Martin Van Kranendonk

enceladus

Phosphorus is the most elusive element crucial for life as we know it – and we now have the first evidence there’s some available in the oceans of Enceladus.

google map view of the indonesia region

Earthquakes originating underneath the ocean are often accompanied by tsunami warnings. Here’s what determines the tsunami risk.

Earth as seen from the moon

The planet's evolution and ‘microbial poop’ were just some of the wide ranging topics US mineralogist Dr Robert Hazen covered at the UNSW Centre for Ideas event last night.

thumb_no_writing.jpg

As NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars, UNSW is playing a key role in the search for life on the red planet. In July 2019, Professor Martin Van Kranendonk took a team of NASA and European Space Agency scientists to the Pilbara, in the Western Australian outback.

Phosphene molecules and Venus

Considering what we know about the key ingredients for life's formation on Earth, here are three explanations for how this process may have occurred on our sister planet.

Greenland

Ancient rocks from Greenland have shown that the elements necessary for the evolution of life did not come to Earth until very late in the planet’s formation – much later than previously thought.

Pyrite

Western Australia’s famous 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites contain microbial remains of some of the earliest life on Earth, UNSW scientists have found.

Scientist examining rocks

UNSW scientists have shown a group of Mars specialists the secrets of the remote Pilbara's ancient rocks - all in preparation for NASA's and ESA's Mars 2020 missions.

earlylifeonearth.jpg

The discovery of a piece of geyserite found in hot springs environment has changed our thinking our thinking about the origins of life on earth - and has implications for the search for life on Mars.

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