[Science Advances] Water oceans in large icy moons and exoplanets are isolated from the rocky interior by thick layers of high-pressure ice, which hinder the direct release of nutrients and […]
Keith Cowing
Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻
Posted inCryobiology
Ice Drives The Emergence Of Functional Protocells
[biorxiv.org] A defining feature of living systems is the high local concentration of diverse molecular components within membrane-bounded compartments.
Posted inAstrochemistry
Chemical Abundance Patterns at z=1-7: Carbon, Nitrogen, Neon, Sulphur, and Argon Abundances From JWST Spectroscopy
[astro-ph.GA] The relative abundances of chemical elements in the interstellar medium (ISM) trace the history of star formation and chemical enrichment in galaxies.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
Optimization of Petal-Shaped Occulters for Exo-Earth Observation
[astro-ph.IM] Petal-shaped occulters are giant, formation-flying optical devices designed for use in space astronomy.
![Longitude–height structure of the rotational component of the stationary s = 1 zonal wind anomaly, near the Huygens latitude band during Ls = 290◦–310◦ -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Topographically.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inTitan
Topographically Forced Stationary Waves Can Explain The Near-Surface Zonal Winds Observed By Huygens On Titan
[astro-ph.EP] Titan’s equatorial superrotation is associated with climatological retrograde (westward) near-surface winds at low latitudes, as consistently simulated by Titan general circulation models.
![Optical layout of the HRI Imager. Light from the telescope focal plane is folded by COL-M1, collimated by COL-M2 to a 40 mm pupil where the forward interchange mechanism divides the beam, and re-imaged by four surfaces in each arm. Seven reflections separate the telescope from the UVIS detector and six from the NIR detector, which is the shortest path we found that meets the requirements of Section 2, and the basis of the throughput and coating arguments of Section 3.8. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/A-design-concept.jpg?resize=1200%2C722&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
A Design Concept For The High Resolution Imager On The Habitable Worlds Observatory
[astro-ph.IM] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission, designed to search for signs of life on planets around nearby stars and conduct transformational science across […]
![In order to select our final Prime Mission targets, we plotted each target in our long list to show the range of planet radius and stellar host effective temperatures covered. We selected the top 10 gaseous (above 1.9 R⊕) and top 10 terrestrial (below 1.9 R⊕) targets to be our 20 Prime Mission targets, as indicated by the black ringed points. An additional 20 targets were selected as Secondary Targets as backups to the Prime Mission targets, shown with red rings. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/The-Pandora.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
The Pandora SmallSat: Target Selection and Early Science
[astro-ph.IM]. The Pandora spacecraft is a smallsat selected in NASA’s inaugural class of Pioneers missions.
![The RDP network of molecular cell biology. A schematic representation of the autocatalytic (RAF) set arrangement of components and processes constituting the biosynthesis network for the production of new RNA, DNA and protein (i.e., RDP) strands in living cells (gray background). The monomer units of RNA, DNA, and protein strands—ribonucleoside triphosphates (rNTPs), deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs), and amino acids—are considered to represent raw materials (“food”) -- [q-bio.MN]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/System.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
System-evolutionary View Of RNA Presence In Living Cells
[q-bio.MN] Our guiding question for this article was: How did RNA adjust its life when the RNA world era came to an end? RNA has its practical execution side in […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
The Unresolved Paradox of Viable Microorganisms in Ancient Halite
[LIFE] Reports of viable microorganisms from ancient halite create an unusual test of the biological limits of cellular survival.
Posted inAstrochemistry
How Fluctuations Control Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Reacting Mixtures of Chiral Molecules
[cond-mat.soft] The pronounced chiral asymmetry of biomolecules is a defining feature of living systems, yet the mechanisms by which such asymmetry emerged remain unresolved. Chiral symmetry breaking may have occurred […]