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Ocean Planet Expeditions: Alvin Submersible Certified To Return To Service
Editor’s note: Submersibles and oceanic exploration have a long history of intersection and collaboration. NASA Astronaut Loral O’Hara was a research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution working with deep-ocean scientific research submersibles and robots prior to joining NASA. Astronaut Kathy Sullivan completed a dive aboard Alvin to 8,500 feet in 1996. Sullivan later became…
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Martian Dust Storms May Ggenerate Atmospheric Electrical Conditions That Could Impact Mars Missions
[UAH] A new study by a doctoral researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville…
Discovery Of An Exterior Third Planet Orbiting β Pictoris
[astro-ph.EP] We report the discovery of β Pictoris d (β Pic d), a third giant…
C,N,O,S, And Photochemistry In A Temperate Giant Planet Orbiting A Late M Dwarf
[astro-ph.EP] We report the JWST NIRSpec/PRISM transit spectrum of TOI-6894b, an exceptional 420 K sub-Saturn…
Coupled AtmospHere Interior modeL Intercomparison (CHILI). I. Evolutionary Modelling — Primordial Magma Oceans of Earth and Venus
[astro-ph.EP] Earth and Venus represent two evolutionary outcomes arising from initially molten ‘magma ocean’ periods,…
Ultra-Precise Astrometric Search For Exoplanets With SKA-VLBI
[astro-ph.EP] The study of exoplanets is a rapidly developing field, driven by the discoveries of…
Astrochemical Study of Early Embedded Discs
[astro-ph.SR] The question of how our planet was formed and, more generally, how a planetary…
Theoretical and Experimental IR Spectra of Astronomical PAHs and PANHs in the 2000–1650 cm–1 Range (∼5–6 μm)
[ACS Earth and Space Chemistry] Recent James Webb Space Telescope observations reveal unprecedented details in…
Theoretical Determination Of The Binding Energies Of Methanol And Related Species Onto Amorphous Solid Water Ice
[astro-ph.GA] The formation and survival of complex organic molecules (COMs) in cold interstellar environments depends…
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
Orbital Biosignature Assay: Summer Algal Bloom Spreads Across The Baltic Sea
[European Union] During the summer months, large algal blooms occur frequently in the Baltic Sea. Often driven by warmer temperatures, abundant sunlight, and nutrient-rich waters, these blooms can reduce water quality and affect marine life. In late June 2026, a new algal bloom was observed across parts of the Baltic Sea. This image, acquired by…
Read moreExploration Gear & Tech
Ocean Planet Exploration: New University of Rhode Island Ocean Robotics Laboratory
[URI] The University of Rhode Island celebrated a major milestone in the $300 million, multi-phase revitalization of the Narragansett Bay Campus with a ribbon cutting…
Perseverance Astrobiology Droid Has Completed A Martian Marathon
[NASA] On June 14, 2026, Mars Perseverance rover completed a Martian “marathon” by surpassing 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) of travel. The day before, NASA’s Mars…
Tricorder Tech: ESA CAVES 2026 Cavenauts Use An Electronic FieldBook
Astronauts Tracy Dyson (NASA), Rosemary Coogan (ESA) and Ayu Yoneda (JAXA) measuring water parameters and recording them in the Electronic FieldBook during ESA CAVES2026 course.…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Mars Perseverance Image of the Week for Week 280 (June 21 – 27, 2026)
[NASA] This photo was selected by public vote and featured as “Image of the Week” for Week 280 (June 21 – 27, 2026) of the…
Nautilus Space Observatory: The Evolution of Planets and their Atmospheres
[astro-ph.IM] We are just beginning to explore the billion-year evolution from nascent planets in disks to mature planetary systems. Recent discoveries hint at demographic and…
Fifty Years after Viking: The Promise of Solar System Microbiology and Microbial Ecology
[Astrobiology via PubMed] The ambiguity of the Viking lander life-detection experiments left microbiology and microbial ecology out of space missions for 50 years. However, this…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
The Impact of the Viking Entry, Descent, and Landing Legacy on Future Mars ExplorationAstrobiology
[Astrobiology] This article outlines engineering challenges that were involved in the design innovations required to successfully deliver not one but two landers for Viking. The…
Unraveling The Building Blocks Of Earth’s Pigments
[Ohio State] Although they are some of the most widespread substances on Earth, not much is known about eumelanin, or natural organic matter (NOM) —…
The Biological Cosmological Constant ΛB: Exploratory Propensity, Dynamical Habitability And The Geometric Origin Of Life
[BioSystems via PubMed] The emergence of life represents a fundamental geometric phase transition in the state space of complex systems, rather than a mere sequence…