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Atmospheric characterization of exoplanets using ground-based high-resolution transmission spectroscopy has traditionally focussed on large and close-in planets, such as hot Jupiters. In this work, we aim to extend this technique to smaller…
Ground-based, high-resolution spectrographs are providing us with an unprecedented view of the dynamics and chemistry of the atmospheres of planets outside the Solar System. While there is a large number of stable and precise…
Humanity has wondered whether we are alone for millennia. The discovery of life elsewhere in the Universe, particularly intelligent life, would have profound effects, comparable to those of recognizing that the Earth is not the center of…
Deuterium-deuterium (DD) fusion is viewed as an ideal energy source for humanity in the far future, given a vast seawater supply of D. Here, we consider long-lived, extraterrestrial, technological societies that develop DD fusion. If such a…
Whether extant life exists in the martian subsurface is an open question. High concentrations of photochemically produced CO and H2 in the otherwise oxidizing martian atmosphere represent untapped sources of biologically useful free energy.…
The MESSENGER mission revealed unexpectedly high sulfur content within Mercury's surface, deviating from the Lunar regolith, which was, until recently, considered a good Mercury analogue. Mercury's exposure to energetic space weathering…
Due to their proximity, high dark-matter content, and apparent absence of non-thermal processes, Milky Way dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxies (dSphs) are excellent targets for the indirect detection of dark matter. Recently, eight new dSph…
HATS-75 b is one of the recently discovered Giant Exoplanets orbiting M-dwarf Stars (GEMS) with a transmission spectrum shaped by both its atmosphere and the active stellar surface it transits. As part of a JWST program studying 7 GEMS, we…
The CDMS experiment aims to directly detect massive, cold dark matter particles originating from the Milky Way halo. Charge and lattice excitations are detected after a particle scatters in a Ge or Si crystal kept at ~30 mK, allowing to…
We are at the dawn of a data-driven era in astrophysics and cosmology. A large number of ongoing and forthcoming experiments combined with an increasingly open approach to data availability offer great potential in unlocking some of the…
Transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets has revealed signatures of water vapor, aerosols, and alkali metals in a few dozen exoplanet atmospheres. However, these previous inferences with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes were hindered…
We investigate the prospects for the past or current existence of habitable conditions deep underneath the surfaces of the Moon and Mars as well as generic bound and free-floating extrasolar rocky objects. We construct a simple model that…
Celestial observations often exhibit inexplicable planetary dependencies when the timing of an observable is projected onto planetary heliocentric positions. This is possible only for incident, non-relativistic streams. Notably, the…
We report observations of the atmospheric transmission spectrum of the sub-Neptune exoplanet GJ 3470 b taken using the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on JWST. Combined with two archival HST/WFC3 transit observations and fifteen archival…
Ammonia (NH3) in a terrestrial planet atmosphere is generally a good biosignature gas, primarily because terrestrial planets have no significant known abiotic NH3 source. The conditions required for NH3 to accumulate in the atmosphere are,…
Up to now searches for Dark Matter (DM) detection have not been successful, either because our paradigm in how DM signals should look like are wrong or the detector sensitivity is still too low in spite of the large progress made in recent…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as the largest space-based astronomical observatory with near- and mid-infrared instrumentation, will elucidate many mysterious aspects of comets. We summarize four cometary science themes especially…
We present a new model atmosphere analysis of the most metal contaminated white dwarf known, the DBZ SDSS J073842.56+183509.06. Using new high resolution spectroscopic observations taken with Keck and Magellan, we determine precise…
Dwarf Spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are very promising laboratories for the indirect search for dark matter (DM), due to their low astrophysical background in radio and gamma-ray frequencies. This is convenient when considering Weakly…
The missing transverse energy (MET) plus b-jets signature is very promising for searches for the Higgs boson or new physics. Indeed, MET naturally arises from unidentified particles such as neutrinos, neutralinos, gravitons, etc., and…