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Atmospheric Evolution Through Outgassing And Escape On Young Molten Rocky Exoplanets
[astro-ph.EP] The earliest rocky planet atmospheres are shaped by competition between initial volatile inventories and atmospheric escape. On young magma ocean planets, outgassing competes with atmospheric escape, controlling volatile retention and atmospheric evolution. We investigate how atmospheric escape and replenishment via outgassing during magma ocean crystallization shape rocky planet atmospheres. We extend a coupled interior-atmosphere…
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The Exozodi Spectral Effect: Residual Habitable Zone Dust May Bias ExoEarth Characterization
[astro-ph.EP] All exoplanetary systems are expected to host exozodiacal dust, or exozodi, originating from planetesimals.…
The Majority Of Hot Jupiters Formed Beyond The Water Ice Line
[astro-ph.EP] Atmospheric compositions of giant exoplanets can retain information about their formation environments, as volatile…
Sulfur Photochemistry Observationally Traces Mantle Redox States Of Rocky Planets
[astro-ph.EP] Volatile outgassing from planetary interiors controls the composition of rocky exoplanets’ secondary atmospheres. However,…
Detected: Rocky, Habitable-zone Exoplanet With An Atmosphere
[Carnegie Science] A team of scientists led by Harvard University’s Collin Cherubim and including Shreyas…
Experimental Astrochemistry And Machine Learning Unravel The Formation Of Oxygen-bearing Organic Molecules In Extraterrestrial Ices
[Nature Communications Chemistry] Oxygen-bearing organic molecules, including aldehydes, alcohols, and peroxides, serve as key precursors…
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
When Stabilizing Feedbacks Wreak Havoc In Habitable Planets: Chaos At The Freezing Point In A Four-Feedback Climate Model
[astro-ph.EP] The long-term habitability of Earth-like planets is governed by the balance of positive and negative climate feedbacks that regulate surface temperature and atmospheric composition. While some feedbacks, such as ice-albedo and silicate weathering, are thought to operate on many terrestrial planets, the number and strength of additional climate feedbacks may vary substantially from world…
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Differential Efficiency Of Sampling Devices In The Measurement Of Microbial Diversity Of Yellowstone National Park Hot Springs
[biorxiv.org] Metagenomic characterization of low-biomass Yellowstone National Park (YNP) hot spring waters remains challenging because microbial recovery is influenced by filtration methodology, sample preservation, DNA…
Offworld Away Team Training: Cave Surveys
A phase of cave surveying in which JAXA astronaut Ayu Yoneda photographs cross-sections of the cave using the Electronic FieldBook, with the assistance of ESA…
Could Lake Joyce Have Acted As A Long-lived Proglacial Refugium In Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys?
[Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research] Lake Joyce of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), Antarctica, contains an endemic copepod population (Diacyclops joycei) that has not been…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Exoplanet Beta Pictoris d Found After More Than 10 Years Of Searching
[ESO] A team of astronomers have discovered a third planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The new planet, Beta Pictoris d, is 100 times fainter…
Biosignature Detectability On Transiting Habitable Worlds With ELT/ANDES
[astro-ph.EP] The search for life beyond the Solar System is at a turning point, transitioning from theoretical predictions to observations enabled by next-generation observatories. The…
A System Of At Least Six Exoplanets Revealed In The HIP 41378 System
[Paris Observatory] An international team, including scientists from the Paris Observatory – PSL at the Time-Space Laboratory, has spent ten years studying an exceptional planetary…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
MEDaL-1 Mars Lander Science Definition Team
[ESA] Join the Science Definition Team (SDT) to help define the Exploration Science Payload for a proposed future Mars lander: MEDaL-1. Full announcement The European…
Bacteria Form Herds To Survive Predators, Offering Fresh Insight Into Earth’s Carbon Cycle
[Queen Mary University of London] Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have discovered that tiny photosynthetic bacteria band together into protective “herds” when attacked…
Supernova Neutrinos And The Origin of Biomolecular Homochirality
[astro-ph.HE] We investigate the role of parity-violating interactions between supernova neutrinos and chiral molecules in nearby interstellar molecular clouds as a potential source of biomolecular…