"The fact that terrestrial microbes are the Earth's best colonizers means we can never completely discount terrestrial ...

A recent discovery made by scientists working with a sample of rock from outer space highlights one of the huge challenges ...

Scientists have found microorganisms crawling over a sample retrieved from the 200 million-mile-distant asteroid Ryugu. But ...

Last year, a study reported the discovery of organic molecules on asteroid Ryugu, sparking discussions about the origins of life and the possibility of panspermia — the idea that life could be seeded ...

Imagine that, for billions of years, you're a grain of material unbothered on asteroid Ryugu. All of a sudden, a spacecraft ...

HOPES of finding traces of alien life in the universe have been scuppered yet again. And this time on asteroid Ryugu, a space ...

Samples taken from the space-returned piece of asteroid Ryugu were collected and prepared under strict anti-contamination ...

Discovery published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science highlights challenge of contamination in space exploration ...

A Ryugu asteroid sample has been found contaminated by terrestrial microbes, raising questions about planetary protection.

The salt crystals, consisting of rock salt, sodium carbonate, and sodium sulfate, are crucial for understanding the evolution ...

Panspermia is the hypothesis that life can survive the transfer between planetary bodies as a secondary path for life to get ...

A chunk of rock collected from the asteroid Ryugu contains bacteria—but, unfortunately, it's not evidence of alien life.