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 22, 2025 updates

Extending the Rock Cycle to a Cosmic Scale
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/15/8/327

Unveiling Rogue Exoplanets: Swarm Cubesat Telescope
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42496-025-00289-x 

Intact polar lipids as organic biomarkers of viable extraterrestrial life
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44453-025-00006-9

Galactic Trajectories of Interstellar Objects 1I/’Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and 3I/Atlas
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02739

CRIRES+ transmission spectroscopy of WASP-127 b
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/01/aa50438-24/aa50438-24.html

(Toward) Discovery of Life beyond Earth and its Impact (IAU S387)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/toward-discovery-of-life-beyond-earth-and-its-impact-iau-s387/61A4CB74D5E212A2224F4A706E8D1885

Probing superheavy dark matter with exoplanets
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394772435_Probing_superheavy_dark_matter_with_exoplanets

Machine learning revolution for exoplanet direct imaging detection: transformer architectures
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394790308_Machine_learning_revolution_for_exoplanet_direct_imaging_detection_transformer_architectures 

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

SPHEREx Discovery of Strong Water Ice Absorption and an Extended Carbon Dioxide Coma in 3I/ATLAS
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15469

Overview of complex organic molecule observations in protostellar systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15771

Carbon-rich Sub-Neptune Interiors Are Compatible with JWST Observations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15117

Mineral cloud formation above magma oceans in sub-Neptune atmospheres
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15097

TrES-1 b: A Case Study in Detecting Secular Evolution of Exoplanet Orbits
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15075

A Near-Infrared Spectral Library of Very Young Brown Dwarfs and Planetary-Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14035

August 21, 2025 updates

Core metamorphism controls the dynamic habitability of mid-sized ocean worlds—The case of Ceres
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3283

Exocomets of β Pictoris – I. Exocomet destruction, sodium absorption and disk line variability in 17 years of HARPS observations
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa51594-24/aa51594-24.html

Constraining nearby sub-stellar companion architectures using high-contrast imaging, radial velocity, and astrometry
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa53091-24/aa53091-24.html

Detecting Extraterrestrial Civilizations that Employ an Earth-level Deep Space Network
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf6b0

TOI-880 is an Aligned, Coplanar, Multiplanet System
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/adf339

Identifying Habitable Exoplanets with Radio Telescopes on the Lunar Farside
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14126

Two warm Earth-sized exoplanets and an Earth-sized candidate in the M5V-M6V binary system TOI-2267
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14176

Gravitational Influence from Planets on the Measured Rates of Period Change of Pulsating White Dwarfs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14195

Hot Rocks Survey IV: Emission from LTT 3780 b is consistent with a bare rock
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14210

Machine learning revolution for exoplanet direct imaging detection: transformer architectures
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14508

Modeling tails of escaping gas in exoplanet atmospheres with Harmonica
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14846

August 20, 2025 updates

Linear-Mode Gain HgCdTe Avalanche Photodiodes for Weak-Target Spaceborne Photonic System
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/12/8/829

Cold Jupiters and small planets: Friends, foes, or indifferent? – A search for correlations with the largest exoplanet samples
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa52523-24/aa52523-24.html

Interaction of Trappist-1 exoplanets with coronal mass ejections: Joule heating, Poynting fluxes, and the role of magnetic fields
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa54431-25/aa54431-25.html

On the Ordering of Exoplanet Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13274

Earth-Mass Planets in Tandem Disks
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13269

A comprehensive spectroscopic reference of the solar system and its application to exoplanet direct imaging
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13368

Discovery of a multi-planetary system orbiting the aged Sun-like star HD 224018
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13684

Detecting False Positives With Derived Planetary Parameters: Experimenting with the KEPLER Dataset
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13801

August 19, 2025 updates

Unlocking the Secrets of Deep Space: AI Techniques for Object Detection in Astronomical Imagery
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-96-7445-9_4

Arecibo Wow! II: Revised Properties of the Wow! Signal from Archival Ohio SETI Data
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10657

TidalPy
https://zenodo.org/records/16883555

Activity of TIC 88785435 and Atmospheric Mass Loss of its Planet
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10511-025-09867-0

Modelling and numerical optimisation of refractive surface patterns for transmissive solar sails
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652500195X?via%3Dihub

Radial velocity homogeneous analysis of M dwarfs observed with HARPS – II. Detection limits and planetary occurrence statistics
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa51142-24/aa51142-24.html

Characterizing planetary systems with SPIRou: Detection of a sub-Neptune in a 6-day period orbit around the M dwarf Gl 410
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/08/aa52513-24/aa52513-24.html

Development of a New Ground-based Instrumentation Technique for Low-resolution Exoplanet Transmission Spectroscopy
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/adf358

Fine-tuning a narrowband SETI signal processing pipeline
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576525005259

The single beacon: progresses in understanding Earth as an exoplanet using DSCOVR/EPIC observations
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/remote-sensing/articles/10.3389/frsen.2025.1635015/full

TIRAMISU: Non-LTE radiative transfer for molecules in exoplanet atmospheres
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12873

Optical Cavity in Relativistic Regime for Laser Propulsion
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12442

Theory of Exozodi Sources and Dust Evolution
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11754

Evidence for ultra-water-rich ammonia hydrates stabilized in icy exoplanetary mantles
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11924

Destruction of “Peas in a Pod?” A Candidate Multi-planet System Around the Nearby, Bright Star, HD208487
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12447

The JWST Rocky Worlds DDT Program reveals GJ 3929b to likely be a bare rock
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12516

The Fraction of Distilled White Dwarfs with Long-Lived Habitable Zones
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12600

An empirical determination of the Cosmic Shoreline
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12865

Aligned Stellar Obliquities for Two Hot Jupiter-hosting M Dwarfs Revealed by MAROON-X: Implications for Hot Jupiter Formation
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.13145

August 18, 2025 Updates

Beyond the Horizon: A Statistical Odyssey in the Quest for Extraterrestrial Life
https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-662-69359-9_67

Entropic Selection of Biomolecular Chirality: A Geometric Origin for the Handedness of Life
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394102848_Entropic_Selection_of_Biomolecular_Chirality_A_Geometric_Origin_for_the_Handedness_of_Life

Carbon Delivery to Terrestrial Planets and Connections to Lava World Exoplanets
https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/items/91f11350-b557-46de-8a16-07e525e3ec88

A closer look at new interstellar visitor
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S026240792501317X

Improved H2–He and H2-H2 Collision-Induced Absorption Models and Application to Outer-Planet Atmospheres
https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=exoplanet&sortBy=date

Photometric Mapping of Carbonaceous/Siliceous Dust and Water Ice in the ISM with JWST: Applications to the Dense Sightlines
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/adf103

Discovery of Hα Emission from a Protoplanet Candidate Around the Young Star 2MASS J16120668-3010270 with MagAO-X
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11155