Edward W. Schwieterman

Usually, life on distant planets is sought by telltale gases in the atmosphere. But their buildup isn’t only from life. A new approach gauges not the concentration but the rate gases stream from the surface — like figuring out if bread is baking not by the smell, but by the waft of heat from the ove

TRAPPIST-1 e is a rocky planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf, one of astrobiologists' prime targets. But decoding its atmosphere requires a precise ultraviolet 'autograph' of the star. Simulations showed: different UV spectra dramatically alter the chemical portrait, producing deceptive pairs