A nearby exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of a star just 4.2 light-years from Earth may be home to a vast ocean, boosting its chances of supporting life. Since its discovery, questions about the conditions at the surface of Proxima b have been swirling; the planet's mass is just about 1.3 times that of Earth's, and the red dwarf star it circles is similar in age to our sun.

A pair of researchers at the University of Kent has found that tardigrades are able to survive impacts at speeds of up to 825 meters per second. In their paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Alejandra Traspas and Mark Burchell describe experiments they conducted that involved firing canisters containing tardigrades at high speeds at sand targets.