Keith’s update: Dale Andersen sent an update overnight update to me: “First night at Untersee. All is well after yesterday’s traverse. Now it’s time to get shelter in place – […]
Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Posted inArctic / Antarctic / Alpine
Scott Base: Lessons For A Mars Exploration Program
[Antarctic Science]. Scott Base is New Zealand’s year-round Antarctic research station, and it provides an operationally established template for designing sustained human presence in extreme, remote environments such as Mars.
Posted inPlant Biology
Deep Evolutionary History Of Land Plants’ Closest Algal Relatives
[University of Göttingen] What did the algae that gave rise to the first land plants look like?
Posted inDale Andersen's Field Reports
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 5 November 2026: Traverse to Lake Untersee
Keith’s note: after a routine traverse along the standard route from Ultima Airbase, Dale Andersen and his team arrived at their base camp location at Lake Untersee, Antarctica. Dale sent […]
Posted inAstrogeology
Using Vibrations To Reveal What Lies Beneath Other Planets’ Surfaces
[Virginia Tech] Modern space exploration hasn’t quite reached Star Trek levels of boldly going where no one has gone before. But if, like the denizens of the USS Enterprise, astronauts […]
Posted inDale Andersen's Field Reports
Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Report: 3 November 2026: Digging Out and Packing Before the Traverse to Lake Untersee
[Dale Andersen]. Hi Keith – We’ve continued our first job of the season which has been digging snow. Drifting snow around the base resulted in quite a few people at […]
Posted inExtremeophiles and Extreme Environments
A Type Of Arctic Ocean Bacteria May Be Using Acetone To Turn Carbon Into Food
[Concordia University] A newly identified Arctic Ocean bacterium may have an unusual way of making the building blocks it needs to grow. Using acetone, a common chemical in seawater, the […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
A Whole-Earth Simulation Built To Help Find Life On Other Planets
[University of Washington] It’s a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have cataloged more than 6,000 planets beyond our solar system and […]
Posted inTitan
Inspecting A Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DRAMS) Transducer
[NASA]. Gabrielle Schweitzer performs a ultraviolet light inspection on a Dragonfly Mass spectrometer (DRAMS) transducer at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt Md., Oct. 20, 2026. Tricorder Tech: Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology
Material Cycling Across Earth’s Spheres And Triggers Of Cambrian Explosion: A Tectonic Perspective
[Continent and Life Evolution]. Earth is the only known planet in the solar system that can sustain and provide a habitable environment for life, largely due to the presence of […]