[UC Riverside] Scientists have long speculated why Venus, with a similar size, mass, and structure to Earth, doesn’t have a moon. New UC Riverside research shows it’s because our hungry […]
astrogeology
![Low-angle backscatter electron (LABE) imaging (Supplement 9) of sample OREX-220001-1 consisting of particles obtained from inside the SRC but exterior to the sample canister — including fragments of Bennu, SRC char, and metal. FG, fine-grained. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/OSIRIS-REx.png?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Posted inSample Return
OSIRIS-REx Returned a Pristine Sample of Asteroid Bennu: Takeaways from the Mission’s Contamination Control and Knowledge Program
[astro-ph.EP] NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission had the objective of delivering a pristine sample from asteroid (101955) Bennu to Earth for scientific analysis–where “pristine” signifies the absence of foreign materials that could […]
![Disk properties [Ri,Rco,Rdust] and exoplanet semimajor axis values are plotted in units of the PMS host stellar radius as a function of host star mass. The plot shows planets are less common inside the disk corotation radius suggesting that planetary inward migration is frequently halted in the vicinity of the corotation radius. Some planets have semimajor axis values < Rdust the dust sublimation radius, implying that planet migration must have occurred to populate the semimajor axis < Rdust region. Ri & Rco (gray diamonds and red squares respectively) are from the Pittman et al. (2025b) survey. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Exoplanet-System.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Exoplanet System Architecture: Sculpting the Inner Regions
[astro-ph.EP] In this study, we seek to improve our understanding of the competing roles of disk-driven and planet-planet dynamical migration in sculpting planetary system architecture in the inner ≲1.5 au […]
Posted inStellar Cartography
Fingerprints Inside Our Sun Could Reveal If It Once Swallowed A Planet
[Royal Astronomical Society] It is thought the Sun may have engulfed a super-Earth-sized planet early in its history.
Posted inMars
Landforms In Ares Vallis Carved Out By Ancient Water Flow
[NASA]. Ares Vallis is a large valley that was carved billions of years ago by water flowing across the surface of Mars.
Posted inAstrogeology
Planet Formation at Cosmic Dawn: Planetesimals in H2O-rich Disks around Low-mass Stars
[The Astrophysical Journal Letters]. Primordial, or Population III (Pop III), supernovae (SNe) were the first nucleosynthetic engines in the Universe, forging the heavy elements required for the later formation of […]
![Simulated ablation heights of IDPs in exoplanet atmospheres. Our fiducial simulation is marked in red. Solid and dashed curves signify IDP compositions of MgSiO3 and Fe, respectively. The black dashed curve on the left most panel shows the approximation of the mass injection function Fv(p) for an arbitrary IDP mass flux for comparison with the ablation profiles. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Interplanetary-Dust.png?resize=1200%2C721&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrogeology
Interplanetary Dust Ablation Seeds Silicate Clouds in Exoplanet Atmospheres
[astro-ph.EP] Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are present throughout the Solar System, with Earth experiencing a mass flux of roughly 100 tonnes of IDPs per day.
Posted inAstrogeology
Trans-Neptunian Objects Remember Their Past
[NASA]. For the first time, scientists used the joint power of NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes to study some of the most far-flung bodies in our solar system, […]
![[TOP] Marginal posterior probability distribution functions of the Bayesian fit to Eq. 1 when [X/H] is the mean abundance of iron-peak elements (left), volatile elements (middle), and α elements (right). The vertical line indicates the mean of the distribution. [BOTTOM] Same as above but considering only the stars with a spectral type earlier than F5. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Signatures.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Signatures Of Rocky Debris Accretion In AF-Type Planet Hosts
[astro-ph.EP] The gas-giant planet-metallicity correlation plays a fundamental role in our understanding of planet formation.
Posted inImaging & Spectroscopy
Analytical Platform (Microsampling, Catapulting, Trapping, and LIBS) for the Characterization of Discrete Domains in Samples of Astrochemical Interest
[Analytical Chemistry] The chemical characterization of scarce or heterogeneous solid samples remains a significant analytical challenge due to the high material quantities required by conventional techniques.