The Fermi paradox has given rise to various attempts to explain why no evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations was found so far on Earth and in our Solar System. Here, we present a dynamical model for the development of such civilizations, which accounts for self-destruction, colonization and astrophysical destruction mechanisms of civilizations including gamma-ray bursts, type Ia and type II supernovae as well as radiation from the supermassive black hole. We adopt conservative estimates regarding the efficiency of such processes and find that astrophysical effects can influence the development of intelligent civilizations and change the number of systems with such civilizations by roughly a factor of $2$; potentially more if the feedback is enhanced. Our results show that non-equilibrium evolution allows for solutions in-between extreme cases such as ‘rare Earth’ or extreme colonization, including scenarios with civilization fractions between $10^{-2}$ and $10^{-7}$. These would imply still potentially large distances to the next such civilizations, particularly when persistence phenomena are being considered. As previous studies, we confirm that the main uncertainties are due to the lifetime of civilizations as well as the assumed rate of colonization. For SETI-like studies, we believe that unbiased searches are needed considering both the possibilities that the next civilizations are nearby or potentially very far away.

Comets are a source of prebiotic molecules that likely enriched the early Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment period. Laboratory experiments that replicate cometary conditions may facilitate understanding of the chemical reactions and supplement observational studies of these icy bodies. Prebiotic compounds, such as formic acid and formaldehyde, have been observed in comets. Furthermore, these compounds can easily be formed in experimental models using a variety of gas combinations and energy sources. We conducted experimental cometary simulations using radiation chemistry tools to obtain insight into the possible fate of formic acid and formaldehyde. The main results suggest a redundant system, signifying that the irradiation of formic acid forms formaldehyde molecules and vice versa. This phenomenon ensures the permanence of prebiotic molecules in high-radiation environments. Additionally, the potential role of forsterite and graphite was explored in cometary simulations. Our experimental results show the differential formation of aldehydes and other carbonyl-containing compounds dependent on the mineral phase present.

Recent studies postulated the viability of a suite of metabolic pathways in Enceladus’ ocean motivated by the detection of H2 and CO2 in the plumes – evidence for available free energy for methanogenesis driven by hydrothermal activity at the moon's seafloor. However, these have not yet been explored in detail. Here, a range of experiments were performed to investigate whether microbial iron reduction could be a viable metabolic pathway in the ocean by iron-reducing bacteria such as Geobacter sulfurreducens. This study has three main outcomes: (i) the successful reduction of a number of crystalline Fe(III)-bearing minerals predicted to be present at Enceladus was shown to take place to differing extents using acetate as an electron donor; (ii) substantial bacterial growth in a simulated Enceladus ocean medium was demonstrated using acetate and H2(g) separately as electron donors; (iii) microbial iron reduction of ferrihydrite was shown to partially occur at pH 9, the currently accepted value for Enceladus’ ocean, whilst being severely hindered at the ambient ocean temperature of 0°. This study proposes the possibilities for biogeochemical iron cycling in Enceladus’ ocean, suggesting that a strain of iron-reducing bacteria can effectively function under Enceladus-like conditions.

We explain that black holes are the most efficient capacitors of quantum information. It is thereby expected that all sufficiently advanced civilizations ultimately employ black holes in their quantum computers. The accompanying Hawking radiation is democratic in particle species. Due to this, the alien quantum computers will radiate in ordinary particles such as neutrinos and photons within the range of potential sensitivity of our detectors. This offers a new avenue for search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the civilizations entirely composed of hidden particles species interacting with our world exclusively through gravity.

Viruses are the most numerically abundant biological entities on Earth. As ubiquitous replicators of molecular information and agents of community change, viruses have potent effects on the life on Earth, and may play a critical role in human spaceflight, for life-detection missions to other planetary bodies and planetary protection. However, major knowledge gaps constrain our understanding of the Earth's virosphere: (1) the role viruses play in biogeochemical cycles, (2) the origin(s) of viruses and (3) the involvement of viruses in the evolution, distribution and persistence of life. As viruses are the only replicators that span all known types of nucleic acids, an expanded experimental and theoretical toolbox built for Earth's viruses will be pivotal for detecting and understanding life on Earth and beyond. Only by filling in these knowledge and technical gaps we will obtain an inclusive assessment of how to distinguish and detect life on other planetary surfaces. Meanwhile, space exploration requires life-support systems for the needs of humans, plants and their microbial inhabitants. Viral effects on microbes and plants are essential for Earth's biosphere and human health, but virus–host interactions in spaceflight are poorly understood. Viral relationships with their hosts respond to environmental changes in complex ways which are difficult to predict by extrapolating from Earth-based proxies. These relationships should be studied in space to fully understand how spaceflight will modulate viral impacts on human health and life-support systems, including microbiomes. In this review, we address key questions that must be examined to incorporate viruses into Earth system models, life-support systems and life detection. Tackling these questions will benefit our efforts to develop planetary protection protocols and further our understanding of viruses in astrobiology.

