Astrochemistry
Dying Stars Breathe Life Into Earth 
As dying stars take their final few breaths of life, they gently sprinkle their ashes into the cosmos through the magnificent planetary nebulae. These ashes, spread via stellar winds, are enriched with many different chemical elements, including carbon.
Extinction events
Supernova Triggers For End-Devonian Extinctions?
The Late Devonian was a protracted period of low speciation resulting in biodiversity decline, culminating in extinction events near the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary. Recent evidence indicates that the final extinction event may have coincided with a dramatic drop in stratospheric ozone, possibly due to a global temperature rise.
Habitable Zones & Global Climate
High-Resolution Spectra For A Wide Range of Habitable Zone Planets Around Sun-like Stars
The search for life in the universe is currently focused on Earth-analog planets. However, we should be prepared to find a diversity of terrestrial exoplanets not only in terms of host star but also in terms of surface environment.
Habitable Zones & Global Climate
Hurricanes on Tidally Locked Terrestrial Planets: Fixed SST Experiments
Are there hurricanes on exoplanets? Tidally locked terrestrial planets around M dwarfs are the main targets of space missions for finding habitable exoplanets. Whether hurricanes can form on this kind of planet is important for their climate and habitability.
Titan
Tidal Currents Detected In Kraken Mare Straits From Cassini VIMS Sun Glitter Observations
We present Cassini VIMS observations of sun glitter -- wave-induced reflections from a liquid surface offset from a specular point -- on Kraken Mare. Sun glitter reveals rough sea surfaces around Kraken Mare, namely the coasts and narrow straits.
Astrochemistry
First Detection Of 13CH In The Interstellar Medium
In recent years, a plethora of high spectral resolution observations of sub-mm and FIR transitions of methylidene (CH), have demonstrated this radical to be a valuable proxy for H2, that can be used for characterising molecular gas within the interstellar medium (ISM) on a Galactic scale, including the CO-dark component.
Venus
The Venus Life Equation
Ancient Venus and Earth may have been similar in crucial ways for the development of life, such as liquid water oceans, land-ocean interfaces, the favorable chemical ingredients and energy pathways.
Astronomy
JWST Transit Spectra II: Constraining Aerosol Species, Particle-size Distributions, Temperature, and Metallicity for Cloudy Exoplanets
JWST will provide moderate resolution transit spectra with continuous wavelength coverage from the optical to the mid-infrared for the first time. In this paper, we illustrate how different aerosol species, size-distributions, and spatial distributions encode information in JWST transit spectra.
SETI
Dyson Spheres
I review the origins and development of the idea of Dyson spheres, their purpose, their engineering, and their detectability. I explicate the ways in which the popular imagining of them as monolithic objects would make them dynamically unstable under gravity and radiation pressure, and mechanically unstable to buckling.
Extrasolar Planets
A Systematic Study of CO2 Planetary Atmospheres And Their Link To The Stellar Environment
The Milky Way Galaxy is literally teeming with exoplanets; thousands of planets have been discovered, with thousands more planet candidates identified. Terrestrial-like planets are quite common around other stars, and are expected to be detected in large numbers in the future.
Oceanic Research
Ocean Worlds Exploration and the Search for Life
This is a community draft white paper for submission to the Decadal Survey in Planetary Science and Astrobiology, reflecting the views of the NASA Astrobiology Program's Research Coordination Network for Ocean Worlds (NOW).
More top stories from July.
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Calendar
- 8 Jul: 2020 NASA Exploration Science Forum
- 8 Jul: NASA Advisory Council Aeronautics Committee Meeting
- 8 Jul: Artemis Accords: A Model for Space Settlement International Protocols? (Webinar)
- 9 Jul: NASA Science Mission Directorate Public Town Hall
- 9 Jul: Planetary Protection and Lunar Activities (Webinar)
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