October 2025 – My WordPress Site

Schematic of episodic atmospheric collapse and regeneration through impacts for a tidally locked planet. A) The planet has a volatile rich atmosphere which redistributes heat from the day- to the nightside. B) Atmospheric escape thins the atmosphere, heat redistribution becomes less efficient, nightside temperatures drop. C) Nightside temperatures have reached the volatile condensation temperature, the atmosphere collapses. D) Volatiles outgassed through volcanism or magma ocean pockets accumulate on the nightside as ice. E) An impactor hits the nightside and vaporises ice and rock. Hot vapour, ejecta, and silicate rain further vaporise the nightside ice sheets (see Section 2.2 for details). An atmosphere is regenerated. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extinction events, Impact events

Atmospheric Collapse And re-inflation Through Impacts For Terrestrial Planets Around M Dwarfs

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2025October 31, 2025

Detection of an atmosphere around a terrestrial exoplanet will be a major milestone in the field, but our observational capacities are biased towards to tidally locked, close-in planets orbiting M-dwarf stars.

ReplicationBench evaluates AI agents on end-to-end astrophysics research paper replication. For each paper, we supply the manuscript, dataset, and execution metadata, and a complete set of author-written tasks. We evaluate LLM agents in multi-turn code execution environments and conduct both automatic and expert human grading of traces. -- cs.CL

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Citizen Science / Open Science, Education and Outreach, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History

ReplicationBench: Can AI Agents Replicate Astrophysics Research Papers?

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2025October 31, 2025

Maps of average lensing parameters of simulated microlensing events due to different BFFPs over the 2D space log10[s(AU)]−log10[Mtot(M⊕)]. Here, Fi and Fw are fractions of simulated microlensing events due to BFFPs with intermediate and wide caustic topologies, respectively. ρ? shows the source radius projected on the lens plane and normalized to the Einstein radius, Lc is a length scale for caustic curves, ∆c represents the caustic area, τ is a time scale for microlensing events due to BFFPs, and P is the orbital period of binary lenses. -- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Astronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy

On the Detection of Binary Free-Floating Planets in the Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2025October 31, 2025

We show the total surface flooding for a given topography as a function of Mg/Si and FeO for a 1 M⊕ planet with Earth-like molar ratios (i.e., Fe/Mg, Ca/Mg, Al/Mg). We use cubic interpolation between data points for smoothing. The colorbar indicates the surface flooding in Earth oceans. We show the compositions of solar system planets with the following notation: Earth (⊕), Venus (♀), Mars (♂), Mercury ('), using compositional values from R. G. Trønnes et al. (2019). (A) Earth-like topography shows three distinct ”islands” correspond to the increase in water storage capacity. (B) Venus-like and (C) Mars-like topographies show similar structure in the water coverage fraction. (D) Mercury-like topography reaches complete flooding at low OM. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

From Underground Oceans To Continents: A Glimpse Into The Water Inventory On Rocky Planets Using Host Star Abundances

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2025October 31, 2025

Computational models of an R-substituted poly (phosphoric sulfonic ester). 1) S4-symmetric cyclic tetramer. 2) Hypothetical monomer unit, analogous to an amino acid in our comparison with polypeptides. -- QRB Discovery

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Venus

On The Possibility Of Carbon-free Heteropolymers On Venus: A Computational Astrobiology Study

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2025October 31, 2025

An image depicting the transformation of a sub-Neptune exoplanet from a hydrogen-rich world into a water world. Image courtesy of Dan Shim/ASU

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Where Water Comes From: A New Clue From Alien Worlds

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025October 30, 2025

Allan Hills, 2022-2023. Photo by Julia Marks Peterson, COLDEX.

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Icy Worlds

Six-million-year-old Ice Discovered In Antarctica Offers Unprecedented Window Into A Warmer Earth

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025

Atomic numbering of a C25 carbon molecule. -- Nanomaterials (Basel) via PubMed

Astrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

An Ab Initio Metadynamics Study Reveals Multiple Mechanisms of Reactivity by a Primal Carbon Cluster Toward Hydrogen and Ammonia in Space

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025

The colours indicate the temperature and transparency indicates the relative contribution to the overall observed flux at the point of maximum visibility, based on the angle between a given point on the map and the line of sight to the observer. A maximum contribution of 1 indicates a latitude/longitude that is at the sub-observer point at some point during the observations. The dashed black curves delineate the three regions identified by the Eigenspectra mapping method. Evidence of multidimensional atmospheric structure can be seen in the varying hotspot temperature and shape with wavelength. -- Cornell University

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

3D Maps Bring Exoplanets Into Focus

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025October 30, 2025

This sweeping view along a rusty red ridge and into a crater showcases the exquisite beauty of icy, layered terrain in the south polar region on Mars. Larger image -- ESA

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains & Lava Tubes, Desert Worlds, Icy Worlds, Mars

A Look At The Icy Terrain In The South Polar Region Of Mars

by Keith CowingOctober 30, 2025October 30, 2025