The search for signs of life is a major objective in the exploration of Mars. Of particular interest are chemical biosignatures such as biomolecules. However, molecular biosignatures are susceptible to extreme environmental conditions such as heat, ionising radiation and strong oxidants. Therefore, a knowledge of the stability of possible biosignature molecules under present and past conditions on Mars is important, as well as the nature of possible alteration products. In the light of the long volcanically active history of Mars, we have studied the thermal behaviour of selected biological compounds, namely, haemin (an iron porphyrin closely related to the haem prosthetic group), cytochrome c (a small protein) and lecithin (a mixture of phospholipids). Samples were exposed to temperatures up to 900°C under an inert atmosphere of nitrogen, either in neat form or in mineral matrices. The matrix materials used were sodium chloride, gypsum (CaSO4 ⋅ 2H2O), Ca-montmorillonite (STx-1b), the Martian regolith simulant JSC Mars-1A and some mixtures thereof. Key results are: (1) The onset of significant decomposition for haemin, cytochrome c and lecithin occurs around 240°C. At slightly higher temperatures the disappearance of all characteristic infrared spectral bands indicates complete decomposition and loss of the primary biosignatures. (2) Haemin stoichiometrically releases CO2 and HCl during the initial thermal decomposition phase, at the end of which the iron porphyrin core is still intact. High-temperature products of haemin include graphite, α-iron and cementite (Fe3C). (3) Neat lecithin forms long-chain polyphosphates at 500°C, whereas lecithin‒NaCl mixtures form diphosphate (pyrophosphate). As these anions are absent and rare, respectively, in minerals, they may potentially serve as secondary biosignatures. (4) Heating a mixture of NaCl and JSC Mars-1A at 800°C in the presence of lecithin produces the aluminosilicate mineral sodalite (Na8[AlSiO4]6Cl2), which however appears to be of limited use as a secondary biosignature.

Planetary geodynamics may have an important influence over planetary habitability and the boundaries of the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ) in space and time. To investigate this we use a minimal parameterized model of the co-evolution of the geosphere and atmosphere of Earth-like planets around F, G, K and M main sequence stars. We found the CHZ for the present Solar System located between 0.92 and 1.09 au for a 1.0 M$_{\oplus }$ Earth-like planet, extendible to 1.36 au for a 4.0 M$_{\oplus }$ planet. In the literature, the CHZ varies considerably in width and border location, but the outer edges tend to be more spread out than the inner edges, showing a higher difficulty in determining the outer edge. Planetary mass has a considerable effect on planetary geodynamics, with low-mass planets cooling down faster and being less capable of maintaining a rich carbon dioxide atmosphere for several billions of years. Age plays a particularly important role in the width of the CHZ as the CHZ contracts in both directions: from the inner edge (as stellar luminosity increases with time), and from the outer edge (as planetary heat flux and seafloor spreading rate decrease with time). This strongly affects long-lived habitability as the 5 Gyr continuous CHZ may be very narrow or even non-existent for low-mass planets (<0.5 M$_{\oplus }$) and fast-evolving high-mass stars (>1.1 M$_{\odot }$). Because of this, the mean age of habitable terrestrial planets in our Galaxy today may be younger than Earth's age. Our results suggest that the best targets for future surveys of biosphere signatures may be planets between 0.5 and 4.0 M$_{\oplus }$, in systems younger than the Solar System. These planets may present the widest and long-lived CHZ.

The observation of life on Earth is commonly believed to be uninformative regarding the probability of abiogenesis on other Earth-like planets. This belief is based on the selection effect of our existence. We necessarily had to find ourselves on a planet where abiogenesis occurred, thus nothing can be inferred about the probability of abiogenesis from this observation alone. This argument was first formalized in a Bayesian framework by Brandon Carter. Though we definitely had to find ourselves on a planet where abiogenesis occurred, I argue here that (1) the Carter conclusion is based on what is known as the ‘Old Evidence Problem’ in Bayesian Confirmation Theory and that (2) taking this into account, the observation of life on Earth is not neutral but evidence that abiogenesis on Earth-like planets is relatively easy. I then give an independent timescale argument that quantifies the prior probabilities, leading to the inference that the timescale for abiogenesis is less than the planetary habitability timescale and therefore the occurrence of abiogenesis on Earth-like planets is not rare.

