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Relevance of the Avalon Assemblage as an Astrobiological Analog for Icy Ocean Worlds
[Astrobiology (Journal)] We discuss the astrobiological potential of Earth’s first animals––the nearly 600-million-year-old Avalon assemblage––and the relevance that these ancient communities may have for the search for life on icy or cold water worlds. The Avalon assemblage originated on deep, dark, salty, and cold seafloors with intriguing similarities to hypothesized icy ocean world habitats. These…
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The Climate and Potential Habitability of a Warm and Oxygenated Mars
[astro-ph.EP] We present the first 3-D Global Climate Model simulations of an oxygen-rich, terraformed Mars.…
Variable X-ray flux May Explain Variable Helium Escape From The Habitable-zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b
[astro-ph.EP] A central goal in exoplanet science is to understand the conditions under which potentially…
Spacetime Contactability in Galactic Civilization Networks: Contact Counts and Percolation
[astro-ph.IM] The number of Galactic civilizations does not determine whether they are in contact. Allowing…
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
Habitable Zones
Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
The Limits of Tidal Circularization and Atmospheric Escape for Mini-Neptunes and Super-Earths: The Case of TOI-2257 b
[Planetary Science Journal ] With a 35 day orbital period and ∼0.5 eccentricity, TOI-2257 b occupies a sparsely populated corner of transiting mini-Neptune parameter space and may lie near the orbital distance at which tidal and atmospheric escape processes become negligible. To test this hypothesis, we performed simulations of the combined stellar, tidal, and atmospheric…
Read moreExploration Gear & Tech
Mars Seed: A Reference Architecture for Biomanufacturing Habitats from Martian Resources
[astro-ph.IM] Human exploration of Mars will require enormous quantities of materials for the first crewed missions and substantially more for permanent habitation, making flexible and…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 10 November 2026: Weather Update Forecast
Dale Andersen: “the winds began to pick up earlier today, and we now have 30 mph winds, using 42 mph (max gust so far has…
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 7 November 2026: Building Up Our Research Base Infrastructure
Update from Dale Andersen: “We are settling in at Lake Untersee now, getting the camp set up. Safety is our number one priority and we…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 9 November 2026: Lake Untersee Basecamp Update
[Dale Andersen]. Keith, The last few days we have worked hard to get our camp set up. We are almost there, with everything but the…
TitanMPAS – A New Global and Regional Titan Atmospheric Circulation Model. Part I: Global Model Results
[astro-ph.EP] We developed TitanMPAS, a new Titan global and regional climate model, to simulate atmospheric dynamics and methane cycles. It integrates the non-hydrostatic MPAS dynamical…
Suppression of Water-ice UV Photodesorption On Cosmic Dust Analogs
[astro-ph.IM] Ultraviolet (UV) photodesorption regulates the partitioning of water between interstellar ice mantles and the gas phase, yet laboratory yields are generally measured on planar…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Earth as a Potential Source of Life for Europa’s Subsurface Ocean
[International Journal of Astrobiology] The paper discusses the possibility of dust particles containing living bacteria ejected from Earth reaching Europa and landing on its surface.…
The Kinetic Basis of the Genetic Code
[q-bio.OT] The origin of the genetic code is an enigma, requiring explanations for the emergence of degeneracy, the organizational structure of the code, and the…
Power Density as a Universal Biosignature: An Application to the Stellivore Hypothesis
[physics.gen-ph] Power density is a central measure underlying a common thread in cosmic evolution. It measures the rate at which free energy transits in a…