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The bulk chemical composition and interior structure of rocky exoplanets are of fundamental importance to understanding their long-term evolution and potential habitability. Observations of the chemical compositions of the solar system…
The poly-tRNA model was recently presented for the origin and evolution of genetic coding. This model has led to a rather precise description of what might have occurred at the beginning of protein synthesis in the first life form. Here, we…
The evolution of different forms of photosynthetic life has profoundly altered the activity level of the biosphere, radically reshaping the composition of Earth's oceans and atmosphere over time. However, the mechanistic impacts of a…
In order to examine how the terrestrial life emerged, a number of laboratory experiments have been conducted since the 1950s. Methane has been one of the key molecules in these studies. In earlier studies, strongly reducing gas mixtures…
Titan is the only icy satellite in the solar system with a dense atmosphere. This atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen with a few percent methane, which supports an active, methane-based hydrological cycle on Titan. The presence of…
Research investigating the origins of life usually focuses on exploring possible life-bearing chemistries in the pre-biotic Earth, or else on synthetic approaches. Little work has been done exploring fundamental issues concerning the…
Present-day Venus is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 750K and an atmosphere over 90 times as thick as present day Earth's. Billions of years ago the picture may have been very different. We have created a suite…
It is currently uncertain as to whether methane exists on Mars. Data from the Curiosity Rover suggests a background methane concentration of a few tenths parts per billion whereas data from the Trace Gas Orbiter suggest an upper limit of…
How life started on Earth is an unsolved mystery. There are various hypotheses for the location ranging from outer space to the seafloor, subseafloor or potentially deeper. Here, we applied extensive ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD)…
If properly interpreted, the impact record of the Moon, Earth's nearest neighbour, can be used to gain insights into how the Earth has been influenced by impacting events since its formation ~4.5 billion years (Ga) ago. However, the nature…
Extraterrestrial amino acids, the chemical building blocks of the biopolymers that comprise life as we know it on Earth are present in meteoritic samples. More recently, glycine (NH$_2$CH$_2$COOH), the simplest amino acid, was detected by…
Recent results have strongly confirmed that multiple supernovae happened at distances ~100 pc consisting of two main events: one at 1.7 to 3.2 million years ago, and the other at 6.5 to 8.7 million years ago. These events are said to be…
The Moon is generally thought to have formed from the debris ejected by the impact of a planet-sized object with the proto-Earth towards the end of planetary accretion. Modeling of the impact process predicts that the lunar material was…
The solar system planets are benchmarks for the planet formation theory. Yet two paradigms coexist for the four terrestrial planets: the prolonged collisional growth among planetesimals lasting $>100$ million years (Myr) and the fast…
Planet Earth has evolved from an entirely anoxic planet with possibly a different tectonic regime to the oxygenated world with horizontal plate tectonics that we know today. For most of this time, Earth has been inhabited by a purely…
The search for life on extrasolar planets is based on the assumption that one can screen extrasolar planets for habitability spectroscopically. The first space born instruments able to detect as well as characterize extrasolar planets,…
Neutron emission probabilities and half-lives of 37 beta-delayed neutron emitters from 75Ni to 92Br were measured at the RIKEN Nishina Center in Japan, including 11 one-neutron and 13 two-neutron emission probabilities and 6 half-lives…
"The investigation into the possible effects of cosmic rays on living organisms will also offer great interest." - Victor F. Hess, Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1936 High-energy radiation bursts are commonplace in our Universe. From nearby…
An Earth-like planetary magnetic field has been widely invoked as a requirement for habitability as it purportedly mitigates the fluxes of ionizing radiation reaching the surface and the escape of neutrals and ions from the atmosphere.…
Within the first 20 minutes of the evolution of the hot, dense, early Universe, astrophysically interesting abundances of deuterium, helium-3, helium-4, and lithium-7 were synthesized by the cosmic nuclear reactor. The primordial abundances…