SETI Institute

10/12/2026

How do scientists measure nitrogen disappearing from an ecosystem?

A new Science study co-authored by SETI Institute Senior Research Scientist Dale Andersen shows that the natural abundance of a rare form of nitrogen gas, ¹⁵N¹⁵N, can provide a direct tracer of biological nitrogen loss.

By distinguishing biologically produced N₂ from atmospheric nitrogen, the method revealed nitrogen loss that can be missed by traditional approaches across environments ranging from aquifers and lakes to coastal basins, oxygen minimum zones, and marine sediments.

The work offers scientists a new way to better understand the nitrogen cycle — one of the fundamental processes that supports life on Earth.

🔗 Read the study:

Nitrogen regulates primary productivity across much of the biosphere, yet fixed nitrogen loss remains poorly constrained because existing methods rely on indirect proxies or ex situ experiments. In this study, we show that natural abundances of the rare ...

10/12/2026

Big Picture Science Radio Show: On a Collision Course

Breakthroughs around the detection of cosmic neutrinos — the “ghost” particles that may reveal why matter, not antimatter, fills the universe — recently earned a physicist the Nobel Prize in Physics. But one group of neutrino hunters isn’t waiting for supernovae to churn up these high-energy particles. A massive new experiment that spans three states will create neutrinos and fire them into liquid argon to better understand their mysterious behavior.

After nearly a century, scientists may finally have glimpsed the primary component of nearly all matter: dark matter. Are we close to understanding what it is? Finally, we glimpse the proton-smashing at the Large Hadron Collider as it hints at undiscovered physics and puts a stress test on the Standard Model.

Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/on-a-collision-course

10/12/2026

: A Martian Dawn

The first light of morning illuminates the rugged slopes of Mount Sharp in this panorama captured by NASA's Curiosity rover on August 11, 2026. Taken at approximately 8:30 a.m. local Mars time, the image reveals a striking landscape of distant cliffs and ridges beneath the cool, bluish tones of the Martian dawn.

The dramatic formations on the horizon are called yardangs, long ridges carved by wind eroding softer rock over millions of years. Stretching across roughly 16 kilometers of Mount Sharp, these formations may preserve deposits of ancient volcanic ash, although their origins remain uncertain. Curiosity could reach the base of these cliffs in 2027, giving scientists an opportunity to investigate how they formed and what they reveal about Mars's geologic and environmental history.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

10/11/2026

An interstellar comet came from another solar system — so how different is it from the comets we already know?

In this clip, Dr. Cecilia Tubiana explains that 3I/ATLAS may be an interstellar visitor, but some of its properties look surprisingly familiar.

Hear more in the latest SETI Live podcast episode, “What JUICE Revealed About Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS.”

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

10/10/2026

🌕 One small crater. Kilometers of changes to the Moon's surface.

A newly formed lunar crater reveals that an impact's effects extend far beyond the crater itself. By measuring nighttime temperatures, researchers found changes in the lunar regolith that aren't always visible in ordinary images.

In this clip, researcher Dr. Tyler M. Powell explains how these lunar "cold spots" reveal an impact's surprising reach.

🎥 Watch the full conversation with Dr. Franck Marchis: https://youtube.com/live/awZUHUaoRAI

10/10/2026

Stephanie Striegel is the SETI Institute’s Lead Operations Engineer for the Science Processing Operations Center at NASA Ames Research Center. Her work supports NASA’s TESS mission, helping enable the detection and study of planets beyond our solar system.

Stephanie earned her MS in Physics and Astronomy from San Jose State University in 2023. There, she explored how machine learning could identify phases of ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices, bringing together physics and data-driven techniques.

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.

10/09/2026

Could evidence of ancient alien technology be hiding in Moon dust? 🌕🔬

Researchers are proposing a new way to search for technosignatures: examine lunar regolith for microscopic pieces of engineered material that could have crossed interstellar space and accumulated on the Moon over billions of years.

On the next , SETI Institute Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center Dr. Simon Steel talks with lead author and SETI Institute Affiliate Scientist Dr. Lewis Pinault about the proposal, why the Moon could preserve a unique record of Galactic history, and what we could learn even if the search finds nothing.

📅 Thursday, Oct. 15
🕝 2:30 pm PDT

Join us live!

10/09/2026

Today's SETI Live has been rescheduled for next week, Thursday, 15 October, at 2:30 pm PDT / 5:30 pm EDT. We're still talking about searching the Moon for microscopic technosignatures, so please stay tuned for a new announcement and fresh links!

10/09/2026

: Galaxies in a Cosmic House of Mirrors

Galaxies warp, stretch, and multiply across this view from NASA’s JWST. The golden galaxies belong to the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0454.1-0300, seen as it was about 8 billion years ago. The cluster’s enormous gravity bends spacetime and distorts light from even more distant galaxies behind it, creating the arcs and repeated images seen throughout the field.

Astronomers found two separate systems in which gravitational lensing produces four or more images of the same background galaxy—the first time this rare configuration has been observed more than once in a single galaxy cluster. The lens also acts as a natural magnifying glass: some tiny star-forming regions, only about five light-years across, are magnified more than 300 times, allowing JWST to probe structures that would otherwise be too distant and faint to study.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Furtak, S. Fujimoto

10/08/2026

Where would another civilization expect us to look?

SETI Institute researchers are using the Allen Telescope Array to survey the anti-solar point—the location opposite the Sun—which could serve as a shared “Schelling point” for sending or searching for a signal.

The multi-year campaign is the largest survey ever conducted with the ATA and is expected to generate more than 11 petabytes of data as researchers search for narrowband, Doppler-drifting technosignatures along Earth’s ecliptic.

Read more:

The ATA-ASP campaign is a radio technosignature survey of the Anti-Solar Point as a "Schelling point", using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We borrow from game theory the concept of Schelling points to hypothesize spacetime coordinates where b...