Mars dust storm captured by ESA’s Mars Express near the north polar ice cap. Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (larger image) The current image of Mars as an arid and hostile desert

Cosmic dust analogue on a chip. The cocktail of chemicals was collected on a microchip. Photo: Fiona Wolf A Sydney PhD student has recreated a tiny piece of the Universe

Orgueil Carbonaceous Chondrite – Wikipedia The uneven detection of prebiotic organic compounds in meteorites—where amino acids and nucleobases are commonly identified but sugars remain rare and poorly characterized—limits our understanding

A schematic of the key processes included in our abiotic Earth model. Remotely observable quantities (surface temperature, albedo, and atmospheric H2O and CO2) are in bold. Volatile cycling is diagrammed