Jun 25, 2024
Are we alone? This question continues to tantalize and mystify scientists and the public alike, wondering if Earth contains not only the one known sample of life in the Universe but also the ONLY life in the Universe. In her new book, Alien Earths, astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger (founding director of Cornell...
Jun 18, 2024
In a collaboration between the Asteroid Institute and Google Cloud, machine learning algorithms identified 27,500 new asteroids using existing data sets from the NOIRLab Source Catalog Data Release 2 (NSC DR2). While most of the asteroids are in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, more than 100 are...
Jun 11, 2024
Scientists have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet, WASP-43 b. Through precise measurements of mid-infrared light and advanced 3D climate models, they've discovered some fascinating details: thick, high clouds cover the nightside; clear skies dominate the dayside;...
Jun 4, 2024
The INVADER project researches ways to improve life detection in ocean worlds by studying alien worlds in Earth’s deep ocean. We seek to understand how we can detect life in the deep ocean here on Earth with flight-ready instruments (e.g., can go on a space flight mission). The deep ocean is a testing ground to help...