![The habitable-zone correction at a glance. Each symbol is a TOI placed at a distance from the centre that scales with its insolation relative to the conservative habitable zone of its host (green ring; hotter planets inside, colder outside); symbol size scales with planet radius. Left: positions from the catalogue periods, which place 28 duo-transits in the conservative habitable zone. Right: positions from the periods of this work. Of the 28, nine are resolved and only two remain in the habitable zone, both giants (TOI-4600 c and TOI-1894.01); the 19 unresolved objects, drawn with opacity proportional to their probability of lying in the habitable zone, are expected to contribute 0.0–0.1. Two planets enter the habitable zone: TOI-6478 b, a duo-transit catalogued outside it, and TOI-2298 b, a mono-transit with no catalogue period. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Are-habitable.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.EP]. TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs) seen as single or duo transits carry a catalogue period that is undefined or equal to the separation of the two events, and their […]
atmosphere
Posted inMars
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter Detects Hints Of Volcanic Activity On Mars
[ESA] New evidence from gas seeping above volcanic rifts suggests Mars is not geologically dead deep inside, but merely sleeping.
Posted inSpace Weather & Heliophysics
How Space Weather Shapes Young Planets
[Michigan State University] Scientists suspect powerful solar flares helped strip away the atmospheres of planets like Mars. A Michigan State University researcher is now searching for evidence of how those […]
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 […]
![O2–O2 CIA impact on reflected-light spectra. Top: modern Earth composition (21 % O2). Bottom: otherwise identical O2-dominated composition (78 % O2), with N2 adjusted to keep total surface pressure fixed.[astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Distinguishing.png?resize=1200%2C721&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Distinguishing N2-Dominated from O2-Dominated Atmospheres on Terrestrial Exoplanets with Reflected-Light Spectroscopy
[astro-ph.EP] Reflected-light spectra of Earth-sized exoplanets promise to probe habitability and biosignatures, but interpreting atmospheric oxygen can be challenging because O2 can arise from both biological and abiotic processes.
![Example of the three input quantities used by the U-Net model. (a) Differential energy fluxes (DEF) of O2 + . (b) Corresponding validity masks (see text for details). (c) Normalized logarithmic energy coordinate. The brackets at the top illustrate the sliding input windows, each containing 512 time samples × 32 energy bins × 3 input channels. Consecutive windows overlap by 90%, corresponding to a shift of approximately 51 samples. -- [physics.space-ph]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/deep.png?resize=1200%2C717&ssl=1)
Posted inMars
Deep-Learning Identification and Global Characterization of Energetic O2+ Beams at Mars
[physics.space-ph] Martian ionospheric ions can be accelerated away from Mars by the solar wind, contributing substantially to atmospheric ion escape.
Posted inMars
Advancing Methane Detection Technology For Future Mars Missions
[Canadian Space Agency]. The presence of methane on Mars could provide important clues about the red planet’s past and present, including whether it may once have supported life. By studying […]
![Atmospheric evolution with and without a post-disk giant impact. Panel 1: The common initial state for a rocky planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Panels 2a–4a: A giant impact deposits energy into the mantle and core, but the increase in gravitational binding energy dominates, allowing the planet to retain its hydrogen-rich atmosphere and evolve into a sub-Neptune (1.75−3.5 R⊕). Panels 2b–4b: In the absence of such an impact, the planet is less massive, loses its primordial atmosphere under sustained stellar irradiation, and becomes a super-Earth (1−1.75 R⊕). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Retention.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inImpact events
Retention Of Primordial Atmospheres Through Giant Impacts
[astro-ph.EP] Rocky planets the size of Earth or larger are expected to undergo one or more giant impacts during the final stages of their formation.
![Instantaneous zonally-averaged vertical cross-section of H2S (left) and HS (right). The black contour on the left panel corresponds to the bottom and top altitudes of the clouds (Ignatiev et al., 2009; Titov et al., 2018).-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/The-impact.png?resize=1200%2C560&ssl=1)
Posted inVenus
The Impact Of The Sulfur Allotropes And Sulfur Hydrides On The Venus Cloud Chemistry
[astro-ph.EP] Venus is home to vivid sulfur chemistry, with SO2 as the major sulfur gas species and a global cloud layer between 47 and~70 km composed of H2SO4 and H2O. […]
Posted inLava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds
Shiny Lava Planet Challenges Astronomers’ Expectations
[University of Birmingham] Astronomers have discovered that a rocky lava planet once thought to be too extreme to have any atmosphere appears to be wrapped in a reflective layer of […]