[astro-ph.IM] To support the development of next-generation missions for the search and characterization of habitable planets, high-fidelity tools for astrophysical and instrumental noise simulations are needed.
Astronomy & Telescopes
![Bifurcated best-fit solutions. The noisy generated data is shown with gray error bars. The true spectrum of Earth is in black, while the Earth-like solution and thick- -atmosphere solution are shown in blue and orange, respectively. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Impacts.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Impacts Of Correlated Noise On Retrievals Of Exo-Earth Atmospheres
[astro-ph.EP] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to accomplish high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of true Earth analogs for the first time. However, high-contrast spectroscopy with HWO may be limited by […]
![Waste-heat temperature–luminosity phase space. Existing midinfrared searches occupy the warm band (orange); cold computational radiators fall in the far-infrared/submillimetre band (green) towards the CMB floor. Grey lines show 345-GHz flux-density contours for a source at 100 pc, from equation (10), which is linear in the fractional waste-heat luminosity 𝑓 on the vertical axis; the figure thus covers partial swarms and complete spheres (𝑓 = 1) alike. Markers indicate a complete 1 L⊙ cold sphere, the level of the archival debris-survey limits (Section 6.1), and the domain of warm mid-infrared searches. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Slysh.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Slysh Haloes: The Waste Heat Of Cold Computing As A Submillimetre Technosignature
[astro-ph.IM] Searches for Dysonian waste heat have operated almost exclusively in the mid-infrared and are therefore sensitive primarily to technology radiating at 100-600K. We argue that mature, computation-dominated civilisations may […]
![Best-fit model spectra and residuals for the HWO and LIFE datasets (grey and black data points with error bars). Shaded regions show posterior predictive intervals, and the lower panel shows residuals in units of σ. Bottom: Residual between the data and model as measured by 1-σ uncertainty. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/on-the.png?resize=1200%2C715&ssl=1)
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
On The Impact Of Correlated Noise and Spectral Resolution On The Retrieval Analysis Of The Habitable World Observatory
[astro-ph.EP] Finding signs of life elsewhere in the universe is the holy grail of the field of exoplanets. Future space missions such as the Habitable World Observatory (HWO) are under […]
![Schematic diagram of the simulated architecture. It includes the segmented primary mirror, an APLC coronagraph with an apodizer, a focal plane mask and a Lyot stop, two deformable mirrors, and an out-of-band and a low-order Zernike wavefront sensor. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/JWST-telemetry.png?resize=1200%2C712&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
JWST Telemetry Combined With Active Coronagraphy: Raw Contrast Predictions For Exoplanet Imaging With The Habitable Worlds Observatory
[astro-ph.IM] We provide a quantification of the technological gap between the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) for the goal of exo-Earth imaging around Sun-like […]
Posted inAstrobiology (general)
The SETI Institute And ETH Zurich Join Forces To Search For The Origin Of Life
[SETI Institute]. The question of how life originated and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe has fascinated humanity for centuries. Now, ETH Zurich and the SETI Institute in California […]
![Overview of the optical design of the testbed, which features an AO module, a coronagraph module, and ample space for science cameras and visitor experiments. Abbreviations: CDM: Coronagraphic DM, DM: Deformable Mirror, FM: Fold Mirror, (F/L)LOWFS: focal-plane/Lyot-stop low-order wavefront sensor, OAP: Off-Axis Parabola, PSM: PupilSteering Mirror, TS: Turbulence Simulator -[astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/NEXT.png?resize=1200%2C714&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
NEXT: The Netherlands EXoplanet Testbed I. Goals And opto-mechanical Design
[astro-ph.IM] We report on the goals, design, and ongoing development of the Netherlands EXoplanet Testbed (NEXT), a high-contrast imaging testbed under construction in Leiden.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
Roman Space Telescope Leaves Earth
[NASA]. Now on a three-month, million-mile journey to its final orbit, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon reveal the universe’s darkest secrets. The mission launched at 7:26 a.m. […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Atmospheric Retrieval of Combined JWST, HST, and Ground-Based Observations Reveals a Featureless Transmission Spectrum for GJ 1132 b
[astro-ph.EP] We present a panchromatic transmission spectrum of GJ1132b spanning 0.71–5.16 μm, combining published transit observations from Magellan/LDSS3C, HST/WFC3 G141, and JWST/NIRSpec (G395H and G395M).
![[LEFT] The MIRI F2100W observation of the HD 107146 system, shown in logarithmic scaling with the corresponding intensity levels indicated in the colorbar. [RIGHT] Contours from the ALMA observations obtained within the ARKS program (S. Marino et al. 2026), overlaid on the combined F182M and F210M JWST/NIRCam observations for HD 107146. -- [astro-ph.SR]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-JWSTNIRCam.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrogeology
The JWST/NIRCam Scattered Light Disks GTO 2780 program: Panchromatic coronagraphic imaging of the HD 10647, HD 32297, HD 61005, HD 107146, and HD 181327 debris disk systems
[astro-ph.SR]. Debris disks, composed of rocks, boulders, planetesimals, and the dust produced in their collisions, present the most readily observable components of mature planetary systems.