![Model SED calculations for Ceres (left), Eros (middle), and Hektor (right). For each target, the top panel (a) shows the predicted flux density at each epoch, while the bottom panel (b) shows the corresponding flux ratio between reflected and thermal radiation. The color coding represents heliocentric distance. The vertical dashed lines indicate the wavelength where the reflected and thermal flux contributions are equal. Alt text: Modeled spectral energy distributions of Ceres, Eros, and Hektor showing reflected and thermal emission contributions. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Spectroscopic.png?resize=1200%2C725&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.EP]. The small Solar System bodies (SSSBs) preserve records of the formation and evolution of the Solar System. In particular, the near-infrared wavelength region around 3 μm provides crucial insights […]
Ariel Mission
![Set Transformer actor–critic architecture used by the RL policy. The input candidate set 𝑋 ∈ R 𝑁×𝐹 is first projected into a latent 𝑑-dimensional representation and processed by 𝐿 Induced Set Attention Blocks (ISABs). Learned inducing tokens provide the queries in the first attention operation of each ISAB, after which information is redistributed to the candidate tokens. The actor combines each contextualised target representation with the global mission state to produce one logit per available observation. Each logit is then converted into a probability to select a corresponding observation. The critic uses Pooling by Multihead Attention (PMA) to obtain a permutation-invariant summary of the candidate set, which is combined with the same global state to estimate 𝑉 (𝑠). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/aRieL-Reinforcement.png?resize=1200%2C715&ssl=1)
Posted inAriel Mission
aRieL – Reinforcement Learning For The Ariel Space Telescope Scheduling
[astro-ph.EP] The Ariel mission will conduct a population level survey of hundreds of exoplanet atmospheres, requiring observations to be scheduled across a large and diverse catalogue of potential targets.
![Stellar age versus planet radius for all planets in the Mission Candidate Sample. Planets younger than 200 Myr are highlighted in blue. The four planets marked with a star represent promising young targets. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Probing.png?resize=1200%2C717&ssl=1)
Posted inAriel Mission
Probing Exoplanetary Chemistry with Ariel: Scientific Priorities and Observational Strategies
[astro-ph.EP] Over the past two decades, increasingly precise observations have revealed that exoplanet atmospheres are chemically diverse and often far from equilibrium, with processes such as vertical mixing, photochemistry, and […]
![Contribution of a flare to the observed spectrum on anM-dwarf using a BT-Settl model spectrum (Allard 2014) -- [astro-ph.SR]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Stellar-flares.png?resize=1200%2C714&ssl=1)
Posted inAriel Mission
Stellar Flares With Ariel: Detection Prospects And Impacts On Exoplanet Spectroscopy
[astro-ph.SR] Stellar flares are important tracers of magnetic activity and can significantly influence the characterization of exoplanet host stars by introducing time-dependent astrophysical variability.
![Radial gas temperature maps for planets within the in-house 3D GCM framework. The panels illustrate equatorial slice plots of (Tgas, pgas) across three global temperature regimes: 800 K (left), 1600 K (center), and 2400 K (right). Host star types vary by row, descending from A-type to G-type and M-type stars [1] -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Faithful.png?resize=1200%2C717&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Faithful Neural Embeddings For 3D Exoplanet Climate Modeling
[astro-ph.EP] With the rapid advancement of telescopes like JWST and Ariel, there is an urgent need for efficient 3D climate models to interpret observations of exoplanet atmospheres.
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
The Metallicity Of Giant Exoplanets Around Low-mass Stars And How Ariel Can Help
[astro-ph.EP] Giant planets orbiting low-mass stars represent a unique population of giant planets that can be studied to constrain planet formation theory. Surveys of transiting giant exoplanets around M-dwarfs (GEMS) […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
Astrochemical Study of Early Embedded Discs
[astro-ph.SR] The question of how our planet was formed and, more generally, how a planetary system forms is fundamental and has been addressed in a broad range of research domains. […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Radiatively Controlled Thermal Stability of High-Altitude Clouds in Exoplanetary Atmospheres
[astro-ph.EP] One of the most striking findings of exoplanetary science is the ubiquity of clouds. A conventional approach to infer the cloud compositions is to utilize the thermochemical equilibrium model […]
Posted inUncategorized
Machine Learning And Deep Learning For Exoplanet Detection And Atmospheric Characterization With JWST And The Upcoming Ariel Mission
[astro-ph.IM] The detection and atmospheric characterization of exoplanets have entered a new data-intensive era driven by the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Ariel mission.
Posted inAriel Mission, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Assessing Ariel’s Capabilities To Observe Free-floating Brown Dwarfs
The primary goal of the Ariel space telescope is to conduct the biggest spectroscopic survey of transiting exoplanets to characterize their atmospheres and weather.