![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)
[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 […]
Biosignatures
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
The Epistemic Risk of the 31st Spore: If Planets Aren’t Fine Tuned, We’re Doing Life Detection Wrong
[physics.pop-ph] Exploration of planetary bodies within our solar system will be essential for understanding the origin of life on Earth and the distribution of life in the universe.
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
The Long-term Persistence Of Microbial Biospheres Introduces A Temporal Bias 1 Into The Drake Equation: Implications For The Search For Extraterrestrial Life
[eartharxiv.org] The Drake equation was designed to estimate the number of communicative technological civilisations, not the prevalence of life. Its lifetime term therefore describes a detectable technological phase that may […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
A Dual-mineral Protection Mechanism For Organic Matter Preservation And Its Implications For Mars Habitability And Biosignature Detection
[Communications Earth & Environment] Understanding organic matter preservation in extreme environments is crucial for detecting potential biosignatures on Mars.
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
The Emergence Of Life In The Light Of Evolution
[q-bio.PE] The origin of life is often framed primarily as a chemical problem, yet life s defining feature is evolution.
Posted inTitan
Dragonfly Gets Wired Up While Titan Landing Area Is Named
[NASA]. Peeking into the clean room at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, it might be one of the first things you notice about NASA’s Dragonfly: […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
NASA SMD ROSES-25 Amendment 68: New Opportunity: D.8 Habitable Worlds Observatory Precursor Science Investigations [UPDATE 2]
[NASA]. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a large-aperture ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared observatory concept recommended by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine decadal survey, “Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and […]
Posted inExtremeophiles and Extreme Environments
Microbial Evolution, Biogeochemical Functions, And Environmental Adaptations In A Desert Saline Lake On The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau
[biorxiv.org] The Eboliang Hu saline lakes in the hyper-arid Qaidam Basin is a high-altitude, weakly acidic hypersaline system with strong environmental gradients and limited nitrogen availability.
![Bifurcated best-fit solutions. The noisy generated data is shown with gray error bars. The true spectrum of Earth is in black, while the Earth-like solution and thick- -atmosphere solution are shown in blue and orange, respectively. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Impacts.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Impacts Of Correlated Noise On Retrievals Of Exo-Earth Atmospheres
[astro-ph.EP] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to accomplish high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of true Earth analogs for the first time. However, high-contrast spectroscopy with HWO may be limited by […]
![Best-fit model spectra and residuals for the HWO and LIFE datasets (grey and black data points with error bars). Shaded regions show posterior predictive intervals, and the lower panel shows residuals in units of σ. Bottom: Residual between the data and model as measured by 1-σ uncertainty. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/on-the.png?resize=1200%2C715&ssl=1)
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
On The Impact Of Correlated Noise and Spectral Resolution On The Retrieval Analysis Of The Habitable World Observatory
[astro-ph.EP] Finding signs of life elsewhere in the universe is the holy grail of the field of exoplanets. Future space missions such as the Habitable World Observatory (HWO) are under […]