From microscopes to telescopes

Asteroids, mainly found in the region between Mars and Jupiter, are remnants of the early Solar System. Formed from primitive dust and organic matter within the protoplanetary disk, they are considered to be a record of the processes that led to the formation of terrestrial planets like Earth.
Meteorites, fragments of these asteroids that have fallen to Earth, contain a rich inventory of organic molecules that may have played a role in the emergence of life. By studying the composition of these organics and their interactions with minerals, we aim to have a better understanding about their origin, transformation, and their possible role in the chemical processes that helped life arise on early Earth.

Circadian clocks — the internal timers that tell us when to wake up, sleep, and eat — are well known in humans and plants. But what happens when an organism lives only 30 minutes? Does it care about a day time? In our lab, we study circadian clocks in Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium, and we've found that it follows a 24-hour rhythm even when we strip away every external time cue: no light, no temperature swings, nothing. The rhythm just... keeps going. What we're finding suggests that even single-celled organisms may have a strong sense of day time — and that biological timekeeping goes deeper in the tree of life than anyone thought.