SETI Institute

Text: The Climate Chronicles, Episode #12, The Natufian Wager. Host Dagomar Degroot. Listen on theclimatechronicles.com. Graphic of a microphone. Top photo: A field of grain in the sun. Bottom photo: Dagormar Degroot against the background of blue, white, and red bars representing the changes in annual average temperatures.

The Climate Chronicles with @dagomardegroot.bsky.social is back! 🧪

Season three takes us "Into the Holocene."

In the first episode, The Natufian Wager, Professor Degroot investigates one of the greatest turning points in human history: the dawn of agriculture.

Listen here: buff.ly/dSqQf5w

Lost Pulsars

In a recent SETI Live conversation, @planetarypan.bsky.social spoke with William J. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Karen Perez, lead author of a new study reporting the possible discovery of a pulsar candidate near the Galactic Center. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/lost-pu...

...an otherwise ultra-narrow signal, spreading its power across more frequencies and making it more difficult to detect in traditional narrowband searches.

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/why-set...

PRESS RELEASE
A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests stellar “space weather” could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting planet can broaden... 🧪

First glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS from Juice science camera First glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS from Juice science camera

The camera, named JANUS, took this image on 6 November 2025, just seven days after the comet made its closest approach to the Sun. At the time, Juice was about 66 million km away from the comet.

Credit: ESA/Juice/JANUS

Learn more: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

...and the relative direction of the Sun (yellow). While 3I/ATLAS is a visitor from interstellar space, travelling from outside the Solar System, its behaviour is completely in line with that expected from a ‘normal’ comet.

A long tail stretches away from the comet, and we see hints of rays, jets, streams and filaments.

The inset in the image shows the same data, but processed to highlight the coma structure. The arrows in the top left indicate the direction in which the comet was moving (blue)...

A white, glowing egg-shaped object lies in the centre of the black-and-white image, on a dark, starry background. Glowing streaks spread upwards from the object. In the top left, a yellow arrow marked ‘Sun’ points straight down, and a blue arrow marked ‘Velocity’ points towards the 7 o’clock direction. In the bottom left, an inset shows the same object on a lighter grey starry background, filled with ragged-edged, concentric egg shapes gradiented black-to-white.

#PPOD: This striking image from the science camera on ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) shows interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS spewing dust and gas. The tiny nucleus of the comet (not visible) is surrounded by a bright halo of gas known as the coma. 🧪 🔭

Check out our latest #SETILive #podcast! Moiya talks with Dr. John Livingston about mini-Neptunes, why they are interesting, and how they could explain the gap in planetary formation theories. Listen to the full episode: feeds.libsyn.com/462636/rss 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Webb Maps Uranus’ Upper Atmosphere - NASA NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provided the first vertical view of Uranus’s ionosphere in this image released on Feb. 19, 2026, revealing auroras shaped by

Uranus has the strangest magnetosphere in the Solar System. It is tilted and offset from the planet’s rotation axis (and this planet already rolls around the Sun nearly on its side), which means auroras move across the surface in complex ways.

Learn more: www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

Getting a look at the structure of the region where the atmosphere interacts strongly with the planet’s magnetic field is giving us the most detailed portrait yet of where its auroras form, how the magnetic field influences them, and also how Uranus’s atmosphere has continued to cool since the 1990s

#PPOD: NASA’s JWST provided the first vertical view of Uranus’s ionosphere in this image released on Feb. 19, 2026, revealing auroras shaped by its tilted magnetic field.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) 🧪 🔭

Interesting post!

Pictures of Distant Worlds

The talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, now in its 27th year.

More info: www.seti.org/events/pictu...

#bayarea

On Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2026, at 7 pm (PST), Dr. Bruce Macintosh (Director of the University of California Observatories) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:

"Pictures of Distant Worlds"

in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College, in Los Altos (see directions below) 🧪

NASA’s Webb Examines Cranium Nebula - NASA Science Two heads are better than one in the latest images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which reveal new detail in a mysterious, little-studied nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Learn more: science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

...inspiring its nickname, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula.

The nebula appears to have distinct regions that capture different phases of its evolution — an outer shell of gas that was blown off first and is mostly hydrogen, and an inner cloud with more structure that contains a mix of gases.

#PPOD: Two heads are better than one in the latest images from NASA’s JWST, which reveal new details in a mysterious, little-studied nebula surrounding a dying star.

Nebula PMR 1 is a cloud of gas and dust that bears an uncanny resemblance to a brain in a transparent skull... 🧪 🔭

Dale Andersen Antarctic Field Season 18-19 February 2026

Dale Andersen Antarctic Field Season 🧪 🔭
18-19 February 2026

UPDATE #14
Eclipse Watching And Base Camp Packing

UPDATE #15
Return Overland Traverse From Lake Untersee

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/dale-an...

The SETI Institute’s premier space science celebration returns! Mark your calendars for May 14 and join us in Mountain View at the 2026 #DrakeAwards -- a night of bold science, meaningful connection, and inspiration at the frontier of cosmic exploration.

Early Bird pricing begins March 18. 🧪 👩‍🔬

New Discoveries on Mars and Habitability By Nathalie A. Cabrol, Astrobiologist & Science Director, Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute.

Two NASA rovers have strengthened the case that ancient Mars may have supported life. These discoveries show that ancient Mars had complex organic chemistry, long-lasting water systems, and mineral environments capable of preserving potential signs of life. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Learn more:

Namib Desert Namib Desert

This is Dune 45, a popular tourist stop on the way to and from Sossusvlei. In this image, there appears to be some shadow on the western side. From this, we can deduce that the image was acquired during the late morning.

Credit: KARI/ESA

Learn more: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

Running through the river valley, a road connects Sossusvlei to the Sesriem settlement. At the road’s 45th kilometre, seen at the lower-central part of the image, a white path shoots off and ends at a circular parking area at the base of a dune.

Satellite photo of the Namib Desert. The top two-thirds are covered in red, undulated sand dunes, leading down to a dry river bed, seen in bands of blue and white. Along the river bed, black dots of vegetation curl around the pointed tips of dunes.

#PPOD: Korea’s Kompsat-2 satellite captured this image over the sand seas of the Namib Desert on 7 January 2012. The blue-and-white area is the dry riverbed of the Tsauchab. Black dots of vegetation are concentrated close to the river’s main route, while salt deposits appear bright white. 🧪

Not Just Aliens is the SETI Institute’s weekly series featuring scientists exploring astrobiology, heliophysics, planetary science, and more — expanding the search for life beyond Earth. And sometimes, we feature scientists looking for technosignatures!

Kimberly Bott Research Scientist

Currently, Dr. Bott is investigating the observability of terrestrial exoplanets in polarized light with contemporary and near-future telescopes and how the method might be used to map those worlds.

Learn more: www.seti.org/people/kimbe...

Dr. Kimberly Bott received her PhD from the University of New South Wales, working on exoplanet polarimetry (observation and computational modeling). Subsequently, she held postdoc positions at the Virtual Planetary Laboratory and UC Riverside. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

#SETI #NotJustAliens

It wasn't our program. UC Berkeley's SETI Research Group had that honor.

SETI Institute President and CEO Bill Diamond will be on Jesse Weber Live on News Nation at 8:30pm PST tonight. Check your local listings and tune in! 🧪

Guarding the Source - Why the Future of Science Depends on Proven Data

Planetary astronomer @allplanets.bsky.social explains how @skymapper.bsky.social addresses the challenge created by AI-generated data. By anchoring observations to time, place, and instrument using tamper-evident ledgers, SkyMapper makes data verifiable at its origin. 🧪 🔭

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