Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, whose work is considered abstract even by mathematical standards, once described two ways of solving problems. The first takes the idea of a problem being a tough nut to crack quite literally: "…put the cutting edge of the chisel against the shell and strike hard. If needed, begin again at many different points until the shell cracks—and you are satisfied." The second method is of a rather different character: "The unknown thing to be known appeared to me as some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration. . . the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to...

The evolution of species by means of natural selection can be modelled in a "tree of life" (ToL) that can be traced backwards in time . At the root of the ToL is a hypothetical being known as the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) . LUCA is in turn the outcome of several evolutionary events distinguished by the primacy of various fundamental components: geochemical prebiotic molecules → nucleotides (nt) + amino acids (aa) → RNA + → + aa → + DNA → + RNA (cf. ). The "RNA world" is the evolutionary stage where autocatalytic...

The asteroid belt, a region located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is composed of millions of rocky objects ranging in size from tiny pebbles to large asteroids several hundred kilometres in diameter. These remnants from the early formation of the solar system provide valuable insights into the evolution of our cosmic neighbourhood. As an aspiring astrophysicist and citizen scientist, I recently identified an asteroid that had never been seen before, using the Astrometrica software for analysis. This discovery, now named "DPR1729," underscores the significance of individual contributions to scientific research and validates my passion for exploring the cosmos....

For centuries, mankind has struggled with the problem of defining life. Just what is it? What makes it different from things that are not living? It seems that the main difficulty is that we do not yet have a good enough model of what living is, in its widest sense to even start to provide definitions. To put this problem into perspective, there are two big scientific ideas that have helped humans to try to understand (at a crude level) how our Universe works; Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the concept of quantum mechanics. The former allows us...

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The enduring question is: “Are We the First?” From what we already know of chemistry—especially that of carbon and water—it is highly probable that we are not the first. We also may well not be alone, with even the possibility that life elsewhere in the Cosmos could be ubiquitous—and often, from time to time, scientists make bold, optimistic, conjectures about such life. To ascertain how any life emerged on Earth and, therefore, may have emerged elsewhere in the Universe is proving to be an uphill task. To put it in other words, we don’t even know how many relevant...

Venus is the closest planet to the Earth and the brightest celestial body after the Sun and the Moon...

Under controlled laboratory conditions, lasers represent a source of energy with well-defined parameters suitable for mimicking phenomena such as ablation, disintegration, and plasma formation processes that take place during the hypervelocity atmospheric entry of meteoroids. Furthermore, lasers have also been proposed for employment in future space exploration and planetary defense in a wide range of potential applications. This highlights the importance of an experimental investigation of lasers’ interaction with real samples of interplanetary matter: meteorite specimens. We summarize the results of numerous meteorite laser ablation experiments performed by several laser sources—a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser, the multislab ceramic Yb:YAG Bivoj...

The dusty faces of the Moon and Mars conceal unseen hazards for future explorers. Areas of highly oxidising material could be sufficiently reactive that they would produce chemical burns on astronauts’ unprotected skin or lungs. Taking inspiration from a pioneering search for Martian life, a Greek team is developing a device to detect these ‘reactive oxygen species’ – as well as harvest sufficient oxygen from them to keep astronauts breathing indefinitely. Read the full article by following the link Seeking out Moon and Mars superoxides for oxygen farming

Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here, we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural history of Mars, habitability, robotic and human exploration, planetary protection, and the impacts on human society. Key observations and findings include: high escape rates of early Mars' atmosphere, including loss of water, impact present-day habitability; putative fossils on Mars will likely be ambiguous biomarkers for life; – microbial contamination resulting from human habitation is unavoidable; and based on Mars' current planetary protection category, robotic payload(s)...