December 2023 – Page 17 – My WordPress Site

A person looks at cap carbonate rocks in South China in 2019. The new study provides a new explanation for dramatic global environmental changes that led to their formation. Credit Yarong Liu

Commercial & Private Sector, Exploration Gear & Tech, Missions & Hardware, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Space Life Science, Space Stations

Offworld Life Science Research: Jasmin Moghbeli Works On The BioFabrication Facility

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 3, 2023

The skies above the Amazon are almost always churning with clouds and storms, making the basin one of the most difficult places for scientists to map and monitor. The astronaut photograph above—taken while the International Space Station was over the Brazilian state of Tocantins—captures a common scene from the wet season. Vast pillars of moisture rise via convection and then spread outward into anvil clouds as they collide with the stratosphere. larger image -- NASA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

Experimental Study Of The Binding Energy Of NH3 On Different Types Of Ice And Its Impact On The Snow Line Of NH3 And H2O

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 2, 2023

National Academies Townhall: A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Distribution Of Volatile Elements During Rocky Planet Formation

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 2, 2023

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, TRAPPIST-1

Searching For Biosignature Gases With The James Webb Space Telescope

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 2, 2023

Example image of a single heat map in the stack that makes up the hyperspectral map used in this paper. This map (78 x 78 µm, 2 µm spacing) is of bronzite and has a total of 1600 total hyperspectral points. The map took approximately 7 hours and 21 minutes to complete. The intensity of the signal is set to reflect the intensity of the various points in the map at 1017 cm−1 . The red areas are areas of most intense signal ranging down to purple being the least intense or no signal at the given wavenumber.-- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy

Scaling K2 VII: Evidence For A High Occurrence Rate Of Hot Sub-Neptunes At Intermediate Ages

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2023December 2, 2023

Upper panels: The peak hydrogen envelope mass fraction at the end of accretion, before any mass loss, shown in colour for the slow, medium and fast host star rotators. The time when 90% of the envelope mass is lost due to solar XUV radiation is shown in white contour lines in Myr. Lower panels: The atomic composition of the outgassed atmospheres of the slow, medium and fast rotator simulations at 300 Myr. Values of R/O < 1 (blue) indicate an atmosphere with free oxygen, a value of R/O=1 (green) imply sufficient oxygen to oxidise H to H2O and C to CO2, and values of R/O > 1 (red) indicate reducing conditions (see definition of R/O in equation 8). The white contour lines in the lower panels show a value of R/O = 1.3. The patch of R/O=0 present for the slow rotator is due to the perseverance of the envelope for those high planetary masses even after 300 Myr, with the magma ocean still providing a significant pressure of free oxygen. -- astro-ph.EP

Away Teams & Field Reports, Exploration Gear & Tech, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Missions & Hardware, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Away Team Report: Scientists Locate New Hydrothermal Vent Field Using State-of-the-Art Mapping Technology

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of ISS dust larger image -- Microbiome

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Missions & Hardware

Comet 81P/Wild 2: A Record of the Solar System’s Wild Youth

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023

Europa Clipper -- NASA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life

Meteorites Were A Likely Source Of Nitrogen For Early Earth

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023

Artist’s rendition of variety of exoplanets featured in the new NASA TESS-Keck Survey Mass Catalog, the largest, single, homogenous analysis of TESS planets released by any survey thus far. Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy

Ground-breaking Exoplanet Science With The ANDES Spectrograph At The ELT

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023

Average FLEXPART time-altitude 120-hr backwards simulation for the composite of all 10 flights in 2014 (X axis denotes hours since 10.000 particles -log10 scale- were thrown at 3 h steps from Tokyo; colours denote concentration of particles in the total column from the surface up to 5 km; see Methods). “F” denotes flight days.--PNAS

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Plant Biology

ROP Signaling: Origin At Dawn Of Multicellular Plant Life

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023