astro-ph.IM Archives

Diverse density and composition of small exoplanets. The plot shows M-dwarf planets that have precision mass and radius measurements (Luque & Palle´ 2022). Small planets of FGK stars also occupy a broad parameter space that spans from Earth composition to water worlds or planets with massive H/He envelopes (Parc et al. 2024). The planets in the 1.4 – 2.6 Earth’s radius range can be large rocky planets, water worlds, or having massive H/He envelopes (Luque & Palle´ 2022; Rogers et al. 2023). The figure is adapted from Rogers et al. (2023) with permission. -- astro-ph.IM

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

Identifying Rocky Planets And Water Worlds Among Sub-Neptune-sized Exoplanets With The Habitable Worlds Observatory

by Keith CowingSeptember 23, 2025September 23, 2025

Astronomers are debating whether the plentiful “sub-Neptune” exoplanets — worlds a bit larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune — are predominantly rocky planets, water-rich “ocean worlds,” or gas-enshrouded mini-Neptunes.

Schematic diagram showing all the model pathways leading to the production of both neutrals and cations. Each molecular species indicated here has a node whose size is proportional to the number of times this species is either lost or produced in the overall scheme. The larger the node, the more important that molecule’s contribution to the network. In blue are species participating mainly as a formed product. In gold are species participating mainly as a reactant. Species in crimson are in reactant-product equilibrium. -- astro-ph.IM

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Status Report, Titan

Modeling Low-Temperature Plasmas Simulating Titan’s Atmosphere

by Keith CowingSeptember 11, 2025September 11, 2025

In the study presented here, we model the gas phase chemistry induced by plasma discharge at low temperature (150 K) in the NASA Ames COSmIC Simulation Chamber (COSmIC) using a […]

Schematic of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. The seven known planets are shown orbiting the central star. The semi-transparent green annulus marks the optimistic habitable zone, which contains planets e, f, and g the primary targets of this search. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Intelligence & Language, Interstellar, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report, TRAPPIST-1

A Deep SETI Search For Technosignatures In The TRAPPIST-1 System With FAST

by Keith CowingSeptember 10, 2025September 10, 2025

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is one of its five key science objectives.

An illustration of the adjusted telluric models for the solar and Titan spectra, where a 10% reduction from the best-fit model is applied to the solar spectrum and a 10% increase from the best-fit model is applied to the Titan spectrum, as described in Section 2.2. ‘o’ and ‘x’ markers indicate uncontaminated telluric lines used to estimate these adjustments. ‘o’ markers represent lines with expected strength, while ‘x’ markers denote lines with anomalous strength. The center of each ‘o’ or ‘x’ corresponds to the peak of the adjusted telluric model. The four regions shown were selected to clearly demonstrate both marker scenarios and to span a broad wavelength range relevant to the study. -- astro-ph.IM

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Titan

Identification of Likely Methane Absorption Features in the Optical Spectra of Titan

by Keith CowingSeptember 9, 2025September 9, 2025

The optical spectra of Titan reveal a rich set of absorption features, most of which are likely associated with methane (CH4).

Synoptic view of the key performances of the JWST’s instruments and Ariel for transiting exoplanets. Top table summarises the characteristics of instruments and observing modes for JWST. Central left panel: simulations of a WASP-39 b-like exoplanet, used as example of a relatively faint target (Vmag „ 12) optimal for various JWST’s instruments (NIRSpec, NIRISS, MIRI) and observable by Ariel in Tier 2. Bottom left panel: simulation of a HD189733 b-like exoplanet, used as example of a bright target (Vmag „ 7.7) observable with JWST NIRCam and optimal for Ariel in Tier 3. JWST’s noise is obtained with the ExoCTK Pandexo tool (Batalha et al., 2017), while the Ariel’s noise is estimated using the ArielRad simulator (Mugnai et al., 2020). -- astro-ph.IM

Ariel Mission, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

On The Synergetic Use Of Ariel And JWST For Exoplanet Atmospheric Science

by Keith CowingSeptember 9, 2025February 15, 2026

This white paper explores the potential for strategic synergies between the JWST and the Ariel telescopes, two flagship observatories poised to revolutionise the study of exoplanet atmospheres.

3D hydrodynamic simulation of atmospheric escape from Ref. 8, for a system similar to HAT-P-67 b. Figure 2a shows the gas density. The star is in the center of the plot and the observer is looking from the left. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

VIPER: A High-resolution Multimode Fiber-fed VIPA Spectrograph Concept For Characterizing Exoplanet Atmospheric Escape

by Keith CowingSeptember 2, 2025September 2, 2025

An increasing number of applications in exoplanetary science require spectrographs with high resolution and high throughput without the need for a broad spectral range.

