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High-CO2 Climates And Observables In The Outer Habitable Zone
[astro-ph.EP] The habitable zone (HZ) is a fundamental concept used to guide our search for temperate exoplanets with stable surface liquid water that would sustain remotely detectable biosignatures. So far, most advanced 3D climate studies and prospective spectral simulations of HZ planets have focused on inner HZ planets that receive stellar radiation similar to Earth…
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Thermally Irreversible Sulfur Chemisorption On Silicate Grains As A Major Sulfur Reservoir In Molecular Clouds
[astro-ph.GA] Sulfur (S) chemistry in the interstellar medium remains poorly constrained due to the longstanding…
Planetary Eccentricity Enhances Inward Comet Transport But Suppresses Gentle Impacts
[astro-ph.EP] Comets can supply volatile and prebiotic material to rocky planets, but survival of fragile…
Detecting Extragalactic Exoplanets With Fast Radio Burst Nanolensing
[astro-ph.EP] Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are spatially and temporally compact sources at cosmological distances. As…
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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Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Homogeneous Nucleation of Water Vapor Evidenced by Elongated Clouds on Mars
[astro-ph.EP] It is widely accepted that water vapor forms clouds by heterogeneous nucleation (condensation on pre-existing dry nuclei). Homogeneous nucleation (directly from water vapor, without a pre-existing nuclei) is theoretically possible, but it requires high levels of supersaturation and so it is not considered a viable cloud formation process under real atmospheric conditions. Here, we…
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NASA Scientists Search For Clues About Mars’ Past In Scotland
[NASA] This summer, NASA scientists headed to the Scottish Highlands to follow up on last year’s announcement of potential biosignatures on Mars and prepare for…
Offworld Expedition Training: Astronauts Explore An Ancient Earth Volcano
[ESA]. From its rim, remnants of recent eruptions lie open for this crew of astronauts learning geology for planetary exploration. Participants of PANGAEA’s 10th edition…
Looking Inside Living Antarctic Cells For The First Time
[British Antarctic Survey] Cambridge engineers have built the first microscope to see inside living cells in sub-zero conditions, revealing secrets of Antarctic fish survival. Editor’s…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Precise C-N-O Abundances of Individual Galaxies In The First Billion Years From Ultra-Deep, Rest-UV-to-Optical JWST Spectroscopy
[astro-ph.GA] We present ultra-deep JWST/NIRSpec 𝑅 ∼ 1000 spectroscopy of nine star-forming galaxies at 𝑧 = 6.0 − 8.3 in the GOODSN field, drawn from…
Secondary Ion-Ice Chemistry in UV-Irradiated Oxygen Ice: New Astrochemical Models Including Bulk Ionic Species
[ACS Earth Space Chemistry] Although energetic and nonenergetic processing of interstellar dust grain surfaces and ice is thought to be one of the dominant mechanisms…
Following Ancient Rain Toward The Origins Of Life On Mars
[Tohoku University] The Mars we know today is a cold, dry world of dust and rocks. However, around 3.8-3.6 billion years ago, it may have…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Pathways Of Early Evolution From The Perspectives Of A Riboreplisome — The Ultimate RNA Machine Of Life
[q-bio.PE] Translation of the genetic code into proteins is universal across life, with ribosomes serving as the ancient molecular machines enabling this information transformation. We…
Life On Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Would Be Possible
[University of Regensburg] From a human perspective, Enceladus is anything but a comfortable place to live: Icy cold, hardly any oxygen, and – below its…
The IAC Presents The SELF Telescope In Italy, A Prototype To Advance The Search For Life On Exoplanets
[IAC] The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has presented the progress made on the SELF (Small ExoLife Finder) telescope at the international Charting the…