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Astrobiology In A Mesophilic Tropical Country: A Database And A Review Of Analog Environments In Brazil
[Life Sciences in Space Research] Astrobiological analog environments comprise Earth-based environments that share similarities with a target setting (another planetary body or Precambrian Earth conditions) and whose defining features influence extant or fossil biological components, enabling astrobiological interpretation. Although not synonymous with extreme environments, they often impose selective pressures that favor extremophiles and extremotolerant organisms,…
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Is A Constitutive Red-shift An Advantage For Oxygenic Photosynthesis Under M Dwarf Starlight? Insights From Acaryochloris Marina sp. str. Moss Beach
[FEMS Microbes] In the next decades, space telescope missions will search for life evidence on…
Hydrogen Peroxide On Mars And Icy Moons: Implications For The Search For Extraterrestrial Signatures Of Prebiotic Chemistry
[Fundamental Research]. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is increasingly recognized as an important molecule in prebiotic chemistry…
Planetary Recon: Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
[NASA] This proposal explores a new class of reconnaissance spacecraft that map minerals from orbit…
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
Atmospheres, Climate, Weather
Atmospheric Diversity of Giant Planet Analogs from 3-5µm with SPHEREx
[astro-ph.EP]. The emergent spectra of giant planets peak at thermal infrared wavelengths (3-5um) and possess atmospheric features in this regime that trace carbon chemistry, vertical mixing, clouds, and composition. However, this spectral region is challenging to access from the ground, and with JWST generally requires an independent pointing for each target. SPHEREx is providing all-sky…
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Preparing ExoMars For Rosalind Franklin Astrobiology Rover Delivery
[ESA] The footage shows the simultaneous deployment of two landing legs from the ExoMars landing platform, in two sequential pairs. The legs travel stowed on…
Hindsight: Similarity-Based Analytics For Mars Rover Drive Retrieval
[cs.HC] While Mars rover operators plan drives across hazardous Martian terrain and diagnose unexpected faults, the necessary information is distributed across separate systems and often…
Segment-level Thermal Sensitivity Analysis For Exo-Earth Coronagraphy With Segmented Space Telescopes
[astro-ph.IM] Direct imaging and characterization of Earth-like planets require ultra-stable wavefronts to achieve a starlight suppression level of 100 parts per trillion (ppt) in the…
Imaging & Spectroscopy
Pyrat Bay 2.0: An Upgraded Framework for Exoplanet Atmosphere Modeling in the JWST Era
[astro-ph.EP] This article presents a major update to the open-source Pyrat Bay modeling framework (version 2.0), tailored for the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres with the…
The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems VIII: Patchy Forsterite and Enstatite Clouds in the Atmosphere of VHS 1256 b.
[astro-ph.EP] JWST defines a new era for the data-driven approach of retrieval modelling, which has become a cornerstone tool for the statistical inference of exoplanetary…
Euhabitability: A New Term To Aid In The Search For Life In Addition To The Habitable Zone Framework
[Space Science Reviews] The search for life on exoplanets is difficult due to observational limitations stemming from vast separating distances. The Habitable Zone (HZ) is…
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Biological Validation and Agnostic Experiments For Extant And Extinct Microbial Life Within The Martian Subsurface
[Astrobiology (Journal)] Over the last several decades, investigations of Earth’s subsurface and other extremely low-biomass systems have refined our understanding of the environmental limits of…
Atmospheres As Habitats
[Astrobiology (Journal)]. The potential of planetary atmospheres as habitats is understudied and likely underestimated. Although planetary atmospheres can provide the fundamental physical, chemical, and energetic…
Biosignature Reservoirs In The Rozel Point Tar Seeps At Great Salt Lake, Utah
[Frontiers in Microbiology] On the north shore of Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA, naturally occurring tar seeps at Rozel Point provide an opportunity to study…