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The First Selection Of Optimal Targets For The Lazuli ExtraSolar Coronagraph’s Reflected Starlight Exoplanet Campaign
[astro-ph.EP] Direct detection and characterization of exoplanet atmospheres via reflected starlight enables probes of composition of mature exoplanet systems (since flux is decoupled from age) at closer separations than via thermal emission (due to observations in visible wavelengths), and even probes of biosignatures. Candidate targets from Exoplanet Archive in maximum projected skyplane separation vs planet-star…
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Paleo-heat Flux Estimates Across Enceladus Derived From Flexural Response Of The Ice Shell
[astro-ph.EP] Saturn’s moon Enceladus has active plumes suggestive of locally high heat fluxes at present,…
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…
Complex Organic Molecules in Protostars with ALMA Spectral Surveys (COMPASS): I. Overview of the ALMA Large Program
[astro-ph.GA] It remains a fundamental research question in astrochemistry to characterize the inventory of complex…
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 readingExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
New Discovery Links Hemispheres In The Mystery Of Earth’s Past Ice Ages
[University of St. Andrews] New research from the University of St Andrews has uncovered a thus unknown process which may have helped drive the Earth in to past ice ages. Published today in Journal of Climate, the paper links ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere to changes in ocean circulation and sea ice in the…
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The Biogeography Of Hydrothermal Vent Giant Viruses Across Earth’s Global Ocean
[biorxiv.org] Viruses are the most abundant known biological entities in the ocean and play central role in microbial ecology. However, the patterns and drivers of…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 20 Oct 2026: Wheels Down In Cape Town
[Dale Andersen]: The 787 Dreamliner rolled to a stop far out on the apron, as the big jets often do here, and I climbed down…
Icy Ocean Planet Recon: Saildrone Research Fleet To Circle Antarctica For 5 Years
Editor’s note: As we plan to use robotic probes such as Saildrone to explore worlds in our solar system with oceans, missions that explore Earth’s…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Topographically Forced Stationary Waves Can Explain The Near-Surface Zonal Winds Observed By Huygens On Titan
[astro-ph.EP] Titan’s equatorial superrotation is associated with climatological retrograde (westward) near-surface winds at low latitudes, as consistently simulated by Titan general circulation models. However, the…
The Pandora SmallSat: Target Selection and Early Science
[astro-ph.IM]. The Pandora spacecraft is a smallsat selected in NASA’s inaugural class of Pioneers missions. The aim of the Pandora mission is to disentangle stellar…
Microbial Mats Influence The Isotopic Composition And Provenance of Soil Organic Matter In The McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
[Biogeosciences via ESS Open Archive] In the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), Antarctica, microbial mats are responsible for primary productivity in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems;…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
A Technical Reanalysis Of The Viking Carbon Assimilation-Pyrolytic Release Experiment
[astro-ph.IM]. Viking Lander: The 1976 Viking Carbon Assimilation-Pyrolytic Release (CAPyR) experiment tested whether carbon from 14CO2 and 14CO entered Martian soil during a 120-hour incubation…
Novel Antarctic Chemolithotroph Drives Iron Biomineralization
[Microbiome] Background: Iron, the most abundant redox-active metal in the Earth’s crust, is coupled to numerous biogeochemi- cal cycles. However, the mechanisms of iron oxidation…
Ice Drives The Emergence Of Functional Protocells
[biorxiv.org] A defining feature of living systems is the high local concentration of diverse molecular components within membrane-bounded compartments. How did such an organization arise…