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 02, 2025 updates

Transforming Martian Regolith with Black Soldier Flies, Hermetia illucens
https://www.tsijournals.com/articles/transforming-martian-regolith-with-black-soldier-flies-hermetia-illucens-16445.html

Dynamics Modeling and Analysis of a Vertical Landing Mechanism for Reusable Launch Vehicle
https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/4/280

Visualising Astronomy: Visualising Exoplanet Data
https://zenodo.org/records/14890695

Position and Time Determination Without Prior State Knowledge via Onboard Optical Observations of Delta Scuti Variable Stars
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40295-025-00485-8

Life and the Nature of Time – Investigating the Conceptual, Ethical and Cosmological Implications of Astrobiology
https://link.springer.com/book/9783031813573

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Engine System Trades for Robotic Missions
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/epdf/10.2514/1.A36308

Computational Study of Propulsive Performance of Frozen Nano-Aluminum and Water (ALICE) Mixtures
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B39541

Computational Framework for Assessing Mission Outcomes with Humans and Robots
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.J063846

Elastic Mass Model Approach for Fuel Dynamics in Microgravity Environments
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/full/10.2514/1.A36218

Ionizing radiation resilience: how metabolically active lichens endure exposure to the simulated Mars atmosphere
https://imafungus.pensoft.net/article/145477/

The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/04/aa47510-23/aa47510-23.html

Diversity of exoplanets
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978032399762100139X

Observation Simulation and Orbital Retrieval of the CHES Satellite
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275106225000013

Terraforming Mars with Microalgae, Especially Diatoms
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781394174980.ch8

Kepler’s Platonic Model and Its Application to Exoplanetary Systems
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22793

April 01, 2025 updates

Probability of Planetary Life: The Venus Life Equation and Unknowns for Other Worlds
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2025/pdf/2374.pdf

Searching for hot water world candidates with CHEOPS – Refining the radii and analysing the internal structures and atmospheric lifetimes of TOI-238 b and TOI-1685 b
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2025/04/aa53325-24/aa53325-24.html

Solving for the 2D water snowline with hydrodynamic simulations – Emergence of the gas outflow, water cycle, and temperature plateau
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/04/aa53036-24/aa53036-24.html

IV—Optimism in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life? A Philosophical Perspective
https://academic.oup.com/aristotelian/advance-article/doi/10.1093/arisoc/aoaf003/8102202

Nonlinear and Nonmonotonic Effect of Ocean Tidal Mixing on Exoplanet Climates and Habitability
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adbca3

Enhancing Celestial Imaging: High Dynamic Range with Neuromorphic Cameras
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22814

Habitability and Biosignatures
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22990

Water-Cooled (sub)-Neptunes Get Better Gas Mileage
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23020

BOWIE-ALIGN: Sub-stellar metallicity and carbon depletion in the aligned TrES-4b with JWST NIRSpec transmission spectroscopy
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24280

March 31, 2025 Updates

In Search of the Rule of Law: On Cybersecurity, Time Travel, and Interstellar Exploration
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/azlawjet/article/id/8093/

Exploring the Alcubierre Warp Drive Ship
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=141629

A joint effort to discover and characterize two resonant mini-Neptunes around TOI-1803 with TESS, HARPS-N, and CHEOPS
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/03/aa51180-24/aa51180-24.html

Deflection angle around generic traversable wormhole solutions and energy conditions in extended teleparallel theory of gravity
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0550321325000914

Detectability of oxygen fugacity regimes in the magma ocean world 55 Cancri e at high spectral resolution
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf466/8099933

CETRA: A fast, sensitive exoplanet transit detection algorithm implemented for GPUs
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf512/8099934

Optimising Radial Velocity Detection Limits for Southern Habitable Worlds Observatory Targets
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf503/8099936

The Proxima Centauri Campaign — First Constraints On Millimeter Flare Rates from ALMA
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21890

Dust-void evolution driven by turbulent dust flux can induce runaway migration of Earth-mass planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21922

Measurement of Methane Line Broadening in Hot Hydrogen/Helium Atmospheres at λ = 1.60-1.63 μm for Substellar Object Spectroscopy
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22031

AT2021uey: A planetary microlensing event outside the Galactic bulge
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22331

Clouds and Hazes in GJ 1214b’s Metal-Rich Atmosphere
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22608

The atmospheric entry of cometary impactors
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22632

The radiative effects of photochemical hazes on the atmospheric circulation and phase curves of sub-Neptunes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22642

March 28, 2025 updates

The Centauri Star System -An Overview of Our Nearest Stellar Neighbors
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390132969_The_Centauri_Star_System_-An_Overview_of_Our_Nearest_Stellar_Neighbors

The atmospheric entry of cometary impactors
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf507/8098221

Substellar Landmass Fraction and Atmospheric Circulation Regimes of Ultrashort-period Rocky Planets around White Dwarfs
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/adb845

Cometary Observations in Light-Polluted Environments: A case study of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21045

An Upper Limit on the Interstellar Meteoroid Flux at Video Sizes from the Global Meteor Network
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19042

CETRA: A fast, sensitive exoplanet transit detection algorithm implemented for GPUs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20875

Enabling Robust Exoplanet Atmospheric Retrievals with Gaussian Processes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21702

Eclipse Timing Variations of Circumbinary Substellar Objects in TESS Data
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20900

Structure and Melting of Fe, MgO, SiO2, and MgSiO3 in Planets: Database, Inversion, and Phase Diagram
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21734

March 27, 2025 updates

Perpetual Push Against Spacetime [Locomotive Constraints of Relativistic Space Travel]
https://www.academia.edu/128047008/Perpetual_Push_Against_Spacetime_Locomotive_Constraints_of_Relativistic_Space_Travel_

The electromagnetic propulsion of future spacecraft
https://digital-library.theiet.org/doi/abs/10.1049/SBEW557E_ch7

Simple Lipids Form Stable Higher-Order Structures in Concentrated Sulfuric Acid
https://liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2024.0124

Astrobiological implications of the stability and reactivity of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) in concentrated sulfuric acid
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr0006

Making continental crust on water-bearing terrestrial planets
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads6746

Winds on an ultrahot planet challenge climate models
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00809-6

Identification of Exoplanets using Machine Learning
https://books.aijr.org/index.php/press/catalog/book/178/chapter/3411

RV-exoplanet eccentricities: Good, Beta, and Best
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20385

Exozodiacal dust as a limitation to exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19932

TOI-2005b: An Eccentric Warm Jupiter in Spin-Orbit Alignment
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20069

Optimising Radial Velocity Detection Limits for Southern Habitable Worlds Observatory Targets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20121