Goddard Space Flight Center

Wavelength Requirements for Life Detection via Reflected Light Spectroscopy of Rocky Exoplanets

Searching for signs of life is a primary goal of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). However, merely detecting oxygen, methane, or other widely discussed biosignatures is insufficient evidence for a biosphere. In parallel with biosignature detection, exoplanet life detection...

Airborne eddy covariance measurements of ocean-air VOC fluxes: Distinguishing signal from noise

Abstract. Ocean-atmosphere exchange plays an important but uncertain role for many volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Airborne eddy covariance (EC) enables direct flux quantification over large areas, but VOC applications have largely been performed over land. Here we combine the...

Sensitivity of the Bootstrap sea ice concentration algorithm to surface parameters in the Antarctic marginal ice zone using passive microwave retrievals

Abstract. Changes in sea ice concentration (SIC) and derived sea ice extent have been monitored using microwave radiometers since the late 1970s, providing information about the polar response to climate change, making SIC an invaluable variable for numerical models. Antarctic se...

Modeling the combined effects of the 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquake and an Atmospheric River event on landslide hazard

Abstract. The 6 February 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquake doublet triggered thousands of coseismic landslides. On 14–15 March, an Atmospheric River (AR) delivered up to 183 mm of rainfall across the seismically weakened region, triggering hundreds of additional landslides and debris...

The fast destruction of methane by heterogeneous electrochemistry induced by martian dust activity: An experimental approach

Methane (CH 4 ) on Mars is of high scientific importance, particularly for its generation and destruction mechanisms. With an estimated photochemical lifetime of approximately 300 years, sporadic methane plumes observed on Mars by orbital, landed missions, and Earth-based telesco...

Impacts of the three-dimensional radiative effects on cloud droplet number concentration retrieval and regression-based albedo susceptibility estimates

Abstract. Cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) in warm liquid clouds plays a crucial role in understanding cloud microphysical processes and the influence of aerosol–cloud interactions (ACI) on Earth's climate. Nd from satellite-retrieved cloud properties such as the cloud opt...

Climatology and Interannual Variations in Arctic Winter Sea Ice Leads in the ICESat-2 Era

Abstract. Sea ice leads play a key role in polar air-sea heat, moisture, and gas exchanges, ocean heat and salinity variations, and ecosystem processes. However, their small-scale nature challenges efforts to assess spatiotemporal variability on a pan-Arctic basis. Here, we use s...

Plasma wave observations from Juno spacecraft at the Jovian bow shock

Recent observations of Jupiter’s bow shock have provided new insights into the energy dissipation mechanisms associated with bow shocks of outer planets. At greater distances from the Sun, the typically increasing super-Alfvénic nature of the solar wind leads to higher-energy bow...