If a space-faring civilization embarks on a program to send probes to interstellar destinations, the first probe to arrive at such a destination is not likely to be one of the earliest probes, but one of much more advanced capability. This conclusion is based on a scenario in which an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) embarks upon an interstellar program during which it launches increasingly sophisticated probes whose departure speed increases as a function of time throughout the program. Two back-of-the-envelope models are considered: one in which the launch velocity of an outgoing vehicle increases linearly with the time of launch, and a second in which the increase is exponential with launch date. In this paper consideration is directed to an hypothesized probe arriving within the Solar System from a non-terrestrial civilization. Within the above scenarios, a first-encounter probe will be one that was launched well after the initiation of an interstellar program by an ETC. Consequently, such a probe would be the product of a relatively advanced phase of that ETC's technology. The more distant the site from which an ETC is launching probes, the greater will be the technology gap between a first-encounter probe and terrestrial technology. One possible ramification may pertain to interpreting the nature of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). Are flight characteristics of any UAP singular enough as to be consistent with an origin from a distant ETC?

Discoveries of transient liquid water in the Martian polar caps and the presence of liquid lakes and subsurface oceans in icy satellites have increased the interest of scientists in the capabilities of terrestrial extremophiles to grow and remain metabolically active in these extreme environments. The principal goal of this research is to understand the metabolic capacity of the anaerobic psychrophile, Desulfotalea psychrophila, cultured at subfreezing temperatures in media containing various concentrations of sulphate minerals. In this regard, our experiments focused on the detection of D. psychrophila survival and active metabolism, employing a biochamber that can recreate Martian temperatures. Using standard bacteriological methods for determining growth, combined with molecular and enzymatic determination of sulphate reduction, we have found that D. psychrophila is capable to carry out biological processes at temperatures down to −5°C, at concentrations that range from 0.35 to 18 wt% of MgSO4, 0.1 wt% of CaSO4 and 10 to 14 wt% of FeSO4 in which the highest sulphate concentration gradually returned the biosynthetic rate to basal limits, and the lowest temperature decreased bacterial cell division. These chemical salts, whose ions are classified as chaotropes, are known to act by maintaining water molecules in liquid state at subfreezing temperatures and by altering the stability of cellular components. This ‘chaotropic effect’ could potentially benefit the microbial metabolic activity up to a concentration in which cellular viability is jeopardized. Consequently, our hypothesis is directed towards the detection of metabolic activity as an indirect measurement of the potential influence of these ions in the flexibility/functionality of biological structures that at cold temperatures are highly rigid, compact and partially/non-functional due to water freezing. Studies of this type of microorganism are critical considering the possibility of survival and colonization of psychrophilic sulphate reducers in other planets and icy satellites.

I outline a general thermodynamic condition for the earliest steps in the origin of life based on fluctuation theorems developed in the last two decades. I argue that the exponentially developing loop of asymmetric autocatalysis and thermodynamic tail-wind condition (TTC) in the prebiotic clutter was a key to a particular trajectory of decluttering via a sequence of early symmetry breaking events. Such decluttering was bound to result, most prominently, in homochiral amino acids and homochiral sugars composing nucleotides as the TTC exponentially favoured asymmetric autocatalytic processes over catalytic and symmetric autocatalytic processes in the clutter. I describe the loop's structure, including its chemical and physical properties, and explain that the TTC/asymmetric autocatalysis loop intersected with multiple chemical, geological and climatological feedback loops, thus providing conditions for the propagation of living systems as we know them.

Interplanetary spacecraft are assembled with thousands of parts composed of many diverse materials. Little is known on whether any of the spacecraft materials are biocidal to the typical microbiomes that develop on spacecraft during pre-launch processing. During ongoing experiments to examine the interactive effects of solar UV irradiation, solar heating, ionizing radiation, and vacuum, we observed that bacterial spores of three Bacillus spp. were killed when incubated within small vacuum chambers for 5 days – without exposure to the aforementioned factors. Eight potential spacecraft materials were tested within the vacuum chambers for biocidal activities against spores of B. atrophaeus ATCC 9372, B. pumilus SAFR-032 and B. subtilis 168. All three species were fully inactivated (i.e., no survivors detected) by machined parts manufactured from Delrin®; a thermoplastic polyacetal polymer. Although not tested here, it is known that Delrin can off-gas formaldehyde, and thus, we hypothesize that this volatile organic compound (VOC) was responsible for the biocidal activity of the material. Knowledge of the biocidal nature of routinely used spacecraft materials might offer diverse methods to inactivate deeply embedded or shielded microbiota within spacecraft via the release of biocidal VOCs.

