Top Story
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 5 November 2026: Traverse to Lake Untersee
Keith’s note: after a routine traverse along the standard route from Ultima Airbase, Dale Andersen and his team arrived at their base camp location at Lake Untersee, Antarctica. Dale sent me a note via satellite saying “Arrived at Untersee after a 5 1/2 hr traverse earlier today. It will take a few days to get…
Latest
Blown Sand On Mars Can Spread Microbial Spores From Earth
[Astrobiology (Journal), via PubMed] We present experiments demonstrating that B. subtilis HA101 endospores (henceforth spores)…
Can A Self-sustaining Chemical Network Emerge Due To Just A Few Catalysts?
[q-bio.MN] Understanding how self-sustaining chemical reaction networks can emerge from simple molecules is an important…
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter Detects Hints Of Volcanic Activity On Mars
[ESA] New evidence from gas seeping above volcanic rifts suggests Mars is not geologically dead…
Earth As A Potential Source Of Llife For Europa’s Subsurface Ocean
The paper discusses the possibility of dust particles containing living bacteria ejected from Earth reaching Europa and landing on its surface. It is shown that, taking certain factors into account, over a period of 30 − 80 Myr (the estimated age of Europa’s ocean), Jupiter’s moon would have been impacted…
Keep readingDust To Dust: Prospects For Passive Technosignatures As Relics Of ETI
Technological societies are separated in time, not just space — that is the lesson of the Drake equation. Might the best way to seek them be to find technosignatures that persist long after their creators? I present work I and my collaborators have done on the idea of passive technosignatures,…
Keep readingAstrogeology
Habitable Zones
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Distinguishing N2-Dominated from O2-Dominated Atmospheres on Terrestrial Exoplanets with Reflected-Light Spectroscopy
[astro-ph.EP] Reflected-light spectra of Earth-sized exoplanets promise to probe habitability and biosignatures, but interpreting atmospheric oxygen can be challenging because O2 can arise from both biological and abiotic processes. In addition, reflected-light retrievals exhibit degeneracies among atmospheric composition, clouds, surface reflectance, and gravity. We use the Bayesian retrieval framework ExoReLℜ, leveraging recent model developments that…
Read moreExploration Gear & Tech
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 29 October 2026: Preparing For The Overland Traverse To Lake Untersee [UPDATE]
Update: note from Dale at 6:00 pm EDT / 22:00 UTC: “It has been pretty breezy all day with blowing snow. Nevertheless it’s been a…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 28 October 2026: Shoveling Snow In Antarctica
[Dale Andersen] : Hi Keith, A quick note while the base WiFi is up and running. We spent the last two days digging out the…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 26 October 2026: Flying South
Keith’s note: This report may be updated over the course of the day. Dale’s departure from Cape Town was scheduled for 10:00 am Local time…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Up In Smoke: Carbon-destruction In The Terrestrial Planet-forming Region Of A Young Class I Disk
[astro-ph.SR] Earth’s surface and deep mantle are strongly depleted in carbon compared to the Sun. Sublimation of solid carbonaceous material in the inner midplanes of…
Does Topology-Dependent Chemistry Influence the Interstellar PAH Inventory? Insights from the Absence of Cyanotriphenylenes
[astro-ph.GA]. Although a set of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has recently been identified in the cold dark cloud TMC-1, several common PAH motifs remain absent,…
Windows of Nutrient Bioaccessibility: Phosphorus as a Key Constraint on the Chemical Potential for Life Beyond Earth
[Astrobiology (Journal) via PubMed] Phosphorus plays a central role in the chemistry of life as known on Earth, yet its availability depends on environmental conditions…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
A Mitochondrion-like Ribosome In An Insect Endosymbiont
[biorxiv.org] Understanding how the mitochondrion evolved from a bacterial endosymbiont to an organelle is obscured by time and a lack of comparative examples. It is…
A Type Of Arctic Ocean Bacteria May Be Using Acetone To Turn Carbon Into Food
[Concordia University] A newly identified Arctic Ocean bacterium may have an unusual way of making the building blocks it needs to grow. Using acetone, a…
Hidden In Plain Sight In Ryugu And Meteorites
[Kanazawa University] Asteroid Ryugu and some carbonaceous meteorites, which are thought to have similar origins in the early Solar System, are known as chemically “primitive”…
