The Habitable Zone

EP 22: Millenia of Nucleobases and Hours of Orbit

In this episode, we will discuss the existence of Nucleobases in the universe, and a new planet with an ultra-short period. Sources: Nucleobases: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02824-7 [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02824-7] TOI-4552 B: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.18233 [https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.18233] This Episode was Filmed and Edited by Aidan Chan and Vriddhi Mittal.  Contact us at contactthehabitablezone@gmail.com

EP 21: From Jupiter’s Icy Moons to Planets Beyond the Milky Way

In this episode, we will be covering new research suggesting Jupiter’s icy moons may have received the chemical building blocks for life during their formation, as well as a study searching for the first extragalactic exoplanets in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy stream using data from the TESS space telescope. We will also explore what these discoveries mean for the origins of life and the possibility of planets beyond the Milky Way. Sources: Jupiter's Moon: https://doi.org/10.3847/psj/ae3559 [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae3559] https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf2074 [https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/545/3/staf2074/8351076] Hot Jupiters: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.15105 [https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15105] This Episode was Filmed and Edited by Aidan Chan and Vriddhi Mittal.  Contact us at contactthehabitablezone@gmail.com

EP 20: The Asteroid That Carried Life’s Ingredients

In this episode, we will be covering new findings from asteroid Bennu samples returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission and how they suggest that the building blocks of life may have formed in cold regions of space long before Earth existed. Sources: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2512461122 [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2512461122] This Episode was Filmed and Edited by Aidan Chan and Vriddhi Mittal.  Contact us at contactthehabitablezone@gmail.com

EP 19: Cosmic Chemical Factories

In this episode, we will be covering how the James Webb Space Telescope uncovered complex organic molecules inside a dust-hidden galaxy and what this discovery reveals about how chemistry forms in extreme cosmic environments. Sources: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02750-0 [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02750-0] This Episode was Filmed and Edited by Aidan Chan and Vriddhi Mittal.  Contact us at contactthehabitablezone@gmail.com