[Friday, February 8, 2008] NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft is aiming its largest telescope at five stars in a search for alien (exosolar) planets as it enters its extended mission, called EPOXI.

[Friday, February 8, 2008] Using the genetic equivalent of an ancient thermometer, a team of scientists has determined that the Earth endured a massive cooling period between 500 million and 3.5 billion years ago.

[Friday, February 8, 2008] A recent survey by a team of Japanese astronomers may have found an Earth-like planet hidden in the dust around a nearby star.

[Friday, February 8, 2008] Scientists on the Cassini mission have become out-of-this world "plumbers" as they try to piece together what's happening inside the "pipes" feeding the plumes of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

[Saturday, February 9, 2008] " The scientific committee is very excited about the developments so far leading up to the meeting, which is titled "Life in Space for Life on Earth". Here are a few things you should know right away."

[Monday, February 11, 2008] Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

[Wednesday, February 13, 2008] European scientists have developed the most accurate method yet for predicting the doses of radiation that astronauts will receive aboard the orbiting European laboratory module, Columbus, attached to the ISS this week.

[Wednesday, February 13, 2008] Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

[Thursday, February 14, 2008] A team of international astronomers reports in the Feb. 15 issue of Science the discovery of a solar system nearly 5,000 light years away with scaled-down versions of Jupiter and Saturn.

[Friday, February 15, 2008] Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving.

[Sunday, February 17, 2008] Astronomers have discovered that terrestrial planets might form around many, if not most, of the nearby sun-like stars in our galaxy. These new results suggest that worlds with potential for life might be more common than we thought.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Scientists have discovered Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) living and feeding down to depths of 3000 metres in the waters around the Antarctic Peninsula. Until now this shrimp-like crustacean was thought to live only in the upper ocean.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Biology arose as a spontaneous development from the chemistry of the early Earth by Free Energy-driven processes that occurred in common environments involving significant populations of systems

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Recently, Supernova 2006gy was noted as the most luminous ever recorded, with a total radiated energy of 1044 Joules.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] The scenario of lithopanspermia describes the viable transport of microorganisms via meteorites.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Acetylene occurs, by photolysis of methane, in the atmospheres of jovian planets and Titan. In contrast, acetylene is only a trace component of Earth's current atmosphere.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] We present results from an initial survey of the 212-111 transition of formaldehyde (H2CO) at 140.8 GHz in giant molecular clouds in the far outer Galaxy (RG >= 16 kpc).

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Studies on the colonization of environmentally extreme ground surfaces were conducted in a Mars-like desert area of Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China, with microalgae and cyanobacteria.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] The fossil record of the subsurface biosphere is sparse. Results obtained on subsurface filamentous fabrics (SFF) from >225 paleosubsurface sites in volcanics, oxidized ores, and paleokarst of subrecent to Proterozoic age are presented.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] We have investigated how morphological biosignatures (i.e., features related to life) might be identified with an array of viable instruments within the framework of robotic planetary surface operations at Mars.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Chemolithotrophic communities that colonize subsurface habitats have great relevance for the astrobiological exploration of our Solar System.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Structurally complex life and intelligence evolved late on Earth; models for the evolution of global temperature suggest that the future life span of the biosphere will be "only" about another billion years.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] Apparent cyanobacterial emergence at about 2.8 Gya coincides with the negative excursion in the organic carbon isotope record, which is the first strong evidence for the presence of atmospheric methane.

[Monday, February 25, 2008] In the event that an asteroid or comet would impact Earth and send rock fragments containing embedded microorganisms into space, at least some of those organisms might survive and reseed on Earth or another planetary surface able to support life.

[Tuesday, February 26, 2008] The hot nature of our planet's earliest days seems to be reflected in the tree of life - the most ancient branches are thermophiles, microbes that thrive in temperatures of 50 degrees C (122 F) or warmer.

[Tuesday, February 26, 2008] Modelling of the Earth's atmosphere has acquired economic importance due to its use in the prediction of ozone depletion and in measuring the impact of global warming.