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.

March 19, 2026 updates

Can cyanide radicals drive molecular backbone growth on interstellar icy grains?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15138

Infrared spectra of methane-containing ice mixtures for JWST data analyses
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58069-25/aa58069-25.html

The gas-phase nitridation processes of large, astronomically relevant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons cations in the interstellar medium
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58396-25/aa58396-25.html

Broadband infrared spectroscopy of methanol isotopologues in pure, H2O-rich, and CO-rich ice analogues
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa57702-25/aa57702-25.html

Searching for Molecular Signatures in 14 Transiting Exoplanets with SPIRou
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17574

Spin crossover in FeO under shock compression
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17136

AMKID: A large KID-based camera at the APEX telescope
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58596-25/aa58596-25.html

Scale-Aware Navigation of Astronomical Survey Imagery Data on High Resolution Immersive Displays
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17337

An Analysis of Large Astronomical Detector Controller Systems and Implications for Future ESO Detector Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17389

Stellar characterization with photometric colors from J-PLUS and 2MASS surveys
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17083

Revealing the Spectral Properties of Galactic Interstellar Medium by Survey Observations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17464

Planetesimal formation via the streaming instability persists under turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17195

How initial disc conditions sculpt the atmospheric composition of giant planets
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa56632-25/aa56632-25.html

Stars stably accreting from substellar objects
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17039

Precise determination of circumstellar disk lifetimes
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa54921-25/aa54921-25.html

The ESO SupJup Survey IX. Isotopic evidence of a recent formation for Luhman 16AB
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58089-25/aa58089-25.html

Trajectory Stability and Signature Diagnostics for Comet-Based Interstellar Navigation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16982

March 18, 2026 updates

A chemical perspective on planet formation in reduced systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15955

Experimental evidence for granular shear-flow instability in the Epstein regime
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15810

Kepler-56: A Case Study of Planetary Cannibalism around an Evolved Star
https://zenodo.org/records/19059786

Dayside Clouds and an Elevated C/O Ratio in the Atmosphere of the Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-19b
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02797

GEMS JWST: A sub-Solar metallicity atmosphere for giant planet TOI-5293Ab orbiting a rapidly changing M-dwarf
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16464

Bottom-up Formation of Phenol (C6H5OH) in Interstellar Analog Ices of Acetylene and Water Exposed to Ionizing Radiation
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae48fa

BOWIE-ALIGN: Exploring degeneracies in the muted transmission spectrum of the aligned hot Jupiter NGTS-2b with NIRSpec/G395H
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag528/8527737

A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41550-026-02791-z

Inferring the mass and size of 3I/ATLAS from its non-gravitational acceleration
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15735

Design of high thermal stability achromatic coherent-dispersion spectrometer
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0030401826002786

A Catalogue of Orbital Periods of Cataclysmic Variables and Candidates from TESS Observations
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag514/8524018

Explainable machine learning workflows for radio astronomical data processing
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16350

March 17, 2026 updates

Exploring the surface of HD 189733 via Doppler shadow analysis of planetary transits
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13463

Dust traps and gas kinematic signatures in a crescent structure of a planet-forming disk
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13510

The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems. VIII. Molecular Mapping Performance with JWST/MIRI MRS: VHS 1256 b as a case study
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13543

Mass Production of 2023 KMTNet Microlensing Planets. II: Two Planets and A Brown Dwarf
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13887

A user-friendly package and workflow for generating effective homogeneous rheologies for the study of the long-term orbital evolution of multilayered planetary bodies
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14444

Constraining Small Planet Compositions for Future Missions
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14552

A Panchromatic JWST Spectrum of a Giant Starspot on the Fully Convective M-dwarf TOI-3884
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15414

March 16, 2026 updates

Confirmation of the hot super-Neptune TOI-672 b with NIRPS and HARPS and Insights into the Neptunian desert around M dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12345

Long-term monitoring of WASP-19 b: Signs of apsidal precession and molecular signatures
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12395

