Interstellar Updates

 

These are items of interest to the interstellar exploration community that we’ve found in our quest for information that will help us advance toward our goals.  If you know of anything we’ve overlooked, or any sources of such information we should monitor, or if you would like to be added to our IRG-updates mailing list and receive these updates in you email every weekday, please send that information to info@irg.space.

You can now search our database of interstellar updates and find items of interest to you.

April 29, 2026 Updates

Machine Learning as a Transformative Tool for (Exo-)Planetary Science
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.09152

PEEPSS: Photonic-Enabled ExoPlanet Spectroscopic Sensor for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23126

ORCHARD: A General Planetary Evolution Code
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24845

RSCL Earth Lookback Simulator: A Real-Time Multi-Physics Framework for Relativistic Signal Propagation from Confirmed Milky Way Exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24988

Impact of segmented deformable mirrors on high-contrast testbeds for exoplanet imaging with future large space telescopes: contrast stability assessment on the HiCAT bench
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.25675

Dust evolution during protoplanetary disk buildup enhances CO ice relative to water
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/05/aa59169-26/aa59169-26.html

Oxygen left behind: Atmospheric Enrichment due to Fractionation in Sub-Neptunes using BOREAS
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12201

Uncovering the Rapidly Evolving Orbits of the Dynamic TOI-201 System
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23929

A Theoretical Study of the Structure and Elemental Abundances of HD 20794
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24596

Exploring the Impact of Tilted Magnetic Dipoles on the Atmospheric Dynamics of Hot Jupiters: Towards an Improved Magnetohydrodynamic Framework
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.25043

Exploring the conditions for forming planetesimals by the streaming instability and planetary systems by pebble accretion
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.25816

Exploring the surface of HD 189733 via Doppler shadow analysis of planetary transits
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/05/aa57655-25/aa57655-25.html

Constraining exotrojans in hot-Jupiter systems using transit timing variation observations from TESS
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/05/aa57704-25/aa57704-25.html

April 28th 2026 Updates

Beyond Energy: An Epistemological Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Based on the TSDC-IDS Framework
https://www.academia.edu/146222382/Beyond_Energy_An_Epistemological_Search_for_Extraterrestrial_Intelligence_Based_on_the_TSDC_IDS_Framework

Investigating interstellar dust along the line of sight of GX 13+1 using different dust size distributions
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24570

The formation of circumbinary planets through disc fragmentation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24420

Diffusion-based Galaxy Simulations for the Roman High Latitude Survey
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22917

April 27, 2026 Updates

SIMTERFERE: An optical interferometry simulator for quantifying the coherent flux stability of VLTI/GRAVITY+
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa58691-25/aa58691-25.html

The asymmetric structure of the inner disc around HD 142527 A with VLTI/MATISSE
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa56795-25/aa56795-25.html

Discovery of planetary-mass binaries in the Lower Centaurus-Crux association
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa47673-23/aa47673-23.html

A simulation study of detecting exomoons using the Earth 2.0 (ET) mission
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa58332-25/aa58332-25.html

Turbulence destroys thermal lobes around Mars-sized planetary embryos
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa58842-26/aa58842-26.html

Hunting for methanol in the water-rich, planet-forming disk around HL Tau
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/04/aa58485-25/aa58485-25.html

Predictions of New Horizons’ Termination Shock Crossing
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117726005612

No Strong Associations between Eccentricity and Orbital Architecture in Kepler Compact Multis
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae579e

Decoding Transit Variations: Disentangling Satellites from Planets through Numerical Modulation
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag761/8662144

A seeing measurement device for the PoET solar telescope
https://academic.oup.com/rasti/advance-article/doi/10.1093/rasti/rzag028/8662576

The formation of circumbinary planets through disc fragmentation
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/548/3/stag476/8661676

Signature of iron line profile from a Kerr-like wormhole
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22268

April 24, 2026 Updates

Coupled orbital and interior structure evolution of lava planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18682

Toward Inferring the Surface Fluxes of Biosignature Gases on Rocky Exoplanets from Telescope Spectra
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21848

Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20910

Orbital evolution of highly eccentric bodies embedded in a ringed accretion disc
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21136

MINDS: Intertwined evolution of dust and gas in large planet-forming disks. A diversity driven by halted pebble drift?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21803

Spectral Kernel Dynamics for Planetary Surface Graphs: Distinction Dynamics and Topological Conservation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20887

Chaos Gated Tunneling Drives Molecular Reactivity in Astrophysical Environments
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21005

Three-dimensional transport-induced chemistry on temperate sub-Neptune K2-18b, Part II: the combined effects of atmospheric dynamics and chemical reactions
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07987