Not breaking news but a bit groundbreaking: in Nature Astronomy: Koga, T. Oba, Y. Takano, Y. et al. A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu s41550-026-02791-z The big news is the discovery of all five… Read More »Note, Paper: Ryugu U-too Goo
The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference continues into day 3-4, Wednesday and Thursday. https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/ https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/program/ See also: Part I Of the (large) program, here’s my small-body selections: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 Differentiated Bodies: Petrology and Cosmochemistry Neumann W. et al. … Read More »LPSC 2026- Part II
More data points on our interstellar comet: www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=17719 Bolin, B. Wong I. Abron, L-M. December 2025 Gemini spectroscopic and photometric constraints on the activity and gas contents of 3I/ATLASATel #17719 The Gemini telescopes (that’s right, two of them) are “facility”… Read More »ATLAS Activity/Gas Track Telegram
It’s LPSC time. The 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference will be held (in the same Houston area) this March 16-20: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2026/ Really, the LPSC is the big meeting of the annual calendar in this field. This year, there are… Read More »LPSC 2026- Part I
Wow, what a day for preprints (i. e., the arXiv site): Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arxiv.org/abs/2603.06911Cordiner, M. Roth, N. X. Micheli, M. et al. Isotopic Evidence for a Cold and Distant Origin of the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS arxiv.org/abs/2603.07026Salazar… Read More »ATLAS Gas And Atom-Mass Variant Preprints
Almost missed this one… PNAS (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.) covers mostly biochem and molecular bio, like many science publications. Those are fields with a lot going on now, so astro is rare. Rare, but not zero- in the Feb. issue… Read More »Note, Paper: Dual Amino Routes Seen
Some quasi-appropriate goodies from Sky & Tel, March (vol. 151 #3): skyandtelescope.org/sky-and-telescope-magazine/inside-the-march-2026-issue/Christopher M. Graney, Dennis Danielson Lord Kelvin and Space Seeds p. 28 In short, a writeup on the panspermia theory. Longer version: starting way back in the history of… Read More »Sky Flying Bio Hindsight
Mustn’t let our interstellar guest slip away unnoticed: Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arxiv.org/abs/2602.21586Hartman, J. D. Bakos, G. Á. Jordan, A. et al. HATPI Pre-Perihelion Time-series Photometry of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS[Submitted on 25 Feb 2026] Standard Disclaimer: The… Read More »HATPI ATLAS Chance Gathering
More ‘scoops’ (potentially…) from the arXiv.org preprint server: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics > arxiv.org/abs/2602.14218Li, J. Shi, X. Hui, M-t. et al. Pre-Perihelion Volatile Evolution of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Indicating Significant Contribution from Extended Source in the Coma My usual disclaimer:… Read More »Hyperactive ATLAS Gas Secondhand
In the Nature parner journal Communications Chemistry (vol. 9): Fisher, T. Ferriere, R. Potential metabolic viability on asteroid chemistry 54 s42004-025-01860-0 How’s about an appetizer for alien appetites (or not). In this research report, Fisher et al. describe their investigations… Read More »Note, Paper: Meteoritic Metabolic ‘Scripts