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.

August 29, 2025 Updates

Beyond the Goldilocks Zone: Reconsidering the Ontological Conditions for Interstellar Life
https://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/68a6860536641.pdf

Origins of Life: The Possible and the Actual
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202508.1593/v1

JWST Imaging of Edge-on Protoplanetary Disks. IV. Mid-infrared Dust Scattering in the HH 30 Disk
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad9c6f

XUE: The CO2-rich terrestrial planet-forming region of an externally irradiated Herbig disk
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/09/aa55718-25/aa55718-25.html

The chemistry of the universe
https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/66/4/4.27/8215754

HD 28471: a near-resonant compact multiplanet system with a possible cold giant planet
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf1405/8241365

The Impact of Silicate Grain Coagulation on Millimeter Emission from Massive Protostellar Disks
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adf49c

Population characteristics: Surveys and exoplanet frequencies
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780443214394000043

Sound Velocity and Grüneisen Parameter in Shock-Melted Silica at Deep Earth Pressures
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JB031366

VIPER: A high-resolution multimode fiber-fed VIPA spectrograph concept for characterizing exoplanet atmospheric escape
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20169

Do White Dwarfs Sample Water-Rich Planetary Material?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20172

CONAN: A Python package for modeling lightcurve and radial velocity data of exoplanetary systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20196

The impact of pre-main sequence stellar luminosity on giant planet formation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20291

Diamond-loaded polyimide aerogel scattering filters and their applications in astrophysical and planetary science observations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20406

August 28, 2025 updates

Wow@Home
https://phl.upr.edu/wow/outreach

The importance of the dynamical corotation torque for the migration of low-mass planets – 1D analytical prescriptions verified by 2D hydrodynamical simulations
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/09/aa54620-25/aa54620-25.html

STCTM: a forward modeling and retrieval framework for stellar contamination and stellar spectra
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19297

Communicating astrobiology and the search for life elsewhere: speculations and promises of a developing scientific field in newspapers, press releases and papers
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19984

Evidence of Titanate Clouds in the Day-side Atmosphere of the Ultra-Hot Jupiter WASP-121b
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20022

August 27, 2025 updates

Xenobiology and Alien Chemistry
https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/xenobiology-and-alien-chemistry/

3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1): Direct Spacecraft Exploration of a Possible Relic of Planetary Formation at “Cosmic Noon”
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15768

Study of Cloud Microphysics on the Climate and Observational Prospects of Potentially Habitable Exoplanets
https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/15903?ln=en&v=pdf

WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT): A Gap-clearing Planet in a Multi-ringed Disk around the Young Solar-type Star WISPIT 2
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf721

Wide Separation Planets in Time (WISPIT): Discovery of a Gap Hα Protoplanet WISPIT 2b with MagAO-X
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf7a5

Scaling K2. VIII. Short-period Sub-Neptune Occurrence Rates Peak Around Early-type M Dwarfs
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/adf633

Detecting Land with Reflected-light Spectroscopy to Rule Out Waterworld O2 Biosignature False Positives
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adec69

Effects of Outer Giant Planets on In Situ Formation of Inner Super-Earths
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adf1a6

X-Ray-induced Photochemistry of Hydrocarbons: Implications for the Formation of Organic Haze in (Exo)Planetary Atmospheres
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/adf4d3

Life in the Exoplanet K2‑18b?
https://journals.nasspublishing.com/index.php/eps/article/view/2317

The mid-infrared spectrum of β Pictoris b. First VLTI/MATISSE interferometric observations of an exoplanet
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18366

Enriched volatiles and refractories but deficient titanium on the dayside atmosphere of WASP-121b revealed by JWST/NIRISS
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18341

KMT-2018-BLG-0029Lb and OGLE-2019-BLG-0960Lb: Mass Measurements for Two Super-Earth Microlensing Planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18343

In Search of Decay: An Analysis of Transit Times of Hot Jupiters in Main Sequence and Post-Main Sequence Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18355

VLT observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS II. From quiescence to glow: Dramatic rise of Ni I emission and incipient CN outgassing at large heliocentric distances
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18382

WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT): Two directly imaged exoplanets around the Sun-like stellar binary WISPIT 1
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18456

VLT/CRIRES+ observations of warm Neptune WASP-107 b: Molecular detections and challenges in ground-based transmission spectroscopy of cooler and cloudy exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18964

Is ozone a reliable proxy for molecular oxygen? III. The impact of CH on the O-O relationship for Earth-like atmospheres
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19062

Silane-Methane Competition in Sub-Neptune Atmospheres as a Diagnostic of Metallicity and Magma Oceans
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19235

The Adaptive Communication Framework (ACF) for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Discovery
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18287

August 26, 2025 Updates

Soot Planets instead of Water Worlds
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16781

The HD 60779 Planetary System: A Transiting Sub-Neptune on a 30-day Orbit and a More Massive Outer World
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16805

Technosignature Searches of Interstellar Objects
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16825

Detecting Gravitational Waves from Exoplanets Orbiting Binary Neutron Stars with B-DECIGO and DECIGO
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17385

HD 28471: a near-resonant compact multiplanet system with a possible cold giant planet
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18000

TOI-2322: two transiting rocky planets close to the stellar rotation period and its first harmonic
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18094

The NEID Earth Twin Survey. IV. Confirming an 89 d, msini=10 M⊕ Planet Orbiting a Nearby Sun-like Star
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18169

JWST detection of a carbon dioxide dominated gas coma surrounding interstellar object 3I/ATLAS
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18209

Free-floating Planets Produced by Planet-Planet Scatterings: Ejection Velocity and Survival Rate of Their Moons
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18239

August 25, 2025 Updates

Time Dilation in Interstellar Missions: A Systematic Literature Review on Relativistic Effects and Technological Solutions
https://e-journal.hamzanwadi.ac.id/index.php/kpj/article/view/30399

Construction of deep space communication channel environment prediction model based on deep learning
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00521-025-11557-z

AI and ML Techniques in Image Processing and Object Detection
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-7445-9#page=82

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs: Revisiting the GJ 317, GJ463, and GJ 3512 systems and two newly discovered planets orbiting GJ9773 and GJ 508.2
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa54992-25/aa54992-25.html

Giant planet formation via pebble accretion across different stellar masses
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa55787-25/aa55787-25.html

CAMPOS II. The onset of protostellar disk substructures and planet formation
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa55174-25/aa55174-25.html

An Aligned Sub-Neptune Revealed with MAROON-X and a Tendency Toward Alignment for Small Planets
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/adf070

Aerosol dynamics on hot exoplanets: the role of radiation pressure
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf1403/8240269?searchresult=1

Pushing the limits of eccentricity in planet-disc interactions
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf1399/8240267?searchresult=1

Terrestrial Exoplanet Internal Structure Constraints Enabled by Comprehensive Host Star Characterization Reveal that Terrestrial Planets in Mean-motion Resonances are Water Rich
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16421