![Top: Hexagonal segmented primary mirror designs with no central obscuration with different number of rings and varying segment sizes (flat-to-flat (m) 1-Hex: 2.64, 2-Hex: 1.45, 3-Hex: 1.19, 4-Hex: 0.85, 5-Hex: 0.66), all designs have an inscribed diameter of ∼6 m. Middle: Binary apodizer masks optimized for their respective aperture design. Bottom: Respective coronagraphic PSFs with an annular dark hole ranging from 3.4λ/D - 12λ/D, and a spatial average contrast floor of ∼4 × 10−11 inside the dark hole. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Segmentlevel.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
[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 coronagraphic dark region of the […]
Astronomy & Telescopes
![Schematic diagram of our spectral line stacking and matched filtering procedures. First, (a) shows relevant spectral regions of the (synthetic) observational data (black) and an initial spectral simulation (red). Each spectral window is then weighted based on the signal-to-noise ratio of each region to create a velocity stack of all relevant molecular rotational transitions (b). Finally, the stacked simulation is used as a matched filter and is cross-correlated with the stacked data to visualize the statistical significance of a given detection (c). -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Exploring-the-Limits.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Exploring the Limits of Spectral Line Stacking in Spectral Line Data and Application Toward the Detection of Bulk 13C Enrichment of Aromatics in TMC-1
[astro-ph.GA] The formation history of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the interstellar medium remains a topic of active debate, with proposed mechanisms ranging from high-temperature stellar ejecta processes to low-temperature […]
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Nondetection of Narrowband Radio Technosignatures from LHS 1140 b at 1–12 GHz
[Research Notes of the AAS] LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet in its host star’s habitable zone, was recently shown to have an escaping helium atmosphere.
![Helicity asymmetries of the primordial (left panel) and late-time (right panel) density fields for parity asymmetric (blue curves) and symmetric (red curves) simulations. The shaded regions indicate the standard deviation (1σ) of the ensemble-average. The red markers highlight the asymmetries exceeding a statistical significance of 3σ. - [astro-ph.CO]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Probing.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Probing Primordial Chirality in the Matter Distribution
[astro-ph.CO] Whether parity symmetry was violated in the early universe remains one of the fundamental open questions in cosmology. If so, it may leave an intrinsic handedness in the large-scale […]
![Simulated HARMONI images of the Galilean satellites (Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto) compared to current VLT imaging (50 mas), illustrating the gain in spatial resolution (12 mas) enabled by the ELT for surface characterisation of Solar System bodies. Credit : Olivier Groussin for the Solar System Science group. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/HARMONI.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
HARMONI@ELT: Instrument Design, Performance, And Science Capabilities
[astro-ph.IM] HARMONI is the integral field spectrograph for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Designed as the primary workhorse near-infrared spectrograph of the ELT, it will deliver spatially resolved spectroscopy at […]
![Three-dimensional thermal phase architecture of the local ISM. (a) Three-dimensional rendering of the cold (blue) and unstable (yellow) isosurfaces, with warm gas shown transparent. The transparent warm volume traces WNM together with unmodelled hot ionised gas, which carries negligible mass (Methods). An interactive version is available at https://sb2580.github.io/phases 3d/. (b) Slices through the Galactic plane (𝑧 = 0) of gas density 𝑛 (left), FUV radiation intensity 𝐼UV (middle), and phase classification (right). Concentric circles mark heliocentric radii of 150, 300, and 450 pc. -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/The-first-three.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
The First Three-dimensional Map Of Thermal Phases In The Local Interstellar Medium
[astro-ph.GA] The thermal state of interstellar gas controls whether it remains warm and diffuse or cools into dense clouds. Twentyone centimetre observations have established a statistical picture of neutral-gas phases, […]
Posted inAstrochemistry
An Interstellar Energetic And Non-aqueous Pathway To Peptide Formation
[astro-ph.SR] The origin of the molecular building blocks of life is a central question in science. A few α-amino acids such as glycine, the simplest proteinogenic amino acid, have been […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Constraining The Lives And Times Of Exoplanets Through Evolutionary Bayesian Retrievals
[astro-ph.EP] Static retrieval frameworks are leading tools for interpreting exoplanet observations, yet time-independent modelling leaves them prone to degeneracy and unable to resolve exoplanets’ histories.
![Blackbody spectra derived from the 𝑇eff of the Dyson sphere candidates A to J throughout the wavelength range of 10 to 1000 microns together with the detection thresholds of telescopes Akari (Murakami et al. 2007), IRAS (Neugebauer et al. 1984), the ALMA 12∼m array6 and JWST/MIRI. In the case of JWST, both broadband imaging and spectroscopic limits (based on the LRS Slit or MRS7observations) are shown. In the case of JWST and ALMA, all limits refer to 5𝜎 confidence in 1 hour exposure time (where exposure times refer to observations per filter in the case of imaging; per band in the case of ALMA spectroscopy; per channel in the case of JWST/MIRI MRS spectroscopy and for the entire plotted wavelength range in the case of JWST/LRS spectroscopy). As can be seen, all candidates are detectable throughout some part of the wavelength coverage of JWST. The inset shows a zoom-in on the part of the spectral energy distribution that may be detectable with ALMA for four of the candidates (A, G, I and J). -- [astro-ph.SR]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Project-Hephaistos-1.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Project Hephaistos — III. Characterizing Anomalous Infrared Sources Identified As Dyson-sphere Candidates
[astro-ph.SR] The infrared-flux excess of stars harbouring Dyson spheres represent one potential technosignature of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Breakthrough Listen’s Automated Commensal Technosignature Survey With MeerKAT
[astro-ph.IM] The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is an ongoing effort to detect technosignatures, evidence of technologically capable life beyond Earth. Conducting a comprehensive SETI programme requires a large amount […]