[ESA] The European Space Agency’s terrestrial planet hunter Plato has recently completed a series of key tests inside the Maxwell Test Chamber at ESTEC, demonstrating that its electronic equipment is […]
astronomy
![Multiwavelength images of the two > 4𝜎 SJH candidates. Top: KIC 6606183. Bottom: KIC 9834255. Columns: WISE W1–W4 and Aladin DSS colour composite. Nearby sources are visible but their physical association requires high-resolution imaging. -- [astro-ph.SR]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Stellar-J.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Stellar J-Harvesting: A Novel Angular Momentum Technosignature And First Search In The Kepler Field
[astro-ph.SR] We introduce Stellar J-Harvesting (SJH), a technosignature in which an engineered system extracts rotational angular momentum from a star.
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
The Exozodi Spectral Effect: Residual Habitable Zone Dust May Bias ExoEarth Characterization
[astro-ph.EP] All exoplanetary systems are expected to host exozodiacal dust, or exozodi, originating from planetesimals. For many stars, exozodi will likely be the largest source of astrophysical noise in direct […]
![Left panel: Image of the episodic wide-angle tailed radio galaxy (RGZ J082312.9+033301) discovered by the RGZ project from Banfield et al. (2016). Right Panel: A HyMoRS from the same RGZ project displaying FR-I nature on the southern and clear edge-brightened FR-II nature on the northern side from Kapińska et al. (2017). -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Citizen-Science.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inCitizen Science / Open Science
Citizen Science Research With The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO)
[astro-ph.GA] Over the past two decades, internet-enabled citizen science research (CSR) has contributed to significant discoveries while involving millions of people in the research process.
![The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) radio images of radio sources associated with candidates A (J1245-2652, top row) and B (J0356-4031, bottom row) are shown at three frequencies: 887.5 MHz (left), 1367.5 MHz (centre), and 1655.5 MHz (right), with each panel covering a field of view of 65" × 65" . White ellipses show the PyBDSF source fits from the RACS catalogues, with thick solid lines indicating the fits at the frequency of the image, while thin dashed lines show fits from the other radio frequencies for comparison. Large blue crosses (×) mark radio source positions for the corresponding frequency, and small blue plus signs (+) indicate positions at other frequencies. The red stars represent the Gaia positions propagated to the corresponding RACS observation epochs using the measured proper motions. -- [astro-ph.SR]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Archival-Diagnostics.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Archival Diagnostics for Potential Background Contaminants Of Project Hephaistos Dyson Sphere Candidates
[astro-ph.SR] We report on the diagnostic inspection of nine Project Hephaistos Dyson Sphere candidate M-dwarfs based on archival data. By comparing the Gaia positions, propagated to the AllWISE epoch, with […]
Posted inBeta Pictoris
Webb Discovers A Hidden Planet In The Beta Pictoris Star System
[NASA] Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
A System Of At Least Six Exoplanets Revealed In The HIP 41378 System
[Paris Observatory] An international team, including scientists from the Paris Observatory – PSL at the Time-Space Laboratory, has spent ten years studying an exceptional planetary system comprising at least six […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Distant Exoplanets May Be Hiding Water Beyond Webb Telescope’s Reach, Study Finds
[University of Chicago] The planets that appear most common in the universe could have a lot of water—but it could be hiding where telescopes can’t detect it, according to a […]
![Images in the JWST/MIRI F560W, F1000W and F1500W filters (central wavelength ≈ 5.6, 10 and 15 𝜇m) of candidates D (first row) and E (second row). White stars mark the Gaia positions of the M dwarfs, which in both cases are seen to be located ≈ 1 arcsec from the centres of background galaxies. -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Project-Hephaistos.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inSETI & Technosignatures
Project Hephaistos — IV. James Webb Space Telescope Observations of Two Dyson Sphere Candidates
[astro-ph.GA] We report on JWST/MIRI imaging and spectroscopy of two M-dwarf stars previously singled out by project Hephaistos as potential Dyson-sphere candidates (their candidates D and E) due to the […]
![NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of what is thought to be the first ever recorded planetary engulfment event revealed a hot accretion disk surrounding the star, with an expanding cloud of cooler dust enveloping the scene. Webb also revealed that the star did not swell to swallow the planet, but the planet’s orbit actually slowly decayed over time. This illustration depicts the sequence of events that took place over millions of years, based on observations from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRSpec (NIR-Infrared Spectrograph). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/A-Bayesian-Search.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
A Bayesian Search for Planet Engulfment Signatures in Solar Analogs
[astro-ph.EP] We present a systematic Bayesian search for chemical fingerprints of planet engulfment in 113 solar twins and analogs with high-precision abundance measurements, 45 of which host known or candidate […]