The SETI Institute awarded the first Frank Drake Postdoctoral Fellowship to Dr. Anastasia Yanchilina. Yanchilina will focus on distinguishing biosignatures from false positives across space and time. Her research combines experimental and analytical research to refine biosignature detection techniques. She will conduct lab experiments to generate key mineral analogs and study Earth’s extreme environments to understand what potential signs of life to look for on other planets.

“It has long been my scientific dream to explore whether life exists beyond Earth and what it may look like,” said Yanchilina. “I am deeply honored to join the SETI Institute as a Frank Drake Postdoctoral Fellow. This fellowship offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance my scientific career and contribute to our search for biosignatures.”

Yanchilina is particularly interested in Ocean Worlds in our solar system. She seeks to produce mineral samples in the lab that will mimic features we may observe near locations of hydrothermal vents that could form in the extraterrestrial oceans of Enceladus and Europa and could have formed in hydrothermal settings on ancient Mars.

A new carrier-phase-based method for satellite-ground time synchronization has ushered in a new era of precision, achieving picosecond-level accuracy that far surpasses traditional methods.

A new study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP) presents a methodology to test the assumption of cosmic homogeneity and isotropy, known as the Cosmological Principle, by leveraging weak gravitational lensing—a light distortion effect described by general relativity—in astronomical images collected by new observatories such as the Euclid Space Telescope. Finding evidence of anomalies in the Cosmological Principle could have profound implications for our current understanding of the Universe.

Astronomers may have discovered a scrawny star bolting through the middle of our galaxy with a planet in tow. If confirmed, the pair sets a new record for the fastest-moving exoplanet system, nearly double our solar system’s speed through the Milky Way. The planetary system is thought to move at least 1.2 million miles per hour, or 540 kilometers per second.