The SETI Institute

A Vaporizing Planet: Why BD+05 4868 b is Turning to Dust x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Will you help us explore the biggest questions in the universe? Become part of our monthly donor community—the SETI Stars—and support groundbreaking research, from investigating the origins of life to scanning the sky for technosignatures from extraterrestrial intelligence. As…

#PPOD: The Jagged Shores of Pluto’s Highlands ⛰️ This enhanced color view from @NASANewHorizons zooms in on the southeastern portion of Pluto's great ice plains, where at lower right the plains border rugged, dark highlands informally named Krun Macula. Krun Macula -- Krun is…

Successful exoplanet transit detection of TrES-5b! 📈 This is the light curve I captured on July 10, 2025. You can clearly see the dip in relative flux as the planet transited its host star. My observation recorded a transit depth of 3.35%, with the mid-transit occurring at 07:04…

Dr. Richard Freedman is an astrophysicist who works on astronomical and laboratory spectroscopy, including creating model spectra for brown dwarfs and exoplanets. Before joining the SETI Institute, Dr. Freedman worked at NASA Ames Research Center, generating large molecular…

#PPOD: Twelve Full Moons 🌕 This collage features every full Moon from April 2024 (upper left) to March 2025 (lower right) as viewed and photographed through binoculars. The full Moons of August through November (so-called supermoons) occurred when the Moon happened to be at…

#PPOD: Vela Molecular Ridge ✨ This image of the Vela Molecular Ridge was captured by NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer). It was part of the mission's first public data release, which occurred on July 2,…

Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, has long perplexed planetary scientists. Once considered a planet, then an asteroid, and now officially classified as a dwarf planet, Ceres is more than a taxonomic curiosity. It holds clues to a hidden, icy…

Why researchers are recommending that parents let kids play unsupervised in playgrounds that might resemble junkyards. Additionally, the evolutionary benefits of play have been observed in various species, including crows, wolves, and bees. “The Play’s the Thing” on @bipisci.…

#PPOD: Aurora Australis 🇦🇺 The aurora australis arcs above a partly cloudy Indian Ocean in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 430 kilometers above between Australia and Antarctica on June 12, 2025. Astronauts aboard the space station take photos…

The invention of the screw was over 2300 years ago. Yet this simple object remains the fastener in nearly every modern-day invention. This week, @bipisci unwinds the history and importance of ingenious and deceptively simple devices in “Nuts and Bolts”. Listen:…

#PPOD: Closest-Ever Images to Sun 🛰️ ☀️ This video, made from images taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument during its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 25, 2024, shows the solar wind racing out from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. Credit: @NASA @JHUAPL…

To celebrate the groundbreaking research of 2025 Drake Award recipients Dr. David Deamer and Dr. John Baross, the SETI Institute commissioned bioartist Dr. Jennifer Willet to create a unique artwork that brings biogenesis, the origin of life, to visual form. The result is Dreams…

It's #WorldEmojiDay! What are your faves for expressing yourself? Here are some of our top ones: 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭 🛰️ ☀️ 🪐 and of course👽

Next #SETILive: A Vaporizing Planet TODAY, Jul 17, 2025 | 3:30 PM PDT / 6:30 PM EDT Join communications specialist Beth Johnson for a live interview with astrophysicist Marc Hon (MIT), lead author of a new study revealing one of the most extreme exoplanets ever discovered — a…

#PPOD: Dawn of a New Stellar System 🪐 This is HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation. The image was taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Together with data from @NASAWebb, these…

#notjustaliens Dr. Pascal Lee’s (@pascalleetweets) research focuses on the history of water on Mars and on planning the future human exploration of Mars. Dr. Lee has led over 30 expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica to study Mars by comparison with the Earth. He also…

The SETI Artist in Residency (AIR) program announced Planetary Futures. This new public art research-creation residency explores planetary science, with a focus on climate research. Through this interdisciplinary approach, the residency aims to foster dialogue, raise awareness,…

#PPOD: Hebes Chasma Mesa 🔴 The details of the central mesa inside Hebes Chasma on Mars are seen in close-up detail in this perspective view taken using ESA's Mars Express. A horseshoe-shaped chunk has been removed from one side of the mound (left in this image); the material…

In our latest #SETILive #podcast, artist Jennifer Willet talks about the experience of creating an artwork that represented the seemingly opposing viewpoints of biogenesis from our two 2025 Drake Award winners. Listen to the full podcast: seti.org/seti-live/