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Aside from Earth, no planets in the solar system are known to harbor life. Mars, Europa, and Titan are considered to have once had or currently have conditions permitting the existence of life. Multiple rovers have been sent to Mars, while Europa Clipper is planned to reach Europa in 2030, and the Dragonfly space probe is planned to launch in 2027.
While Earth is the only place in the Universe known to harbor life, [10] [11] estimates of habitable zones around other stars, [12] [13] along with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets and new insights into the extreme habitats on Earth where organisms known as extremophiles live, suggest that there may be many more habitable places in the ...
To support an Earth-like atmosphere for about 4.6 billion years (Earth's current age), a moon with a Mars-like density is estimated to need at least 7% of Earth's mass. [20] One way to decrease loss from sputtering is for the moon to have a strong magnetic field of its own that can deflect stellar wind and radiation belts.
NASA is set to launch a spacecraft to Jupiter's moon Europa, considered one of our solar system's most promising spots to search for life beyond Earth, to learn whether this ice-encased world ...
Outside the HZ, tidal heating and radioactive decay are two possible heat sources that could contribute to the existence of liquid water. [17] [18] Abbot and Switzer (2011) put forward the possibility that subsurface water could exist on rogue planets as a result of radioactive decay-based heating and insulation by a thick surface layer of ice ...
NASA has arrived at two ways of returning samples collected on Mars to Earth. Now, the agency will test the options to see if the cache can make it back in the 2030s.
Ahead of the spacecraft is a 1.8 billion-mile journey to Europa on a trajectory taking it past Mars and then Earth, using the planets’ gravity as a slingshot to add speed for the trek.
At least two-thirds of Mars' surface is more than 3.5 billion years old, and it could have been habitable 4.48 billion years ago, 500 million years before the earliest known Earth lifeforms; [4] Mars may thus hold the best record of the prebiotic conditions leading to life, even if life does not or has never existed there.