Bridging the Gap: Using Brown Dwarfs to Examine Silicate Clouds in Giant Exoplanet Atmospheres
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12479

Hot Jupiter – Cold Jupiter: A complex sibling relation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12568

Bolometric corrections of stellar oscillation mode amplitudes as observed by the PLATO mission. I. Planck-spectrum estimates
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.12750

exoALMA. XXI. The Morphology and Dynamics of Vertical Flows
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ae360e

exoALMA XXII: A Two-dimensional Atlas of Deviations from Keplerian Disks
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13015

Impact of stellar spots on the high-resolution transmission spectra of a giant planet around a Sun-like star
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13075

exoALMA. XXIV. Formaldehyde Emission in Protoplanetary Disks of exoALMA Compared with Their Properties and Dynamical State
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13081

exoALMA XXIII. Estimating Disk and Planet Properties from Dust Morphologies with DBNets2.0
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13149

exoALMA XX: Tomographic Detection of Embedded Planets in Protoplanetary Disks
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13157

Connecting JWST Silicate Cloud Observations to Exoplanet Cloud Microphysics with Nimbus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13167

Ortho-Para Chemistry of H2CO in the Protoplanetary Disk TW Hya
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13172

Eccentric and cool: A high-spectral-resolution view of 51 Eri b with VLT/HiRISE
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/03/aa58862-26/aa58862-26.html

Visibility graph approach to characterize planetary transit signatures: A case study on OGLE IV data
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S138410762600031X

Incorporating an exopsychological biocentric contact-willingness factor into the Drake Equation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576526001918

Strong deflection gravitational lensing by non-exotic traversable wormholes in King and Dekel-Zhao dark matter halos under gravity
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000349162600093X

Mining the Kepler Field: Atmospheric Parameters, Bolometric Corrections, and Luminosities
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ae4fb6

Worlds Next Door. III. Indirect Evidence for Enhanced Atmospheric Metallicity and/or the Presence of Water Clouds in the Nearest Jupiter-analog epsilon Eri b
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae4909

Possible Stratospheric Emission in the Warm Neptune GJ 436 b from High-resolution Spectroscopy
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae47fa

JWST Spectral Retrieval of Cold Directly Imaged Planet WD 0806 b and the First Measurement of Altitude-dependent Kzz in Exoplanet Atmospheres
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae4747

Multibandpass Photometry for Exoplanet Atmosphere Reconnaissance (MPEAR) with the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). I. Differentiating Earth from Neptunes during Discovery
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ae4597

sponchpop: Population synthesis to investigate volatile sulfur as a fingerprint of gas giant formation histories
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag499/8519293

Detection of 27 Candidate Circumbinary Planets Through Apsidal Precession of Eclipsing Binaries Observed by TESS
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag515/8524019

March 13, 2026 updates

Searching for Life-As-We-Don’t-Know-It: Mission-relevant Application of Assembly Theory for Exoplanet Life Detection
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08780

The ocean worlds science case for the Pollux spectropolarimeter
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11112

Atmospheric Escape Rates from Mars – If it Orbited an Old M-Dwarf Star
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11561

Masses of Potentially Habitable Planets Characterized by the Habitable Worlds Observatory
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11146

Cold giant discoveries from a joint radial-velocity and astrometry framework
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11202

Islands of Electromagnetic Tranquility in Our Galactic core and Little Red Dots that Shelter Molecules and Prebiotic Chemistry
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17484

Stars in the neighborhood of Sagittarius A* follow primary centric framework
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11038-026-09582-6

Searching for Exotrojans in Pulsar Systems
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae4317

Carbonated Chondrites during Giant Impacts
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae4488

Probing the photoabsorption features and electronic excited states of propylene oxide: an experimental and theoretical study
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/cp/d6cp00031b

Bottom-up Formation of Phenol (C6H5OH) in Interstellar Analog Ices of Acetylene and Water Exposed to Ionizing Radiation
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae48fa