Color-color plot for asteroids from Sergeyev & Carry (2021), based on the parameter space defined by Ivezi´c et al. (2001) to identify asteroid families and surface compositions. The most likely asteroid family membership for each object determined by Sergeyev & Carry (2021) is noted by point color, and the figure legend. Contours show a kernel density estimator of the density of all 90,893 asteroids in this sample in this space. The three known ISOs show different colors, but are all consistent with populations of known solar system objects. We also show the measured color of the SpaceX Roadster from DES. -- astro-ph.IM

Comets and Asteroids, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Intelligence & Language, Interstellar, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Technosignature Searches Of Interstellar Objects

by Keith CowingAugust 26, 2025

With the discovery of the third confirmed interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, we have entered a new phase in the exploration of these long-predicted objects.

(left) Electromagnetic model showing the suppression of AKR and Earth transmitters on the far side of the Moon (Bassett et al. 2020). (Right) Eight candidate sites on the farside identified in Krolikowski & Elvis 2024 for a lunar radio array considering available area and surface smoothness. Further work is necessary to downselect to a single site, potentially through contributions of human exploration to site surveys. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Moon, Status Report

Identifying Habitable Exoplanets With Radio Telescopes On The Lunar Farside

by Keith CowingAugust 21, 2025August 21, 2025

The search for habitable conditions beyond Earth is a top priority in astrophysics.

The Viking 1 Lander sampling arm created a number of deep trenches as part of the surface composition and biology experiments on Mars. The digging tool on the sampling arm (at lower center) could scoop up samples of material and deposit them into the appropriate experiment. Some holes were dug deeper to study soil which was not affected by solar radiation and weathering. The trenches in this ESE looking image are in the "Sandy Flats" area of the landing site at Chryse Planitia. The boom holding the meteorology sensors is at left. (Viking 1 Lander, 11D128) -- NASA

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

The Importance of Aqueous Metabolites in the Martian Subsurface for Understanding Habitability, Organic Chemical Evolution, and Potential Biology

by Keith CowingAugust 21, 2025August 21, 2025

Aqueous metabolites in terrestrial subsurface environments provide critical analog frameworks for assessing the habitability of Martian subsurface ice.

Maximum predicted emission frequency and radio flux density for known exoplanets (triangle symbols; data from [8]). The uncertainties on the predictions are estimated to one order of magnitude for the flux density and a factor of 2-3 for the emission frequency12. The sensitivities for the ground-based (UTR-2, LOFAR, NenuFAR, SKA-Low, VLA, GMRT) and space-based (FARSIDE, LCRT, FARVIEW ) radio telescopes are labeled (for 10 min of integration time and a bandwidth of 24 MHz). The FARVIEW and LCRT sensitivity curves are taken from [19] and [2], respectively. The LuSEE-Night sensitivity curve is averaged over the entire two-year mission and includes post-processing using a LombScargle periodogram (see text for details). The possible detection of τ Boo b from LOFAR23 is shown as a red star. This figure is adapted from [9]. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Status Report

Studying Exoplanets In The Radio From The Moon

by Keith CowingAugust 14, 2025August 14, 2025

Exoplanets with and without a magnetic field are predicted to form, behave, and evolve very differently.

astro-ph.IM

Identifying Rocky Planets And Water Worlds Among Sub-Neptune-sized Exoplanets With The Habitable Worlds Observatory

Modeling Low-Temperature Plasmas Simulating Titan’s Atmosphere

A Deep SETI Search For Technosignatures In The TRAPPIST-1 System With FAST

Identification of Likely Methane Absorption Features in the Optical Spectra of Titan

On The Synergetic Use Of Ariel And JWST For Exoplanet Atmospheric Science

VIPER: A High-resolution Multimode Fiber-fed VIPA Spectrograph Concept For Characterizing Exoplanet Atmospheric Escape

Technosignature Searches Of Interstellar Objects

Identifying Habitable Exoplanets With Radio Telescopes On The Lunar Farside

The Importance of Aqueous Metabolites in the Martian Subsurface for Understanding Habitability, Organic Chemical Evolution, and Potential Biology

Studying Exoplanets In The Radio From The Moon

ExoPAG 35 – Early Career Talks Invitation

Missed Detections and False Alarms in a CNN Technosignature Detector on Breakthrough Listen Data

Ancient Clays Near The Hellas Basin On Mars

A Hydrogen Atmosphere Could Keep Exomoons Habitable For Billions Of Years

Ring Pattern Reveal The Mechanism By Which Unseen Planets And Dust Particles Gather On Their Own