Gaia - Planetary Perspectives Archives - Page 2 of 36

a, Sub-ice topography, corrected for isostatic rebound due to ice removal3, with sharp topographic features enhanced by nonlinear filtering (Methods). The light grey lines are detected topographic lineaments interpreted as longitudinal normal faults forming the structural edges of the basins. The magenta and cyan lines represent detected topographic lineaments interpreted as either transverse strike–slip faults or associated normal faults that characterize the two circular shear belts shown in b (that is, the southern and northern TSCBs).

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Exploration Gear & Tech, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Polar / Alpine Expeditions, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ice Planet Recon: Giant Fan-shaped Geological Structure Discovered Beneath East Antarctica

by Keith CowingJune 9, 2026June 26, 2026

Editor’s note: there are currently two advanced missions heading for the jovian system – Europa Clipper and ESA Juice – to study icy Europa and the other icy worlds orbiting […]

The simulated occurrence rates of planets in both simulated (blue) and known (orange) planetary systems around nearby stars. Top left: All planet periods. Top right: All planet radii. Bottom left: Small planet (R < 6 R⊕) periods. Bottom right: Giant planet (R > 6 R⊕) periods. Additional predicted planets in the systems with known planets are not shown. astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Predictive Rankings of the Probability for Temperate Terrestrial Worlds for the HWO ExEP Mission Star List

by Keith CowingJune 4, 2026June 4, 2026

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s flagship mission design from the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020, meant to observe temperate terrestrial planets via direct imaging and use […]

Image shows microscopic marine plankton, which are larger in size and went extinct. Credit Brian Huber Smithsonian

Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Impact events, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Pioneering Research Sheds New Light On What Shaped Extinction Pattern Of Prehistoric Marine Life – And Size Clearly Mattered

by Keith CowingJune 2, 2026June 2, 2026

Scientists have shown conclusively for the first time that tiny marine organisms in polar oceans survived the mass extinction event that wiped out prehistoric dinosaurs because they needed less energy […]

Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

Synthetic Biology As An Empirical Tool For Evolutionary Theory

by Keith CowingMay 29, 2026May 29, 2026

Evolutionary biology has traditionally inferred process from patterns in extant organisms and the fossil record, leaving many foundational questions constrained by their historical nature.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

Exploring Space Weather From Young Solar-like Stars as Windows to Exoplanetary Habitability

by Keith CowingMay 28, 2026May 28, 2026

Young solar-like stars are efficient generators of magnetic activity, superflares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and stellar energetic particles. These phenomena drive the early evolution of stars and shape the habitability […]

Semi-major axis versus planetary mass diagram for a population of transiting exoplanets. Stars are symbols for the planets observed in a ground-based atmospheric escape campaign. Planets above the red (orange) curve cannot have lost more than 50% (10%) of their initial mass M0 to photoevaporation. For more details, see Vissapragada et al. (2022). -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mars, Status Report

The Role Of The Hubble Space Telescope In Advancing Our Understanding Of Atmospheric Escape In Exoplanets

by Keith CowingMay 28, 2026May 28, 2026

An important evolutionary pathway for planetary atmospheres is escape to space, which has been studied on Earth and Mars for several decades and more recently in exoplanets.

This view of a crescent Mars was captured on May 15, 2026, at about 5:03 a.m. PDT by NASA’s Psyche mission as it approached the planet for a gravity assist. The image has been processed into a natural-color view using red, green, and blue data from the multispectral imager instrument. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Extinction events, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mars, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Mars, A Post-Habitable Planet?

by Keith CowingMay 27, 2026May 27, 2026

Mars provides a critical analog to once habitable exoplanets that have since lost their surface liquid water.

A depiction of the full product generation pipeline for a single OC instrument + TROPOSIF data stream. Each box represents a discretized step of the process. The top of each box lists the name of the step or product generated, and the bottom lists the processes used. The three separate flows across the first four boxes depict the separate TROPOSIF, OC + TROPOSIF, and OC processing pipelines, as described above.

Analog Studies, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Orbital Biosignature Recon: NASA-developed AI Could Help Track Harmful Algae

by Keith CowingMay 25, 2026May 25, 2026

Editor’s note: for more than half a century we have been learning how to use the viewpoint from space to study our home world. The instruments we have developed often […]

ExoCAM simulations of Earth from the present up to 2.0 Gyr in the future, assuming CO2 remains fixed at 400 ppm. The top row shows surface temperature, the middle row shows precipitation minus evaporation, and the bottom row shows the habitability metric developed by Woodward et al. (2025) (Eqs. (D1) and (D2)). All quantities are 20-year averages after the model has reached a steady-state. Increases in temperature due to a brightening sun cause an increase in habitability up to 1.5 Gyr due to the greening of the poles, but habitability decreases significantly by 2.0 Gyr as Earth becomes too hot for complex vegetative life. This corresponds to a weak temperature dependence of weathering, in which Earth’s CO2 levels do not change even as the climate warms (c.f., Graham et al., 2024). -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Desert Worlds, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Agriculture, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Maximum Lifetime Of The Vegetative Biosphere

by Keith CowingMay 23, 2026May 23, 2026

We use a three-dimensional model to calculate steady-state climates at various intervals in Earth’s future, across a parameter space of increasing insolation and decreasing CO2 mixing ratio.

Representation of possible evolutionary pathways for Venus to its present state, starting with a magma ocean phase. The top pathway is for the case where Venus lost much of its water inventory early, while the bottom pathway considers an extended period of surface liquid water until the climate was destabilized. Figure reproduced from Gillmann et al. (2022). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Venus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Seasonal Insolation Variability On Early Venus: Implications For Energy Budget

by Keith CowingMay 20, 2026May 20, 2026

Venus and Earth are similar in bulk properties yet followed dramatically different climatic trajectories.

Gaia – Planetary Perspectives

Ice Planet Recon: Giant Fan-shaped Geological Structure Discovered Beneath East Antarctica

Predictive Rankings of the Probability for Temperate Terrestrial Worlds for the HWO ExEP Mission Star List

Pioneering Research Sheds New Light On What Shaped Extinction Pattern Of Prehistoric Marine Life – And Size Clearly Mattered

Synthetic Biology As An Empirical Tool For Evolutionary Theory

Exploring Space Weather From Young Solar-like Stars as Windows to Exoplanetary Habitability

The Role Of The Hubble Space Telescope In Advancing Our Understanding Of Atmospheric Escape In Exoplanets

Mars, A Post-Habitable Planet?

Orbital Biosignature Recon: NASA-developed AI Could Help Track Harmful Algae

Maximum Lifetime Of The Vegetative Biosphere

Seasonal Insolation Variability On Early Venus: Implications For Energy Budget

PJ Harvey Announces New Song “Voyager”

Fifty Years after Viking: The Promise of Solar System Microbiology and Microbial Ecology

Characterising Transiting Exoplanets At Long Orbital Period: Lessons Learned For PLATO From 10 Years Of Monitoring The HIP41378 System

Implications Of Self-consistent H2O Ice Optical Constants On Radiative Transfer Models Of Disks

The GAPS Programme at TNG LXXIV. A Reanalysis Of The Planetary Systems TOI-1272 And TOI-1694 With HARPS-N And Retraction Of The Planetary Interpretation Of TOI-1272 c