September 2022 – Page 5 – My WordPress Site

NAS Report: Origins, Worlds, and Life A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Nanotechnology & SynBio

Star Light Simulator Illuminates The Search For Life Around The Milky Way’s Most Common Stars

by Keith CowingSeptember 20, 2022December 13, 2022

Mass-radius diagram showing confirmed planets with mass uncertainties < 20% in grey circles, with TOI-544 b shown as the black circle. Left: the coloured tracks show different potential planet compositions from Zeng et al. (2019), assuming a planetary equilibrium temperature of 1000 K. The dashed lines show compositions of an Earth-like rocky core surrounded by a layer of H-He in varying percentages by mass, the solid lines show water world compositions with varying water mass fractions, the dotted lines show rocky and Earth-like rocky compositions. TOI-544 b is closest to the tracks with 100% H2O and 50% H2O with 50% rock. Right: the same as the left panel but the the dashed lines show compositions of an Earth-like rocky core surrounded by a layer of H-He in varying percentages by mass from Lopez & Fortney (2014) using the models for a 10Gyr planet, with solar metalicity and flux of 10F⊕, the solid lines show compositions from Aguichine et al. (2021) of irradiated ocean worlds with varying water mass fractions, and the dotted lines show the same rocky and Earth-like rocky compositions from Zeng et al. (2019). TOI-544 b is closest to models with either 30% water mass fraction, or a rocky core with a Hydrogen envelope of between 0.5 - 1%. The data is downloaded from the NASA Exoplanet Archive. -- astro-ph.EP

Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Enceladus, Habitable Zones, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

New Evidence For Habitability In Enceladus’ Ocean

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022September 19, 2022

TESS observations of TOI-904. Panel (a): Raw observations of each TESS sector, with 2-minute data shown in light grey and 10-minute binned data shown in dark grey. We show the Tukey biweight trend calculated with the wotan (Hippke et al. 2019) library of the variability is shown in dark blue. Each planet transit is denoted by an arrow at the bottom of the graph, with blue denoting transits of TOI-904 b and gold denoting transits TOI-904 c. Panel (b): TESS data detrended by the same fit, with each transit high-lighted in the same color as the arrows in the previous figure. Panel (c): The phase folded light curves of transits of TOI-904 b with the transit fit including a shaded region denoting 1σ uncertainty. Panel (d): The phase-folded light curves of TOI-904 c with the transit fit including a shaded region denoting 1σ uncertainty. -- astro-ph.EP

Planetary Protection & Biosafety

Planetary Protection Considerations For Missions to Solar System Small Bodies

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022September 19, 2022

Schematic for reactions in space occurring in the gas phase (top), and on the surface of grains (bottom). -- NASA

SETI & Technosignatures

Constraints On Extragalactic Transmitters Via Breakthrough Listen

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022September 19, 2022

Individual components of our 3-planet RV model of TOI-1266 and corresponding GLS periodograms. From top to bottom: the raw LBL RVs, stellar RV activity, TOI-1266 b, TOI-1266 c, the planet candidate TOI-1266 d, and the residuals. The residuals do not show any evidence for unaccounted periodicities in the GLS. The vertical shaded regions in the left column highlight each TESS sector’s observing window (annotated at the top) and reveals where we have contemporaneous TESS and spectroscopic observations. Similarly, the vertical dashed lines highlight the epochs of our ground-based transit observations of either TOI-1266 b or c, using the ARCTIC and WIRC cameras. The vertical dashed lines in the right column depict the orbital periods of the transiting TOI-1266 planets, the candidate planet d, and the stellar rotation period inferred from our 𝐻 𝛼 time series. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

The Kinematics And Excitation Of Infrared Wwater Vapor Emission From Planet-forming Disks: Results From Spectrally-resolved Surveys And Guidelines For JWST Spectra

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022

Galileo imagery of Earth -- Carl Sagan et al / NASA /Nature

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, TRAPPIST-1

SPECULOOS Northern Observatory: Searching For Red Worlds In The Northern Skies

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022September 19, 2022

A Miniature Magnetic Resonance Imager Made Of Diamond

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mars

First Infrared Spectra Of Mars Taken By The Webb Space Telescope

by Keith CowingSeptember 19, 2022September 19, 2022

Analog Studies, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

Variability Due To Climate And Chemistry In Observations Of Oxygenated Earth-analogue Exoplanets

by Keith CowingSeptember 18, 2022September 18, 2022

The cyanobacterial strains retain photosynthetic pigments in the biocoatings. Visualization of the cyanobacteria Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 (A), Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (B), and Chroococcidiopsis cubana PCC 7433 (C) by means of their pigments using CLSM. Chlorophyll a fluoresces red, whereas the degradation of chlorophyll a reveals the secondary pigments fluorescing green. Bacterial cultures were either visualized untreated (viable controls) or heat-killed (killed controls). Biocoatings containing halloysite (LH) were visualized immediately after rehydration. Most of the bacterial cells within the biocoatings appeared red, which means that they contained chlorophyll a, as did the viable controls. -- ASM Journals

Europa, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Mars, Microgravity, Space Stations, Tricorders & Sensors

Tricorder Tech: Nanopore Sequencing at Mars, Europa and Microgravity Conditions

by Keith CowingSeptember 18, 2022January 4, 2025

Comparison between the observed data (red) and the model (blue) with Teff , log g , and metallicity of 3200 K, 5.0 dex and −0.5 dex, respectively. The Top panel shows some alpha elements (e.g., Ti I and Mg I) as well as several isolated and blended Fe I lines. The middle panel shows the Na I doublet frequently used in several studies as metallicity indicators of M dwarfs. The bottom panel shows numerous absorption features of the CO band head starting around 2.29 µm (red dashed lines). -- astro-ph.EP

Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Mars, Microbiology & Virology, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Quantifying The Bioavailable Energy In An Ancient Hydrothermal Vent On Mars And A Modern Earth-based Analogue

by Keith CowingSeptember 18, 2022September 16, 2022