Most stromatolites are built by photosynthetic organisms, for which sunlight is a driving factor. We examine stromatolite morphogenesis with modelling that incorporates the growth rate of cyanobacteria (the dominant stromatolite-builder today, and presumably through much of the past), as a function of the amount of irradiance received. This function is known to be non-monotonic, with a maximum beyond which growth rate decreases. We define optimal irradiance as that which generates maximal growth, and we find fundamentally different morphologies are predicted under suboptimal and superoptimal direct irradiance. When the direct irradiance is suboptimal, narrow widely spaced columns are predicted, with sharp apices resembling conical stromatolites. When it is superoptimal, broad, closely spaced, flattened domical forms appear. Such disparate morphologies could also occur as a result of other vector-flux-dependent growth factors (e.g. currents). A differential equation is developed that describes the rate of change of the radius of curvature R at the apex of a growing stromatolite column, allowing simple simulations of the time evolution of R for model stromatolites. The term photomorphism is proposed to describe the disparate morphologies that may arise due to the effects described here (and photomorphogenesis as the process). Model results appear to explain, at least qualitatively, the morphologies of a number of stromatolites. If stromatolites are encountered on Mars, our model suggests that they are quite likely to be conical in form, owing to likely suboptimal irradiance since Mars has always received less irradiance than Earth.

Planetary Protection (PP) is the practice of safeguarding solar system bodies from terrestrial biological contamination and screening the Earth against potentially harmful extraterrestrial biological contamination. On Earth, cleanrooms and spacecraft surfaces are assayed using swabs and wipes that are then heat shocked for 15 min at 80°C to select for spores. The samples are further processed using the pour-plate method and Petri plates (TSA plates), with trypticase soy agar (TSA) serving as the growth medium. This sampling and processing procedure, called the NASA Standard Assay (NSA), is used by PP engineers around the world. Recent years have seen an increase in the incorporation of state-of-the-art technology, such as membrane filtration, into the NSA, with a push for implementing environmentally friendly technology into day-to-day activities. Dehydrated thin film media, such as Petrifilm Rapid Aerobic Count (RAC) plates, suit these goals as an alternative method to TSA plates. RAC plates show bacterial growth (and distinguish colonies from foreign particles such as bubbles) faster than TSA plates due to the incorporation of chromogenic colour indicators in the media. RAC plates also possess a much smaller environmental footprint than TSA plates, and are designed to evaluate even some of the challenging-to-detect environmental organisms, including spreaders that fill over 25% of the plate area in only a few hours. With these benefits in mind the PP Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory took on the task of comparing RAC plates directly to TSA plates within the context of the NSA. Not only were the RAC plates able to detect surface environmental samples and in vitro spiked samples equivalent to NSA-processed TSA plates, but spreader organisms were countable on RAC plates at culture densities 10- to 100-fold greater than on TSA plates. In addition, RAC plates showed a robust, linear detection capability when challenged with membrane filter incorporation and organisms were easily acquired from RAC plates for archiving or post-processing experiments including MALDI-TOF bacterial identification. With their ease of use, small footprint, and both rapid and accurate bioburden measurements, RAC plates have the potential to overcome limitations posed by current PP culturing protocols.

In a recent refreshing paper, Cowie (2022, The Philosophical Quarterly) analyses the hypothesis of artificial origin of the mysterious interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 ʻOumuamua, as well as the wider question of justification of the artefactual origin explanation for anomalous astronomical phenomena. This highly commendable philosophical project should be further developed in order to establish more general methodology for dealing with traces and manifestations of extraterrestrial intentional actors. In the present note, I demonstrate a couple of weaknesses of the standard account, mainly dealing with philosophy of technology, and suggest ways of improving upon it.

