![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 […]
Habitable Zone
Posted inPLATO
Measuring Masses Of Transiting Earth-like Planets: First Insights From The PLATO RV Data Challenge
[astro-ph.EP] The PLATO Stellar Variability Mitigation Working Group designed a radial-velocity (RV) data challenge to assess the precision and accuracy achievable on RV semi-amplitudes in the context of the future […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
The First Selection Of Optimal Targets For The Lazuli ExtraSolar Coronagraph’s Reflected Starlight Exoplanet Campaign
[astro-ph.EP] Direct detection and characterization of exoplanet atmospheres via reflected starlight enables probes of composition of mature exoplanet systems (since flux is decoupled from age) at closer separations than via […]
![Current ALMA can detect the rich chemistry within the snowline around higher-mass stars, with an example spectrum shown in the top panel. For Sun-like stars, mapping across the CO snowline only ( > ∼ 10 au) is currently possible, which corresponds to the giant planet formation zone. The step changes in spatial resolution and sensitivity provided by ALMA2040 will allow us to detect and map the composition of terrestrial-planet-building material around Sun-like stars. Data from Qi et al. (2013), Andrews et al. (2016), and Booth et al. (2024a). -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Chemistry-on.png?resize=1200%2C716&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Chemistry On Solar System Scales
[astro-ph.IM]. The initial chemical composition of planets, primitive bodies in our solar system, and exoplanets is ultimately set by their nascent protoplanetary disks.
Posted inHabitable Zones
A Hydrogen Atmosphere Could Keep Exomoons Habitable For Billions Of Years
[Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics] Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun.
ScienceKind: Anomalous Variability with Space Telescopes
Speaker: Ann Marie Cody, research scientist, SETI Institute Carl Sagan Center When: Wednesday 9 December 2026, 9:30am Pacific, 12:30pm Eastern, 5:30pm UK Where: online, Zoom Webinars. Free. Register at www.sciencekind.com […]
ScienceKind: The Search for another Earth: Ravi Kumar Kopparapu
Speaker: Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, planetary scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center When: Wednesday 28 October 2026, 9:30am Pacific, 12:30pm Eastern, 4:30pm UK (the UK clocks change a week before the […]
![[Left]: A concept raytrace showing the IFS, with just the FUV channels shown. The NUV channels take the zero-order from each FUV grating and reflect it towards the IFS fold mirror (on either side) into a similar format NUV IFS (see Haughton et al., 2026 for a depiction of the INFUSE design that this IFS is based on13). The IFS assembly is forward (out of the page) from the MOS at the focal plane, with the IFS fold mirror canted slightly to move the slicer, gratings, and detectors over 0.7 meters from the MOS optical path. [Right]: The slicer-based IFS operates by reflecting portions of the image plane to different gratings, which then focus a spectrogram to a unique portion of the detector. In essence, each reflective slice operates like a long-slit spectrograph, with the slicer geometry separating the multi-slit spectrograph to avoid spectral confusion.-- astro-ph.IM](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/An-Ultraviolet.png?resize=1200%2C563&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes
An Ultraviolet Instrument On The Habitable Worlds Observatory: Considerations and Capability Trades On The Multi-Object, Integral-field, and High-resolution Modes Of A Potential UVI
[astro-ph.IM] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s next-generation astrophysics platform, delivering transformative capability in the search for life and study of the origins of the universe.
![A heterotrophic ecosystem enabled by fermentation on Enceladus. [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Fermentation.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inEnceladus
Fermentation Heterotrophy Can Reproduce Enceladus’s H2 And CH4 Under Limited Serpentinization
[astro-ph.EP] Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth. Abundant H2 and CH4 in Enceladus’s south-polar plume have been shown to be consistent […]
![Overview of the thermodynamic modeling workflow used in this study and Madan and Pearce (2025). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Prebiotic-Chemistry.png?resize=1200%2C714&ssl=1)
Posted inTitan
Prebiotic Chemistry In Selk Crater on Titan
[astro-ph.EP] Saturn’s moon Titan is a prime destination for investigating prebiotic chemistry beyond Earth, particularly at impact crater sites where transient liquid water may have enabled aqueous reactions between organic […]