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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.
The discovery of exoplanets, beginning in the early 1990s [8] [9] and accelerating thereafter, has provided further information for the study of possible extraterrestrial life. These findings confirm that the Sun is not unique among stars in hosting planets and expands the habitability research horizon beyond the Solar System.
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.
So far, there is no evidence that life exists on Europa, but the moon has emerged as one of the most likely locations in the Solar System for potential habitability. [ 140 ] [ 182 ] Life could exist in its under-ice ocean, perhaps in an environment similar to Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents .
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.
The habitable zone is also called the Goldilocks zone, a metaphor, allusion and antonomasia of the children's fairy tale of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", in which a little girl chooses from sets of three items, rejecting the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settling on the one in the middle, which is "just ...
"It's certainly true on Earth − deep, deep mines host life, the bottom of the ocean hosts life," he said. "We haven't found any evidence for life on Mars, but at least we have identified a place ...
Cavosie said the research showed that even though Mars’ crust was hit by massive meteorites that caused a major upheaval of the planet’s surface, water was present during the early Pre ...