Astronomy & Astrophysics

How commonplace is life? In particular, are worlds where biology can gain a foothold very common or distressingly rare?

One way to answer these questions is to better understand the process of star and planet formation, and such studies are fundamental to much of the SETI Institute’s astronomy and astrophysics research. All stars and planets are born from disks made of the gas and dust that suffuses the vast reaches of the galaxy. This primordial material has been enriched by older stars that, at the end of their lives, expel molecules and atoms (such as carbon) that are essential for biology.

Using theoretical models, telescopic observations, and lab experiments, Institute scientists study how disks of collapsing gas and dust change over time and become solar systems. How are the complex molecules in such disks – including hydrocarbons, silicates, and icy coated grains – distributed, and how do they get included in the planets that are formed together with the host star? SETI Institute scientists have come up with new insights on the nature of protoplanetary disks, results that also bear on the formation of moons and rings around planets. In addition, our researchers have confirmed the existence of a global ocean under the icy carapace of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, and are doing theoretical studies that could explain Pluto’s tortured landscape. They make liberal use of data from robotic spacecraft such as Galileo, Cassini and New Horizons, and employ state-of-theart ground-based, airborne and orbiting telescopes, including SOFIA and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Understanding the mechanisms that produced our Sun and its retinue of orbiting worlds gives insight into the possibilities for life in other planetary systems.

Location of Comet Atlas Figure
Comet Atlas: A comet for all of us?
Finally! After several years of waiting, we may soon have, in Comet ATLAS, a bright comet passing by Earth that will be visible with the naked eye.
Graphic of the observer chords for the occultation events.
Leucus Asteroid: Efficient and Accurate Citizen Science with the Unistellar eVscope
Marseille and Mountain View, January 7. Ten minutes for a time-validated asteroid occultation of NASA’s importance: this is what Unistellar recently achieved in Irvine, California, by bein
Transit 1 - Mercury
Mercury Transit Observed Across the World with the Unistellar Beta Network
On average, Mercury can be seen transiting (passing across the face of) our Sun only 13 times every century.
Alpha Monocerotids in 1995
Exceptional meteor shower November 21-22
Peter Jenniskens, SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, and Esko Lyytinen, Helsinki, Finland, report that there will be a
Black and white image of a circular Hygiea with
Hygiea: Asteroid or Planet?
Two billion years ago, one world was destroyed, but a new one was born. Hygiea, the 4th largest asteroid in the main-belt, is the result of this catastrophic disruption of an asteroid. 
Google Earth Screenshot of Ours 9-7-2019 around Central Africa and Brazil
Helping Future NASA Missions: The Case of Orus, Target of the Lucy Mission
A Unistellar team traveled to Oman in early September to observe the occultation of an 11-mag star by the Trojan asteroid Orus.