[The University of Osaka] The truth is out there – but identifying signs of life in space involves an intense search for biosignatures within our solar system and beyond. However, […]
Biosignatures & Paleobiology
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
Generating Eukaryotic Reference Genome Assemblies: Earth BioGenome Project Quality Standards And Recommendations
[q-bio.GN] Reference genome assemblies are foundational resources across the biological sciences as they begin to expose the fundamental building blocks of each species and the molecular toolkits vital for adaptation […]
![Simulated climates and observables for CO2-rich planets near the outer edge of the habitable zone. The illustration on the right depicts a potentially habitable world orbiting a Sun-like star. The teal point in the lower left section of the panel marks the orbital location of such a planet within the OHZ, and the corresponding reflected light spectrum that could be observed via direct imaging is shown in teal in the middle, left section of the panel. The upper left section of the panel shows an illustration of the same planet in a globally frozen state located just beyond the habitable zone. Its orbital position (lower left) and reflected light spectrum (middle) are shown in white. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/High-CO2.png?resize=1200%2C721&ssl=1)
Posted inHabitable Zones
High-CO2 Climates And Observables In The Outer Habitable Zone
[astro-ph.EP] The habitable zone (HZ) is a fundamental concept used to guide our search for temperate exoplanets with stable surface liquid water that would sustain remotely detectable biosignatures.
![Schematic representation of the evolution of sulfur in light of our experiments. The diagram provides a conceptual overview of sulfur depletion driven by visual extinction.-- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Thermally.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Thermally Irreversible Sulfur Chemisorption On Silicate Grains As A Major Sulfur Reservoir In Molecular Clouds
[astro-ph.GA] Sulfur (S) chemistry in the interstellar medium remains poorly constrained due to the longstanding “missing sulfur” problem, where a significant fraction of cosmic sulfur in molecular clouds remains unidentified.
![Initial 𝑎c–𝑒c distribution of the 32,000 comets used in each end-to-end calculation. Dashed lines mark the semimajor axes of P7 and P8. The circular and eccentric planet calculations use identical comet initial states.-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Planetary.png?resize=1200%2C604&ssl=1)
Posted inComets and Asteroids
Planetary Eccentricity Enhances Inward Comet Transport But Suppresses Gentle Impacts
[astro-ph.EP] Comets can supply volatile and prebiotic material to rocky planets, but survival of fragile molecules depends on atmospheric entry and impact. Compact planet chains can transfer comets inward at […]
![Illustration of the different size averages for Renazzo (after the data of Ebel et al. (2024)) on a back-scattered electron image of polished section 719sp3 of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle collection (Jacquet et al., 2012).-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Chondrule.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrogeology
Chondrule Size Averaging In Two And Three Dimensions
[astro-ph.EP] Chondrule sizes are an important discriminant of chondrite groups and chondrule formation theories. Yet most studies report 2D sizes without attempting the somewhat tedious corrections to 3D proposed in […]
![Transmission spectra of TRAPPIST-1 c from the four JWST/NIRSpec PRISM epochs (4-pixel bins, 0.8–5.0 𝜇m), offset vertically by 200 ppm per epoch for clarity and colour-coded by date, with the inverse-variance-weighted mean spectrum (black, plotted at its true depth). Grey bands mark the stellar H2O features near 1.4 and 1.85 𝜇m. The dotted line marks 2.0 𝜇m, the boundary of the region where the contamination is strongest (Section 3). The 2023 November 8 visit contains a flare during transit and the 2024 July 9 visit shows activity outside transit (Section 2.5). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Detecting.png?resize=1200%2C716&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
Detecting Atmospheres In The Presence Of Stellar Contamination: An Empirically Calibrated Framework Applied To Four JWST/NIRSpec PRISM Transits Of TRAPPIST-1c
[astro-ph.EP] Transmission spectroscopy of rocky exoplanets orbiting late M dwarfs is limited by stellar contamination rather than photon noise.
![The per-tile processing chain, applied to the Detector-4 tile of Fig. 1. (a) After flag masking and zodiacal-light subtraction, the input to the stellar subtraction. (b) After fitting and subtracting the empirical PSF at every catalogued source above the magnitude limit, with the saturated cores of the brightest stars masked. (c) After the median filter and the Gaussian smoothing to 2.6 ′ , which is what is coadded into the HEALPix maps. All three panels share a single histogram-equalised colour scale. -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/A-Full-Sky.png?resize=1200%2C637&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
A Full-Sky SPHEREx Map of Integrated 3.3 And 3.4 μm PAH Emission
[astro-ph.GA] Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous in the interstellar medium and are among its smallest carbonaceous grains.
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
Pathways Of Early Evolution From The Perspectives Of A Riboreplisome — The Ultimate RNA Machine Of Life
[q-bio.PE] Translation of the genetic code into proteins is universal across life, with ribosomes serving as the ancient molecular machines enabling this information transformation. We propose that early replication and […]
Posted inEnceladus
Life On Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Would Be Possible
[University of Regensburg] From a human perspective, Enceladus is anything but a comfortable place to live: Icy cold, hardly any oxygen, and – below its icy crust – a global […]