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Opportunity to Contribute to NASA DARES Community White Paper on Phototrophic Biosignatures
[Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments RCN] Opportunity to contribute to the “White Paper on Phototrophic Biosignatures: Research Priorities for the Search for Life on Other Worlds”, developed as community input toward NASA-DARES. See more info below! This is a reminder there is still time for you to contribute to and/or endorse the Community White…
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NASA Establishes Mars Forward Operational Risk and Contamination Evaluation (M-FORCE) Tiger Team to Shape Mars Planetary Protection Protocols
[NASA OSMA]. NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA), in partnership with the Science…
Miraflores Butte On Mars
[NASA] NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about…
Ocean World Exploration: 2026 American Samoa ROV + Mapping Exploration
[NOAA]. Most of the 13,581-square-mile National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa lies far below the…
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,…
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Astrogeology
Astronomy & Telescopes
![NASA SMD ROSES-25 Amendment 68: New Opportunity: D.8 Habitable Worlds Observatory Precursor Science Investigations [UPDATE]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/HWO.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1)
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Why Some Planets Have Theory-defying Atmospheres
[Stanford University] Stanford researchers have offered a compelling explanation for why some sizzling, lava-covered worlds nestled tightly around their stars can keep hold of their atmospheres. At such close quarters, intense stellar radiation should strip away a planet’s air. Based on modeling of planetary atmospheres and interiors, a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal…
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NASA ExoExplorers Program: Call For ExoGuide Nominations
This ExoExplorers program, sponsored by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Office and the ExoPAG Executive Committee, will focus on the professional development of ~10 graduate student…
New UC Riverside Lab Focuses on Cutting Edge Astrobiology Tools
[UC Riverside] The Planetary Geochemistry and Astrobiology Laboratory is led by Assistant Professor Fabian Klenner, a new faculty member in UCR’s Department of Earth and…
MBARI Ocean World Expedition: Movement In The Deep
Editor’s note: When we start to mount Astrobiology missions to explore ocean worlds we’ll need ways for our robotic submersibles to observe and interact with…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Slow-electron-triggered Chemistry In Interstellar Methanol-water Ices
[Astronomy & Astrophysics] Water and, to a lesser extent, methanol are widespread in interstellar space as ices, where sustained exposure to ionizing radiation promotes the…
Nitrogen- And Nitrogen-oxygen-bearing Organic Molecules In Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: An Untargeted Investigation
[astro-ph.EP] Comets provide a unique window into the history of the Solar System as they carry some of the best-preserved material and make it available…
Pandora Mission Begins A Study Of Exoplanets And Their Host Stars
[NASA] Pandora, NASA’s newest exoplanet mission and the first satellite to launch through the agency’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, is now making unique observations of worlds…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Beyond Chlorophyll: Machine Learning Estimates Of Diagnostic Phytoplankton Pigments From Multispectral Ocean Colour Data
[q-bio.OT] Phytoplankton play a central role in marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle, with different groups contributing differently to ocean biogeochemical processes. While standard…
AstroBind: Machine Learning Prediction Of Binding Energy Distributions On Interstellar Water Ice From Geometric Surface Descriptors
[astro-ph.GA] Binding energies on amorphous solid water regulate molecular desorption in molecular clouds and protoplanetary disks, but computing them from first principles across the heterogeneous…
The First Major Transition: Origin Of Life From A Multilevel Selection Perspective
[q-bio.PE] As all MTE, the transition at the origin of life can be constructively addressed only within the conceptual framework of multilevel selection. The two…