Gaia Archives

The relative sizes of the three known planets in the HD 63433 system, with the young Earth-like planet with a lava surface closest to the star. The other two planets are mini-Neptunes. CREDIT Ben Capistrant

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release

Young Earth-like Planet With Lava Oceans

by Keith CowingFebruary 27, 2024February 27, 2024

Astronomers have discovered an extreme Earth-like planet that likely hosts lava oceans as it roasts next to its sun-like star near the Big Dipper constellation.

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum recorded in marine sediments, nitrogen isotopes and body size of microfossils reveal an increase in the oxygenation of the tropical ocean. The magnifier shows the foraminifera fossils. International Ocean Discovery Program and Simone Moretti

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Searching For Clues In The History Book Of Earth’s Oceans

by Keith CowingFebruary 16, 2024February 16, 2024

Oxygen is fundamental to sustaining life on Earth. The ocean gets its oxygen from its uppermost layers in contact with the atmosphere. As our planet continues to warm, the ocean […]

"Planetary Commons" needed to Safeguard Earth's Critical Systems CREDIT University of Lincoln

Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Societal Issues

Researchers Propose A Paradigm Shift With Planetary Commons To Safeguard Earth’s Critical Systems

by Keith CowingJanuary 24, 2024January 23, 2024

A groundbreaking research paper, published this week in the renowned journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), challenges conventional notions of global commons and advocates for a more […]

Number of generic extinctions per century among in different classes of vertebrates. The low number of reptiles and amphibia, which underestimate the magnitude of extinction pattern, is probably the result of the lack of information in earlier centuries, where very few species had been described. The dotted line represent the background extinction rate. PNAS

Extinction events, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Press Release

Human-driven Mass Extinction Is Eliminating Entire Branches Of The Tree Of Life

by Keith CowingDecember 11, 2023

The passenger pigeon. The Tasmanian tiger. The Baiji, or Yangtze river dolphin. These rank among the best-known recent victims of what many scientists have declared the sixth mass extinction, as […]

Illustration of the modeling combination between a Genome-Scale Model (GSM), i.e., Prochlorococcus MED4 GSM, and an Earth Systems Model (ESM), i.e., NEMO-PISCES, and comparison between growth rates estimated from ESM and GSM. a |From a metabolic network, we defined a solution space embedding all possible fluxes that go through each network reaction. These fluxes satisfy the quasi-steady states assumption and other thermodynamic constraints defined in the GSM. This set of constraints (C1) is defined as biotic constraints, and they affect inner reactions, as well as exchange reactions responsible for the uptake or secretion of nutrients, and a biomass reaction simulating the growth of the organism (color scale similar to panel d., see Appendix 1 for details). b |Earth Systems Models predict global ocean biogeochemistry across space and time. Here the ESM provides uptake fluxes of nutrients for each grid point for each modeled organism. In our framework, these uptake values are used as a set of constraints (C2) on the exchange reactions of the GSM. These are defined as the set of abiotic constraints that are applied in the model. c |C1 and C2 are combined to constrain further exchanged metabolite fluxes at each grid point of the global ocean. As a result, we can estimate the organismal growth rate and all feasible inner fluxes corresponding to a given environment as proposed by the ESM. d |Description of growth rates (h−1) at 5 m depth estimated from NEMO-PISCES picophytoplankton (top) and Prochlorococcus MED4 GSM (bottom). The dashed line shows the transect described in the following panel. e |Distribution of respective growth rates across latitudes and depths at longitude -24o. Grey areas indicate latitudes that do not allow Prochlorococcus MED4 growth because of thermal limits; the GSM does not consider them. The relationship between growth rates across space (above 500 m) and time (i.e., without gray areas) shows R2:0.80 and slope: 0.787 (see Extended Fig. 11). -- biorxiv.org

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Modeling Genome-scale Knowledge In Earth’s Global Ocean

by Keith CowingDecember 4, 2023December 3, 2023

Editor’s note: As we make plans to do orbital and surface sorties on other worlds searching for life it is certainly useful to use Earth and its diverse biota as […]

Analog Studies, Away Teams & Field Reports, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Status Report

Planetary Scale Assay Of Earth Life: The Monarch Initiative In 2024: An Analytic Platform Integrating Phenotypes, Genes And Diseases Across Species

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 2, 2023

Editor’s note: As we make plans to do orbital and surface sorties on other worlds searching for life it is certainly useful to use Earth and its diverse biota as […]

One possible unfolding of the SBS game with N = 25 and M = 6. At t = 1 we have our initial ensemble, at t = 2 we have removed all the 1s, at t = 3 we remove all the 2s etc. -- q-bio.PE

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Biophysics, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

Does Gaia Play Dice?: Simple Models Of Non-Darwinian Selection

by Keith CowingNovember 23, 2023November 22, 2023

In this paper we introduce some simple models, based on rolling dice, to explore mechanisms proposed to explain planetary habitability.

Tropical rainforest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, near the site of the study. Credit: Marcos Guerra, STRI via NSF

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Plant Biology, Press Release

New Research Suggests Plants Might Be Able To Absorb More CO2 From Human Activities Than Previously Expected

by Keith CowingNovember 19, 2023November 19, 2023

New research published today in leading international journal Science Advances paints an uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet. This is because more realistic ecological modelling suggests the world’s plants may […]

Because of Kepler ’s poor sensitivity to habitable zone planets (around any star), the current sample does not offer evidence to support M dwarfs hosting more Earth-sized planets than FGK stars at habitable zone instellations. Top: The number of Earth-sized ([0.5, 1.5] R⊕) Kepler planet candidates orbiting M (solid blue), K (dashed orange), G (dot-dashed green) or F (dotted red) dwarf stars as a function of instellation. The shaded grey region denotes the regime where there are no detections of Earth-sized planets around F type stars, such that FGKM comparisons require models and/or extrapolations. Bottom: Earth-sized planet occurrence rates calculated via the reliability-weighted inverse detection efficiency method (Equation 4) over a continuum of habitable zone-width instellation bins. Vertical black dashed line represents the approximate point where the Petigura et al. (2022) occurrence distribution plateaus for [0.5, 0.7] M⊕ stars, indicating the regime where comparisons between spectral types would not be affected by differences in the break points of their power law distributions. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

No Evidence For More Earth-sized Planets In The Habitable Zone of Kepler’s M Versus FGK Stars

by Keith CowingOctober 19, 2023October 19, 2023

Reliable detections of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone remain elusive in the Kepler sample, even for M dwarfs. The Kepler sample was once thought to contain a considerable number […]

Image shows the warmest month average temperature (degrees Celsius) for Earth and the projected supercontinent (Pangea Ultima) in 250 million years, when it would be difficult for almost any mammals to survive. CREDIT University of Bristol

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Extreme Heat Is Likely To Wipe Out Earth’s Mammals In The Distant Future

by Keith CowingSeptember 25, 2023September 25, 2023

A new study shows unprecedented heat is likely to lead to the next mass extinction since the dinosaurs died out, eliminating nearly all mammals in some 250 million years time.