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Zhurong Mars Rover Observations Primary Evaporite In Southern Utopia Planitia
[Nature] The Zhurong rover has identified a layer consisting of platy rocks enriched in hydrous minerals on a ~0.76-Ga surface in southern Utopia Planitia, indicating unexpected recent aqueous activity on Mars. The exact type of these hydrous minerals has remained uncertain, inhibiting our understanding of the aqueous processes and potential habitability on recent Mars. Here…
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ESCAPADE Departure Angle View Of Earth And Luna
[NASA]. On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and…
ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover Recon: Geological History Of Oxia Planum
This crater contains exposures in the rim that can corroborate prevailing hypotheses for Oxia Planum’s…
Planetary Stability and Long-Term Habitability in Nearby Stellar Binaries: 70 Oph, 36 Oph, γ Leo
[astro-ph.EP] Binary stars are common and have the potential to host habitable planets, which may…
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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Habitable Zones
Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Cracks In A Martian Crater’s Ice
[NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA] Many impact craters on Mars were filled with ice in past climates. Sometimes this ice flows or slumps down the crater walls into the center and acquires concentric wrinkles as a result. This image shows an example of this. There are other ways that scientists know the material in the crater is icy. Surface…
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Offworld Astrogeology Training In Iceland
Iceland’s diverse volcanic terrain is an excellent stand-in for lunar and planetary processes and provides an ideal environment in which to simulate surface science operations.…
Planetary Recon: Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
[NASA] This proposal explores a new class of reconnaissance spacecraft that map minerals from orbit using Raman spectroscopy during high-speed flybys–without landing, sample return, or…
Preparing ExoMars For Rosalind Franklin Astrobiology Rover Delivery
[ESA] The footage shows the simultaneous deployment of two landing legs from the ExoMars landing platform, in two sequential pairs. The legs travel stowed on…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Infrared-to-visible Albedo Ratio Of Phobos: Comparison With Primitive Asteroids
[astro-ph.EP] Aims. The ratio between infrared and visible albedo, pIR/pV, provides a simple proxy for the spectral slope of asteroid surfaces between the visible and…
The Sensitivity Of TESS To Transiting Planets In TOIs With Close-in Stellar Companions
[astro-ph.EP] High resolution imaging with optical speckle interferometry has revealed that many transiting exoplanet host stars possess close-in stellar companions. The objective of this study…
Strict Limits On Helium Absorption From LHS 1140 b From Four JWST NIRISS Transits
[astro-ph.EP] Orbiting in the habitable zone of its host star, the 1.7 R⊕, 5.6 M⊕ planet LHS 1140 b is a target of great interest.…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Concurrent Phosphite Oxidation And Adenosine Phosphorylation Under Prebiotic Evaporative Conditions
[Journal of Molecular Evolution] Here, we investigate the concurrent oxidation of phosphite and phosphorylation/phosphonylation of adenosine under prebiotically plausible conditions. Using aqueous reaction systems containing…
Chondrule Formation In The Outer Disk From The Primary Three-dimensional Chemical Composition Of CM Chondrules
[astro-ph.EP] Chondrules and their associated fine-grained rims record key processes in the early protoplanetary disk, yet the links between chondrule chemistry, morphology, and matrix complementarity…
NASA ROSES-25 Amendment 69: New Opportunity: D.9 Habitable Worlds Observatory Instrument Concept Assessments
[NASA] Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) Instrument Concept Assessments (HWO-ICA) program element D.9 of ROSES-25, solicits proposals to support maturation of the HWO mission concept. The…