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A Whole-Earth Simulation Built To Help Find Life On Other Planets
[University of Washington] It’s a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have cataloged more than 6,000 planets beyond our solar system and are searching the atmospheres of the most promising worlds for chemicals that might be byproducts of life. Astrobiologists are particularly interested in atmospheres like Earth’s…
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NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,223 30 October 2026 (Space Life Science Research Results)
[NASA]. The abstract in PubMed or at the publisher’s site is linked when available and…
Communicating The Uncertainty Of Extraterrestrial Life: How The News Media Portrayed The Contested Phosphine Detection On Venus
[International Journal of Astrobiology]. The contested 2020 report of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere triggered one…
Windows of Nutrient Bioaccessibility: Phosphorus as a Key Constraint on the Chemical Potential for Life Beyond Earth
[Astrobiology (Journal) via PubMed] Phosphorus plays a central role in the chemistry of life 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,…
Keep readingExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Astrogeology
Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Deep-Learning Identification and Global Characterization of Energetic O2+ Beams at Mars
[physics.space-ph] Martian ionospheric ions can be accelerated away from Mars by the solar wind, contributing substantially to atmospheric ion escape. Here, we develop a U-Net-based image segmentation model to identify a distinct population of escaping planetary ions, energetic O2+ beams, from a decade of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) observations and perform an event-based…
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![Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 29 October 2026: Preparing For The Overland Traverse To Lake Untersee [UPDATE]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/29-October-2026b-copy.jpeg?fit=1200%2C582&ssl=1)
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 29 October 2026: Preparing For The Overland Traverse To Lake Untersee [UPDATE]
Update: note from Dale at 6:00 pm EDT / 22:00 UTC: “It has been pretty breezy all day with blowing snow. Nevertheless it’s been a…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 28 October 2026: Shoveling Snow In Antarctica
[Dale Andersen] : Hi Keith, A quick note while the base WiFi is up and running. We spent the last two days digging out the…
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 from Cape Town was scheduled for 10:00 am Local time…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Study Details One of Oldest Mars Meteorites Ever Found
[NASA]. When a rose-colored meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert in 2022, no one knew how old it was or where it came from.…
Solar System Surface Technosignatures: Searching for Signs of Artificial Design on Extraterrestrial Terrain
[astro-ph.IM] Artificial radio emissions have historically been a major focus of technosignature searches. Here, we apply an anthropological lens to expand this scope to surface…
Ancient Layers On Mars Exposed By A Crater Within A Crater In Terra Sirenum
[NASA] Terra Sirenum is a heavily cratered region of Mars’ ancient Southern Highlands. A blanket of dust, possibly cemented by ice, covers much of the…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Material Cycling Across Earth’s Spheres And Triggers Of Cambrian Explosion: A Tectonic Perspective
[Continent and Life Evolution]. Earth is the only known planet in the solar system that can sustain and provide a habitable environment for life, largely…
Metagenomics in Spaceflight: Establishing an Implementation Roadmap
[essopenarchive.org] As space agencies prepare for complex missions such as human exploration of Mars and life detection, Planetary Protection (PP) risk assessments would benefit from…
Send Your Name to Titan Aboard NASA’s Dragonfly Astrobiology Mission
[NASA]. You may never soar under the clouds or over the organic sands of Saturn’s moon Titan, but your name can. NASA is inviting the…