Free-floating planets (FFPs) can result from dynamical scattering processes happening in the first few million years of a planetary system's life. Several models predict the possibility, for these isolated planetary-mass objects, to retain exomoons after their ejection. The tidal heating mechanism and the presence of an atmosphere with a relatively high optical thickness may support the formation and maintenance of oceans of liquid water on the surface of these satellites. In order to study the timescales over which liquid water can be maintained, we perform dynamical simulations of the ejection process and infer the resulting statistics of the population of surviving exomoons around FFPs. The subsequent tidal evolution of the moons’ orbital parameters is a pivotal step to determine when the orbits will circularize, with a consequential decay of the tidal heating. We find that close-in ($a \lesssim 25$ RJ) Earth-mass moons with carbon dioxide-dominated atmospheres could retain liquid water on their surfaces for long timescales, depending on the mass of the atmospheric envelope and the surface pressure assumed. Massive atmospheres are needed to trap the heat produced by tidal friction that makes these moons habitable. For Earth-like pressure conditions (p0 = 1 bar), satellites could sustain liquid water on their surfaces up to 52 Myr. For higher surface pressures (10 and 100 bar), moons could be habitable up to 276 Myr and 1.6 Gyr, respectively. Close-in satellites experience habitable conditions for long timescales, and during the ejection of the FFP remain bound with the escaping planet, being less affected by the close encounter.

The concept of planetary intelligence as collective intelligence is used to consider possible evolutionary paths of biotechnospheres that emerge on the intersection of the technosphere with the biosphere and support coupling of the technosphere with the biosphere, thus affecting planetary evolution. In mature biotechnospheres, the intelligence of technologies and the intelligence of life forms, including engineered life forms, could act in concert to perform various tasks (e.g. monitoring planetary biospheres and environments; restoring planetary environments and biodiversity; steading planetary environments; providing support for space missions; terraforming cosmic objects). Space exploration can expand biotechnospheres beyond planets and create cosmic ecosystems encompassing planets and other cosmic objects; biotechnospheres, spacecraft and the environments of near-planetary, interplanetary space or interstellar space. Humankind, other civilizations or their intelligent machines may produce biotechnosignatures (i.e. observables and artefacts of biotechnospheres) in the Solar System and beyond. I propose ten possible biotechnosignatures and strategies for the search for these biotechnosignatures in situ and over interstellar distances. For example, if a non-human advanced civilization existed and built biotechnospheres on Earth in the past, its biotechnospheres could use engineered bacteria and the descendants of that bacteria could currently exist on Earth and have properties pertaining to the functions of the ancient bacteria in the biotechnospheres (such properties are proposed and discussed); intelligent technologies created by the ancient civilization could migrate to the Solar System's outer regions (possible scenarios of their migration and their technosignatures and biotechnosignatures are discussed); these two scenarios are described as the Cosmic Descendants hypothesis. Interstellar asteroids, free-floating planets, spacecraft and objects gravitationally bound to flyby stars might carry extraterrestrial biotechnospheres and pass through the Solar System. In connection to the fate of post-main-sequence stars and their Oort clouds, the probability for interstellar asteroids to carry biotechnospheres or to be interstellar spacecraft is estimated as very low.

We propose the mathematical notion of information gain as a way of quantitatively assessing the value of biosignature missions. This makes it simple to determine how mission value depends on design parameters, prior knowledge and input assumptions. We demonstrate the utility of this framework by applying it to a plethora of case examples: the minimal number of samples needed to determine a trend in the occurrence rate of a signal as a function of an environmental variable, and how much cost should be allocated to each class of object; the relative impact of false positives and false negatives, with applications to Enceladus data and how best to combine two signals; the optimum tradeoff between resolution and coverage in the search for lurkers or other spatially restricted signals, with application to our current state of knowledge for solar system bodies; the best way to deduce a habitability boundary; the optimal amount of money to spend on different mission aspects; when to include an additional instrument on a mission; the optimal mission lifetime; and when to follow/challenge the predictions of a habitability model. In each case, we generate concrete, quantitative recommendations for optimizing mission design, mission selection and/or target selection.

Searching for extrasolar biosignatures is important to understand life on Earth and its origin. Astronomical observations of exoplanets may find such signatures, but it is difficult and may be impossible to claim unambiguous detection of life by remote sensing of exoplanet atmospheres. Here, another approach is considered: collecting grains ejected by asteroid impacts from exoplanets in the Milky Way and then travelling to the Solar System. The optimal grain size for this purpose is around 1 μm, and though uncertainty is large, about 105 such grains are expected to be accreting on Earth every year, which may contain biosignatures of life that existed on their home planets. These grains may be collected by detectors placed in space, or extracted from Antarctic ice or deep-sea sediments, depending on future technological developments.