An international team of scientists have used data collected by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to detect a molecule [1] known as the methyl cation (CH3+) for the first […]
imaging
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Continuous Ultraviolet To Blue-Green Astrocomb
The characterization of Earth-like exoplanets and precision tests of cosmological models using next-generation telescopes such as the ELT will demand precise calibration of astrophysical spectrographs in the visible region, where […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report
Specular Reflections From Artificial Surfaces As Technosignature
Direct imaging of exoplanets will allow us to directly observe the planet in reflected light. Such a scenario may eventually allow for the possibility to scan the planetary surface for […]
Posted inAI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Combining Multi-spectral Data With Statistical And Deep-learning Models For Improved Exoplanet Detection In Direct Imaging At High Contrast
Exoplanet detection by direct imaging is a difficult task: the faint signals from the objects of interest are buried under a spatially structured nuisance component induced by the host star. […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, TRAPPIST-1
Webb Rules Out Thick Carbon Dioxide Atmosphere for Rocky Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c
An international team of researchers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to calculate the amount of heat energy coming from the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c. The result suggests that […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report
Day-night Transport Induced Chemistry And Clouds On WASP-39b I: Gas-phase Composition
JWST has recently detected the first robust photochemical product on an exoplanet: sulfur dioxide (SO2) on WASP-39b (Rustamkulov et al. 2023; Alderson et al. 2023; Tsai et al. 2023b).
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Trade-offs In High-contrast Integral Field Spectroscopy For Exoplanet Detection And Characterisation: Young Gas Giants In Emission
Context: Combining high-contrast imaging with medium- or high-resolution integral field spectroscopy has the potential to boost the detection rate of exoplanets, especially at small angular separations.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Press Release
Webb Detects The Universe’s Most Distant Complex Organic Molecules
Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away from Earth – the most distant galaxy in which these molecules are now known to […]
![Transmission and weighting functions in the longwave TIR (CO2 𝜈2 band at 15 𝜇m, nadir view, Earth’s midlatitude summer (MLS) atmosphere (Anderson et al. 1986), Gaussian response function of half width Γ = 0.25 cm−1 corresponding to a resolution 𝑅 ≈ 2800.). The upper panels show the transmission as a function of wavenumber for several atmospheric paths (right) and transmission vs. altitude (related to path length 𝑠 = 𝑧ToA − 𝑧) for selected wavenumbers (left). The lower panel shows individual weighting functions for selected wavenumbers (left) and a contour plot. Numbers in the left legends indicate the wavenumber [cm−1 ] and the corresponding peak altitude [km] (bottom-left). -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/assessment.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Assessment of a Physics-based Retrieval of Exoplanet Atmospheric Temperatures from Infrared Emission Spectra
Atmospheric temperatures are to be estimated from thermal emission spectra of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting M-stars as observed by current and future planned missions.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
A High-resolution Spectroscopic Analysis Of Aminoacrylonitrile And An Interstellar Search Towards G+0.693
Cyanides, ranging from three carbon atoms to PAHs, and alkenyl compounds are abundant in the interstellar medium (ISM). Aminoacrylonitrile (3-Amino-2-propenenitrile, H2N-CH=CH-CN), an alkenyl cyanide, thus represents a promising candidate for […]