panspermia

A hardy species of bacteria can survive the harsh conditions of space for prolonged periods, but only after forming…

Late last year, astronomers detected the first known interstellar asteroid, dubbed ‘Oumuamua. New research suggests…

It feels like we’re constantly searching for a friend out there in the cosmos, only to be repeatedly disappointed.…

With only a few days left before it’s scheduled to crash-land on the surface of Comet 67P, the Rosetta spacecraft is…

Discovering life on another planet, only to contaminate that world with our own pesky microbes, is one of NASA’s…

Last week, a slew of scientific papers told the story of comet lander Philae’s bumpy touchdown, comet 67P’s…

The Panspermia Hypothesis holds that life on our planet traces its origins to space—say, a microbe-laden meteorite…

The discovery is a boost for the Panspermia Hypothesis — but it's a potential nightmare for scientists concerned…

The building blocks of life could have their beginnings in the tiny icy grains that make up the gas and dust found…

In Prometheus, we saw a mysterious alien seeding the Earth with DNA. This act of fertilizing a planet with life…

Is there (or was there ever) life on Mars? In this great little video — produced by the folks over at thinkrtv —…

In the opening scene of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, an alien Engineer is seen seeding the Earth with life — an…

We know a lot about the history of life on Earth, but how it began is still one of our greatest scientific…

Exogenesis is the theory that the building blocks for life came from elsewhere in the universe. The trouble is it…

Many of you have probably heard about asteroid 2005 YU55, the massive rocky body that tomorrow night will collide…

We've often found trace evidence of DNA on meteorites, but it wasn't clear whether these DNA pieces originated in…

The argument that life on Earth may have been seeded from the stars just received a major boost, as scientists have…

Meteors may have seeded the planet with life-giving ammonia.

Every time we send spacecraft to explore the solar system, we send along lots of tiny microbes. In fact, we may have…

Sure, that's maybe the most ridiculous question we've posed. But a new theory suggests life's building blocks did…