SETI Institute

Agata Zupanska Principal Investigator and Research Scientist

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. And sometimes, we feature scientists looking for technosignatures!

Learn more: www.seti.org/people/agata...

Dr. Zupanska is particularly interested in spaceflight microgravity and uses the International Space Station laboratory for her research experiments. She also conducts experiments with high-energy ion beams to explore how plants can withstand cosmic ionizing radiation that pervades deep space.

Text: #notjustaliens. Agata Zupanska, Molecular Biology. Background: Starry night sky. Inset: Photo of Agata Zupanska.

Text: Dr. Agata Zupanska brings a biologist’s perspective to the quest for understanding life. She tests the limits of terrestrial plant life and works on preparing plants for deep space human missions, all with a goal to advance deep space exploration. Background: Starry night sky with graphics of a star and exoplanets in front of it.

Text: Dr. Zupanska is particularly interested in spaceflight microgravity and uses the International Space Station laboratory for her research experiments. She also conducts experiments with high-energy ion beams at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, to explore how plants can withstand cosmic ionizing radiation that pervades deep space. Background: Starry night sky with graphics of a star and exoplanets.

SETI Institute logo. Graphics: (top) Black hole. (bottom) radio telescope dishes at the Allen Telescope Array. Background: Starry night sky.

Dr. Agata Zupanska brings a biologist’s perspective to the quest for understanding life. She tests the limits of terrestrial plant life and works on preparing plants for deep space human missions, all with a goal to advance deep space exploration. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

SETI Institute Invites Applications for the 2026 Mino Postdoctoral Fellowship

Applications open on November 20, 2025, and must be submitted by May 1, 2026.

To learn more and apply: www.seti.org/news/seti-in...

SETI Institute logo. Text: SETI Institute invites applications for the 2026 Mino Postdoctoral Fellowship. Background: Photo of physicist Minoru Freund standing in front of a spacecraft model.

PRESS RELEASE:
The SETI Institute is pleased to open the call for applications for the 2026 Mino Postdoctoral Fellowship. This research program offers an exceptional opportunity for talented early-career scientists worldwide to contribute significant advances in several fields. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

The Moon that Could Support Life: What Cassini Discovered Beneath the Ice of Enceladus Join host Beth Johnson for a fascinating episode of SETI Live, featuring planetary scientists Dr Georgina Miles and Dr Carly Howett from the University of Ox...

WATCH LIVE: youtube.com/live/fDf0VQ_...

SETI Live record button logo. Text: The Moon That Could Support Life with Beth Johnson, Georgina Miles, and Carly Howett. Background: Artist's representation of Enceladus looking back at the Sun, using Cassini imagery of the moon. Inset: Photos of Georgina Miles and Carly Howett.

Next #SETILive: The Moon that Could Support Life
TODAY, 20 November, 11 am PST

Join @planetarypan.bsky.social and planetary scientists Dr Georgina Miles and Dr Carly Howett (University of Oxford) to discuss their latest study, which shows that Enceladus may harbor a stable subsurface ocean. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS

Learn more: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

The smooth appearance of the crater is consistent with other features in the region, which have evidence of a water-ice history. Zooming into the crater, it is possible to see streaks on the walls of the crater, showing evidence of landslides, and ripples sculpted by the wind.

This view shows a crater approximately 8 kilometres in diameter with material ejected in a manner that scientists believe suggests the presence of water ice. When the asteroid hit this region of Mars, the water ice melted, and a mix of liquid water and dust rock was propelled from the top layers.

This remnant of an ancient impact is just one of the many scars asteroids have inflicted upon the Red Planet. Water, volcanoes, and impacts from asteroids shaped the Martian surface in the ancient past. Mars is currently a cold, dry desert.

A smooth sided crater takes up the majority of this image, taken from space, of the surface of Mars. Ejecta from the impact can be seen as lighter colored dust around the rim of the crater and even in some smaller craters to the left and below the main one. Dark streaks down the inside cliff walls could be evidence of water ice under the surface. The bottom of the crater seems to be almost flat.

#PPOD: A vast cavity on the Red Planet looks back at ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) with an icy stare. The crater is located in Utopia Planitia, the largest known impact basin in the Solar System, with a diameter of roughly 3,300 km, or twice the size of Earth’s Sahara Desert from north to south. 🧪

NASA Webb 'Pierces' Bullet Cluster, Refines Its Mass - NASA Science NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently zeroed in on the Bullet Cluster — delivering highly detailed images that show a greater abundance of extremely

Learn more: science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

The Bullet Cluster is unusual in that the intracluster gas and dark matter are separated, offering further evidence in support of dark matter.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CXC; Science: James Jee (Yonsei University, UC Davis), Sangjun Cha (Yonsei University), Kyle Finner (Caltech/IPAC)

The blue represents the dark matter, which was precisely mapped by researchers with JWST's detailed imaging. Usually, gas, dust, stars, and dark matter are combined into galaxies, even when they are gravitationally bound within larger groups known as galaxy clusters.

