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SETI Institute
@setiinstitute.bsky.social
Our mission is to lead humanity’s quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the universe and share that knowledge.
In a recent SETI Live episode, Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, spoke with Dr. Caitlin Ahrens, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, about how Artemis II prepares the way for the next generation of lunar missions. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Learn more:
Back to the Moon
www.seti.org
February 17, 2026 at 9:00 PM
#PPOD: Astronomers have captured images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star R Doradus were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in July and August 2023. 🧪 🔭
February 17, 2026 at 4:03 PM
In a recent SETI Live discussion, SETI Institute communications specialist Beth Johnson spoke with UC Berkeley research scientist Eric Korpela about the enduring value of the SETI@home archive and the analytical methods that continue to shape modern search strategies. 🧪

Learn more:
SETI at home Update: 21 Years of Citizen Science
www.seti.org
February 17, 2026 at 12:00 AM
As Artemis II plans to take us back to the moon, other lunar events are stirring things up at NASA. A separate mission will deliver seismometers to measure moonquakes and record the possible impact of an asteroid on the lunar surface. It's a Celestial Shake-Up on this week’s @bipisci.bsky.social. 🧪
February 16, 2026 at 8:01 PM
#PPOD: This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows white material believed to be dusty water ice lining the edges of Martian gullies in a region named Terra Sirenum. Scientists believe dust particles within this ice act similarly to dust that falls onto glaciers on Earth... 🧪 🔭
February 16, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Meet Karen Perez, the Welch Postdoctoral Fellow here at the SETI Institute, as she chats with Beth during this week's #SETILive. Karen is the lead author on a paper about a possible pulsar detected near our galactic center. Watch the full interview: buff.ly/FcJ635h 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬
February 14, 2026 at 10:01 PM
Dr. @kaylaiacovino.com studies how life-essential elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur drive magmatic processes that help form atmospheres, maintain climate, and create chemical disequilibria that life can exploit. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

#Volcanology #Space #Science #SETI #NotJustAliens
February 14, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Love Among the Stars is a Valentine’s Day–inspired journey through some of the most beautiful and evocative objects in the night sky. Written by Lauren Sgro and Beth Johnson, this illustrated guide blends poetic reflections with accessible astronomy. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 ❤️

Get your copy:
Love Among the Stars - A Valentine's Day Guide to the Cosmos
Love Among the Stars is a Valentine’s Day–inspired journey through some of the most beautiful and evocative objects in the night sky. Written by Lauren Sgro and Beth Johnson, this illustrated guide…
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February 14, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Early Tuesday morning, March 3, a total eclipse of the Moon will be visible from throughout North America.

Board of Trustees member @fraknoi.bsky.social has provided an information sheet to answer your most pressing questions! 🧪 🔭

Read more:
The March 3, 2026 Total Eclipse of the Moon
An Information Sheet by Andrew Fraknoi (U. of San Francisco, Fromm Institute)
www.seti.org
February 14, 2026 at 12:00 AM
EVENT: Kids Week at the Intrepid Museum
New York, NY

Join us for Kids Week, where children of all ages can explore STEAM through a range of thrilling activities!

The SETI Institute will be there February 14-16! 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Learn more: www.seti.org/events/kids-...
Kids Week at the Intrepid Museum
With Simon Steel and Becca Robinson
www.seti.org
February 13, 2026 at 8:02 PM
#PPOD: This picture shows the full scope of Paranal’s beauty. Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the mountain peak home to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), is a site of many marvels. And this panoramic image taken by Chilean astrophotographer Alexis Trigo certainly captures them all. 🧪 🔭
February 13, 2026 at 4:03 PM
PRESS RELEASE:
A new study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk suggests Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, formed from a collision between two older moons—and that this event may also be linked to the formation of Saturn’s iconic rings. 🧪 🔭

Read the full release: www.seti.org/news/saturns...
February 13, 2026 at 12:01 AM
Next #SETILive: Today, 2:30 pm PST

A new possible pulsar has been identified near the center of the Milky Way — one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy.

For decades, astronomers expected to find many pulsars orbiting Sagittarius A*. But they’ve been frustratingly hard to detect. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬
February 12, 2026 at 8:01 PM
#PPOD: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission brings us a striking view of northern Italy, highlighting several key Olympic venues for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Also known as the Milano Cortina Games, this year’s Olympics are geographically widespread... 🧪
February 12, 2026 at 4:02 PM
🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 In a recent SETI Live conversation, science communicator Dr. Moiya McTier spoke with Dr. Berta Margalef-Bentabol, Dr. Lingyu Wang, and Antonio la Marca from SRON to discuss two Euclid studies that address different aspects of a long-standing astrophysical hypothesis:
February 12, 2026 at 12:01 AM
Our latest #SETILive #podcast examines the #ArtemisII mission! One of the places the team will observe is Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole. @ahrensscience.bsky.social discusses the possibilities for understanding the crater's ice. Listen to the full episode: buff.ly/Wbq73HS 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭
February 11, 2026 at 8:06 PM
#PPOD: This image from NASA’s JWST, containing nearly 800,000 galaxies, is overlaid with a map of dark matter, represented in blue. Brighter blue areas indicate a higher density of dark matter. Researchers used JWST data to detect dark matter through its gravitational influence on ordinary matter. 🧪
February 11, 2026 at 4:18 PM
Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon on February 3, 1966, sending the first images from the lunar surface to Earth. Despite the mission's success, its exact landing spot remained a mystery. Now, a new analysis may have solved it. 🧪 🔭

Learn more:
AI Helps Pinpoint the Moons First Soft Landing
www.seti.org
February 11, 2026 at 12:01 AM
Can artificially cooling human bodies provide benefits? Some startup companies are promising life after death through cryogenic freezing. But it’s one thing to freeze a body, another to revive it. We go from Hot to Cold on this week’s @bipisci.bsky.social. 🧪

Listen here: bit.ly/4aCqLoE
February 10, 2026 at 8:00 PM
#PPOD: This Feb. 4, 2026, image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures a strong solar flare erupting from the star. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that, along with other types of solar eruptions, can impact radio communications, electric power grids... 🧪 🔭
February 10, 2026 at 6:06 PM
#PPOD: This very impressive, and little-known, image of a meandering squiggle of high-altitude clouds on Saturn was captured by the Cassini spacecraft on July 18, 2010. It almost looks like one of these fancy latte art designs! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS / @jpmajor.bsky.social 🧪 🔭
February 6, 2026 at 4:02 PM
This weekend, February 6-8, 2026, Death Valley is holding its annual Dark Sky Festival.

Friday night, from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM, in the Furnace Creek Visitor Center Auditorium, SETI Institute CEO Bill Diamond will give a talk entitled... 🧪 🔭
February 6, 2026 at 2:15 AM
Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Season

UPDATE #12
1 February 2026: Drilling Diving Holes

Read the full update: www.seti.org/news/dale-an... 🧪
Dale Andersen’s Antarctic Field Season 1 February 2026
www.seti.org
February 6, 2026 at 12:00 AM
In this week's #SETILive, Simon chatted with Caitlin Ahrens from NASA Goddard about the upcoming (and now delayed) #ArtemisII mission and the two experiments researching the effects of radiation on astronauts. Watch the full interview: youtube.com/live/fEKIYiK... 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬
February 5, 2026 at 8:01 PM
Dr. Andrew Lincowski works with Dr. Victoria Meadows on simulating and characterizing terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres. He is the current developer of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory 1D climate model (initially developed by Dr. David Crisp and Prof. Tyler Robinson).

#NotJustAliens 🧪 🔭
February 5, 2026 at 12:00 AM