Latest Erg Stories

ESA -- On January 14, ESA's Huygens probe made an historic first ever descent to the surface of Titan, 1.2 billion kilometers from Earth and the largest of Saturn's moons. Huygens traveled to Titan as part of the joint ESA/NASA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission. Starting at about 150 kilometres altitude, six multi-function instruments on board Huygens recorded data during the descent and on the surface. The first scientific assessments of Huygens' data were presented during a press conference at...

Billions of dollars are pumped into extraterrestrial exploration each year in the search for the ultimate prize - the discovery of life on other planets. But are we looking in all the right places? Prof Steven A Benner, who is working with NASA on the design of the next generation of Mars probes, believes that life could flourish without any need for water. In the December issue of Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, he and his colleagues at the University of Florida describe how organisms...