Landscape image full of galaxies, featuring in particular, two galaxy clusters that make up a region known as the Bullet Cluster. At the center is a pink cloud that represents X-rays mapped by Chandra. To either side are blueish "clouds" that are actually the mapped areas of dark matter as determined by JWST's infrared observations.

#PPOD: This is the central region of the Bullet Cluster, comprised of two massive galaxy clusters. The vast number of galaxies and foreground stars in the image was captured by NASA’s JWST in near-infrared light. Glowing, hot X-rays captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory appear in pink. 🧪 🔭

This Microbe Breathes Two Ways! The Bacteria That Challenge Biochemistry

In a recent SETI Live episode, Dr. Eric Boyd, microbial geochemist at Montana State University, joined SETI Institute communications specialist @planetarypan.bsky.social to discuss his team’s groundbreaking findings.

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/this-mi...

A recent discovery from Yellowstone National Park has redefined one of biology’s most basic assumptions: that a cell must “choose” between using oxygen or other chemicals to breathe. 🧪 👩‍🔬

Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, ISS, Cassini Imaging Team; Processing: Fernando Garcia Navarro

Image of Saturn as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. The planet is lit from the bottom right, with the shadow of the rings in the upper hemisphere. The rings themselves are a very thin line, seen in blue, across the face of the planet in the middle. The planets cloud bands are shown in shades of gold. The moons Dione (left) and Enceladus (right) appear as bumps in the rings.

#PPOD: Saturn is seen here through the lens of NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a ring plane crossing in February 2005. The picture reveals the razor-thin ring plane in blue, atmospheric bands in gold, and moons Dione and Enceladus as slight "bumps" in the rings. 🧪 🔭

Citizen Scientists Help Discover that Comet Hartley 2 is Fading

Thanks to months of monitoring by the Unistellar and AFA communities during 2023, scientists at the SETI Institute and AFA have published a new scientific paper, led by Dr. Ariel Graykowski, that reveals Comet Hartley 2 changing in a dramatic way. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/citizen...

Wednesday! #comet3iatlas 🧪 🔭

NASA will host a live event at 3 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Nov. 19, to share imagery of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS collected by a number of the agency’s missions.

The event will air on NASA+, the NASA app, the agency’s website and YouTube channel, and Amazon Prime.

Photo of theoretical physicist Brian Green in front of a blackboard full of differential equations.

String theory promised to unite quantum physics and gravity. Many were giddy about the suggestion that tiny vibrating strings might make up the universe. What happened to this idea? It’s Skeptic Check: “String Theory” on @bipisci.bsky.social. 🧪

Listen here: bigpicturescience.org/episodes/ske...

NASA's Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado - NASA Science Craving an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top? This random alignment of Herbig-Haro 49/50 — a frothy-looking outflow from a nearby protostar — with a

A chance alignment in this direction of the sky provides a beautiful juxtaposition of this nearby Herbig-Haro object (located within our Milky Way) with a face-on spiral galaxy in the distant background.

Learn more: science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

The intricate features of the outflow, represented in a reddish-orange color, provide detailed clues about how young stars form and how their jet activity affects the surrounding environment.

A long tall column of red dust reaches up from the lower right to the upper left of this very detailed image from JWST. At the top end of the column, a galaxy appears to rest; however, that galaxy is in the background. Numerous background galaxies are also in the image as well as a few foreground stars with the tell-tale diffraction spikes of JWST's optics.

#PPOD: NASA’s JWST observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. The young star is off to the lower right corner of the Webb image. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI 🧪 🔭

Gave two talks at the MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver on Friday evening to a wonderfully diverse and curious crowd. We explored the @setiinstitute.bsky.social , LaserSETI, and of course @skymapper.bsky.social Loved the questions, the energy, and the conversation.

#ICYMI: On our latest #SETILive, @planetarypan.bsky.social discovered that steam worlds transitioned from theoretical to confirmed in an interview with Dr. Artem Aguichine (UCSC). Watch the full interview: youtube.com/live/nBpyGdX... 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

TRAPPIST‑1 e Revealed: Peering Inside an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere

Their findings are both exciting and humbling, highlighting the challenges of characterizing such small, distant worlds, even with our most advanced telescopes.

Learn more: www.seti.org/news/trappis...

In a recent SETI Live episode, host @goastromo.bsky.social spoke with Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Ana Glidden (MIT) and STScI astronomer Dr. Néstor Espinoza about the newest JWST results probing the possible atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1 e. 🧪 🔭 🔭