March 2025 – My WordPress Site

Rosalind Franklin landing on Mars -- ESA

Away Teams & Field Reports, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Planetary Protection & Biosafety, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Tricorders & Sensors

ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Astrobiology Rover Will Have A European Landing Platform

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 31, 2025

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Airbus to design and build the landing platform for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. In 2028, ESA will launch this ambitious exploration mission to search for past and present signs of life on Mars.

Astrobiology Away Team on Mars -- Grok via Astrobiology.com

Microgravity, Space Life Science, Space Stations, SPACELINE Current Awareness List

NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,142 28 March 2025 (Space Life Science Research Results)

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 2, 2026

The effects of atmospheric entry on comets’ impact velocity at the surface (left), and remaining mass (right) is shown as a function of initial radius, and velocity for an Earth-like atmosphere (with surface density 1.225 kg m−3 ). For comets that fragment (i.e., with small initial radius), this is given as the (mass-weighted) average velocity, and total mass of fragments that reach the surface. There is a sharp transition in the response to the atmosphere at an initial radius of about 100 m, in agreement with analytical predictions (equation 6). -- astro-ph.EP

Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extinction events, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Impact events, Origin & Evolution of Life

The Atmospheric Entry of Cometary Impactors

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 31, 2025

Relative perturbation of dust density at the midplane of the disk for α = δ = 10−4 (top) and α = δ = 3 × 10−3 (bottom) calculated at t = 100 orbits. Three different planetary masses in the transitional regime (St = 0.26) are considered (see the labels of individual panels). Note, the planet is located at the center of each plot. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

Dust-void Evolution Driven by Turbulent Dust Flux can Induce Runaway Migration of Earth-mass Planets

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 31, 2025

Summary of SFR vs. observed K–band magnitude (proxy for stellar mass) parameter space for different redshift bins in which SPHEREx is able to measure the PAH 3.3 µm emission band (indicated by the light region). The hex-background shows galaxies in the COSMOS field and from SDSS in the given redshift bins color-coded by average stellar mass. -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

The Potential of the SPHEREx Mission for Characterizing PAH 3.3 μm Emission in Nearby Galaxies

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 31, 2025

Indenyl cation - physics.chem-ph

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

Radiative Stabilization of the Indenyl Cation: Recurrent Fluorescence in a Closed-shell Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025March 31, 2025

Summary of the haze properties assumed in the simulations. The left panel shows number density and mean radius of the haze distribution that was used as input in the GCM simulations. The middle panel shows the differential optical depth for soot (solid) and tholin (dashed) hazes at 1 µm (representative for the incoming starlight) and 8 µm (representative for the outgoing thermal radiation) for the nominal haze opacity case. The pressure levels where the optical depth reaches 0.01 (circle), 0.1 (star), and 1 (square) are highlighted. For soot at 1 µm, the optical depth reaches 0.01 at a pressure of 6 · 10−7 bar, outside the pressure range shown. The right panel shows the wavelength-averaged single scattering albedo weighted by the stellar flux. For the “maximally reflective” case, the optical depth is identical to the soot case, but the single scattering albedo is fixed to 0.9999. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy

The Radiative Effects of Photochemical Hazes on the Atmospheric Circulation and Phase Curves of Sub-Neptunes

by Keith CowingMarch 31, 2025May 12, 2025

The Expose-R2 facility on the International Space Station. As part of ESA’s Expose-R2 project, 46 species of bacteria, fungi and arthropods are inside those containers as they spend 18 months bolted to the outside of the International Space Station. The vacuum of space is sucking out the water, oxygen and other gases in the samples. Their temperature can drop to –12°C as the Station passes through Earth’s shadow, rising to 40°C at other times, and undergoing a similar process to the freeze-drying used to preserve foods. The Expose experiments are exploring the limits of terrestrial life, whether the organisms can survive in space and how the full blast of solar radiation is affecting accompanying chemicals. -- ESA (larger image)

Analog Studies, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Microbiology & Virology, Microgravity, Missions & Hardware, Panspermia, Planetary Protection & Biosafety, Space Stations, Tricorders & Sensors

ISS Astrobiology Research: Photochemical Evolution of Alanine in Association with the Martian Soil Analog Montmorillonite

by Keith CowingMarch 30, 2025March 30, 2025

Oxygen produced by cyanobacteria may have created the conditions for green seas in the Archaean era (1.8 - 3 billion years ago) (Credit: Takashi Tsujino)

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Microbiology & Virology, Origin & Evolution of Life, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Were Earth’s Blue Oceans Once Green?

by Keith CowingMarch 30, 2025March 30, 2025

Scattered-light images of our generic model at two different inclinations (grazing angle and edge-on). Images at 3.0 µm are shown with a logarithmic color scale. -- astro-ph.EP

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

The Role Of Absorption And Scattering In Shaping Ice Bands. Spatially-resolved Spectroscopy Of Protoplanetary Disks

by Keith CowingMarch 30, 2025March 30, 2025