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Underwater Oxygen Loss Threatens Earth’s Stability, Researchers Warn
[UCSD] A new review paper led by scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography warns that the rapid loss of oxygen from the ocean and other aquatic ecosystems is pushing Earth toward an “unsafe space,” with consequences that could be irreversible on human timescales. The study reviews the widespread interactions between aquatic deoxygenation…
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Fire And Ice: Were Yellowstone’s Past Volcanic Eruptions And Glaciations Related?
[USGS/Yellowstone Volcano Observatory] Yellowstone is a land of fire and ice. Not only does it…
Substrate-Agnostic 3x: Biosignatures, Technosignatures, Ecologies
[physics.gen-ph] Substrate-agnostic perspectives are currently attracting increased attention. For example, it has become customary to…
Planet-moon Ejections In Close Stellar Encounters
[astro-ph.EP] Free-floating planet-moon pairs (FFPMs) may form when planetary systems experience close stellar encounters. We…
Molecule-dependent Abundance Behavior of Oxygen-bearing Complex Organics in High-Mass Star-Forming Regions: A Uniform 50-source Survey
[astro-ph.GA] We present a uniform IRAM-30m survey analysis of four oxygen-bearing complex organic molecules (COMs),…
ALMA Central Molecular Zone Exploration Survey (ACES) I: Overview
[astro-ph.GA] The mass flows and energy cycles within the inner regions of galaxies exert a…
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
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
First Study Hints Solar Storms May Alter The Weather During Martian Dust Storms
[Royal Astronomical Society] Solar storms may affect weather on Mars when they strike at the same time as major Martian dust storms, a new study has suggested for the first time. Researchers found evidence of rising temperatures in the Red Planet’s lower atmosphere when the two events coincided with each other – hinting that Mars…
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NASA SMD ROSES-25 Amendment 65: New Opportunity: C.4 Planetary Science Enabling Facilities
C.4 The Planetary Science Enabling Facilities (PSEF) program element solicits proposals for experimental and analytical research facilities to be made available to the community that does…
Mineral Biosignature Identification From Raman Spectroscopy Using Machine Learning
[PNAS] Biosignature detection remains a key challenge in astrobiology, yet robust mineral biosignatures remain limited. Raman spectroscopy is increasingly applied in planetary exploration, but its…
Tricorder Tech: Ground Truth For The DAVINCI Venus Mission
Checking the mineral composition of some weathered rocks with the ASD TerraSpec Halo Mineral Identifier which serves as a tricorder in this activity. These samples…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Mars Curiosity Rover Finds Evidence Of An Ancient Sandstorm
[NASA] Billions of years ago, an hours-long Martian sandstorm blew so intensely that sand ripples began to climb upon one another as they moved across…
NASA Study Finds Near-Earth Asteroid Is Actually Comet
[NASA] The object looks like an asteroid but moves like a comet, so astronomers used some of the most powerful observatories on the planet to…
Atmospheric Evolution Through Outgassing And Escape On Young Molten Rocky Exoplanets
[astro-ph.EP] The earliest rocky planet atmospheres are shaped by competition between initial volatile inventories and atmospheric escape. On young magma ocean planets, outgassing competes with…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
RNA And Proteins Joined Up At The Origins Of Life: Persistence Is The Point
[biorxiv.org] What drove nucleic acids (NA) to associate with proteins (PR) at the Origins of Life? We reason from polymer physics and the Central Dogma…
Non-equilibrium Preparation Of (E)-phosphinimine (HPNH, X1A′) – A Precursor To Prebiotic Phosphorylating Agents
[Chemical Science] Phosphorus–nitrogen compounds play crucial roles as intermediates in aza-Wittig reactions and serve as key precursors to prebiotic phosphorylating agents such as amidophosphonates linked…
Projections of Earth’s Technosphere: Civilization Collapse-Recovery Dynamics and Detectability
[physics.soc-ph] How long a technological civilization remains active, and what determines whether it collapses or persists, is a central question for both projecting humanity’s future…