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Dirk Schulze-Makuch

he received the Friedrich-Wilhelm Bessel Award from the Humboldt Foundation for extraordinary achievements in theoretical biology. Since 2013 he is a faculty member at the Technical University Berlin in Germany and holds a professorship for planetary habitability and astrobiology, leading the Astrobiology Research Group. He still is Adjunct Professor at Washington State University and also an Associate Member of SETI. Dirk published more than 200 papers and eight books in the field of planetary habitability and astrobiology, including the 3rd edition of Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints and The Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds, first published in 2017. Since 2016, Dirk is President of the German Astrobiological Society and Council Member of the European Astrobiology Network. He gave interviews in scientific television documentaries such as National Geographic and Discovery Channel (USA), NHK-TV (Japan), ARD and RTL (Germany), and reports about his research appeared in media and news outlets such as Science, Popular Science, Discovery Magazine, New Scientist, World Science, Natural History Magazine, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. More information can be found on his website.

Satellite image of salt deposits on Mars

“Follow the Salt”: A New Strategy for Finding Life on Mars

Scientists might be looking for Martian life in the wrong place.
A map of the moon

Finding Caves on the Moon Is Great. On Mars? Even Better.

The recent discovery of a large cave on the Moon highlights the importance of caves not just for future space explorers but astrobiology as well.

The Hunt for Life in Alpha Centauri

This oddball system of three stars might be our best chance at finding nearby life in the Universe.
The view south from Viking 2, one of two probes sent to investigate the surface of the planet Mars for the first time, September 6, 1976

We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago

In one experiment, the Viking landers added water to Martian soil samples. That might have been a very bad idea.