near-term discovery of extraterrestrial life in the form of fossilized microbes or even existing microorganisms, NASA’s chief scientist told lawmakers Tuesday.

Diverse destinations considered for new interplanetary probe

April 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

Science teams from across the United States have submitted 28 proposals for missions to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, touch the asteroid-like satellites orbiting Mars, visit unseen worlds and hunt for objects that could strike Earth one day.