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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 ancient bedrock in these Martian middle latitudes, but impacts can expose buried materials in the resulting steep crater walls. Here, a roughly 2-kilometer diameter crater reveals light-toned layered material on…
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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…
Reconciling Giant Impacts with the Radius Valley: The Role of Silicate-Hydrogen Miscibility for Sub-Neptunes
[astro-ph.EP] Giant impacts are believed to play a major role in the assembly, long-term orbital…
Comprehensive Visible and Near-infrared Keck and Gemini Monitoring and Characterization of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS during its Encounter with the Solar System
[astro-ph.EP] We present 14 optical imaging and eight optical spectroscopic epochs of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS…
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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Habitable Zones
Astronomy & Telescopes
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Well-Preserved Polygons In Elysium Planitia on Mars
[NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona]. Polygons are interesting features on Mars, though sometimes only visible in high resolution images like those taken by HiRISE. They often form due to the contraction and expansion of ice under the surface. These polygons, in Elysium Planitia and to the east of Apollinaris Patera, are unusually well-preserved, so we can take a more…
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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
Advancing Methane Detection Technology For Future Mars Missions
[Canadian Space Agency]. The presence of methane on Mars could provide important clues about the red planet’s past and present, including whether it may once…
Single-Molecule Studies Reveal That Water Starts to Protect Proteins Even At The ppm Level
[ACS Nano] A consensus established by extensive thermodynamic and structural studies of proteins and DNA is that water acts as an indispensable structural cofactor rather…
Tailoring Infra-Red Filters for Global Mapping of Enceladus’ Thermal Environment
[astro-ph.IM]. We present the results of an initial study into the feasibility and design of the Enceladus Thermal Mapper (ETM) instrument, designed to provide detailed…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Prebiotic Synthesis of L-Homochiral Peptides on Primordial Earth
Astrobiology (Journal) The origin of biological homochirality remains a central enigma in astrobiology. The emergence of a homochiral world necessitates two key processes: initial symmetry…
Preparing To Drill At ‘Nazca’ On Mars
[NASA]. Curiosity Blog, Sols 5043-5049: Preparing to Drill at ‘Nazca’ Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 16, 2026 Following the Basque Lakes drill campaign, Curiosity has…
Estimates For The Prebiotic Reaction Volume Necessary For The Origin Of Life
[Life] The prebiotic chemistry necessary for the development of life requires a low-probability combination of steps to reach the complexity of a living cell. An…