[Thursday, October 2, 2008] NASA has awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, to 10 research teams from across the country to study the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

[Monday, October 6, 2008] As major league baseball readies for the World Series, NASA's Cassini team will come to bat twice this month when the spacecraft flies by Saturn's geyser moon, Enceladus.

[Monday, October 6, 2008] COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity is actually a planet or a failed star.

[Tuesday, October 7, 2008] Local planetary geologist Chris Okubo is on a mission to understand the past roles of groundwater and faulting on Mars by studying similar locations on Earth. Okubo works in the Astrogeology Research Program for the USGS in Flagstaff.

[Wednesday, October 8, 2008] As fall approaches Mars' northern plains, NASA's Phoenix Lander continues to dig into the red planet's soil and deliver samples to its onboard science instruments for analysis.

[Thursday, October 9, 2008] The first ecosystem ever found having only a single biological species has been discovered 2.8 km beneath the surface of the earth in the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa.

[Friday, October 10, 2008] The images of Earth cover both visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum and can be split into spectra, in order to search for the signature of molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

[Monday, October 13, 2008] Astronomers searching for rocky planets that could support life in other solar systems should look outside, as well as within, the so-called "habitable zone," University of Arizona planetary scientists say.

[Monday, October 13, 2008] Supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sunlike stars show that planets nearly as small as Mars can create patterns that future telescopes may be able to detect. The research points to a new avenue in the search for habitable planets.

[Monday, October 13, 2008] The NASA Astrobiology Roadmap provides guidance for research and technology development across the NASA enterprises that encompass the space, Earth, and biological sciences.

[Monday, October 13, 2008] The latest version of NASAs Astrobiology Roadmap and exciting reports on new strategies for detecting biosignatures in Earth rocks highlight the diverse content of the August 2008 (Volume 8, Number 4) issue of Astrobiology.

[Thursday, October 16, 2008] Hot, young planets may be easier to spot because they stay that way longer than astronomers have thought, according to new work by MIT planetary scientist Linda Elkins-Tanton.

[Thursday, October 16, 2008] New research suggests that lightening and volcanoes may have sparked early life on Earth.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] Astronauts traveling to and living on the moon will run the risk of exposure to dangerous bursts of solar radiation, known as solar particle events.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] Researchers have unearthed crystalline magnetic fossils of a previously unknown species of microorganism that lived at the boundary of the Paleocene and Eocene epochs, some 55 million years ago.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] Physicists have developed a proceeding to analyse specific data sent by the Huygens probe from Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, proving "in an unequivocal way" that there is natural electric activity in its atmosphere.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] Researchers at Newcastle University have taken a step forward in our understanding of how the fundamental building blocks of life are put together.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] Sounding the Sun through a technique similar to seismology has opened a new era for understanding the Sun's interior. COROT has now applied this technique to three stars, directly probing the interiors of stars beyond the Sun for the first time.

[Thursday, October 23, 2008] A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out.

[Monday, October 27, 2008] Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system.

[Tuesday, October 28, 2008] Like Navajo weavers, scientists use whatever tints they want to create a finished product. Here, brilliant hues show light in the Martian atmosphere that is invisible to humans.

[Tuesday, October 28, 2008] A striking image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a mound within the area of a trough cutting into Mars' north polar layered deposits. The camera took this image on Sept. 2, 2008.

[Tuesday, October 28, 2008] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed.