2025 – 2026
LIST OF SPEAKERS AND TOPICS
Víctor Parro
Centro de Astrobiología
2 de octubre de 2025
2 de octubre de 2025
The project PAST AND PRESENT SIGNS OF LIFE DETECTION IN PLANETARY EXPLORATION (SOLID), results and future perspectives
The project is a step forward in raising the SOLID-LDChip technological maturity and exploring other uses and connections with other techniques and instruments. The rationale of the project lays on the search of well-preserved informative molecular biomarkers (lipids and peptides) along planetary environments and time and the implementation of immunosensing methods (LDChip) and instrumentation (SOLID) for their detection in situ. Lipid forensics, stable isotope ratios, ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR), and metaproteomics will allow as "to go back in time" to past life on Earth and possibly on Mars. With this information it is possible to reconstruct ancestral environments and extrapolate to other planetary settings. The scientific rationale underneath SOLID also includes the investigation of how to distinguish biotic vs abiotic compounds. We will show current SOLID-LDChip TRL and results from recent field campaigns, as well as future perspective of the project.
Santos Galvez Martinez
Centro de Astrobiología
9 de octubre de 2025
9 de octubre de 2025
Radiación sincrotrón y astrobiología: estudio espectroscópico in situ de la adsorción de L-cistina sobre pirita(100) bajo atmósferas de O2 y CO2
En la actualidad existen más de 50 instalaciones de radiación sincrotrón repartidas a lo largo del mundo, y las características de su luz permite observar desde la estructura atómica de la materia –rayos X duros- hasta fenómenos electrónicos –ondas de radio- con una resolución y rapidez inaccesible en laboratorios convencionales. En este seminario hablaré sobre la luz sincrotrón, las instalaciones que la generan y mencionaré algunos ejemplos de aplicación en el campo de la astrobiología, con especial atención a nuestro último trabajo, enfocado en la adsorción in situ y caracterización espectroscópica del dímero L-cistina sobre la superficie de pirita(100) expuesta a atmósferas de O2 y CO2, realizado en el sincrotrón ALBA de Barcelona. Este estudio permite explorar como las diferentes condiciones atmosféricas modifican la reactividad superficial del mineral, así como la capacidad de adsorción de moléculas simples, favoreciendo o inhibiendo la aparición de determinados grupos funcionales asociados al dímero sobre la superficie. De esta forma, las superficies minerales, como la pirita, pueden haber desempeñado un papel clave en la química prebiótica, proporcionando la disponibilidad de grupos funcionales para los procesos de polimerización molecular de las reacciones catalizadas por la superficie.
Millarca Valenzuela Picón
Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile
16 de octubre de 2025
16 de octubre de 2025
Astrobiological approach to the study of the Atacama Desert meteorites
The Atacama desert in northern Chile is one of the oldest and driest deserts of the world, and these characteristics allow the existence of old and stable surfaces capable of accumulating meteorites with terrestrial ages as old as more than 3 ma, with meteorite densities of ~200 met/km2 in some surfaces, one of the highest densities of meteorites in the world. In this context, the studies done so far on these meteorites are related to the study of the extraterrestrial material flux to Earth in the last 3 million years. For doing this, we classify the meteorites, mainly ordinary chondrites, get their terrestrial age with 36Cl, and study their weathering degree and weathering products, to check the availability of fresh materials for primary processes studies - first solid condensates, accretion, thermal and shock metamorphism - with them. Recently we are including the studies of colonization by microorganism in the desert environment in this kind of samples, and the characterization of the organic matter present in carbonaceous chondrites, the reason why we are visiting CAB. In the talk I'll bring samples of Atacama desert meteorites for the ones interested in seeing them.
François Dulieu
LIRA, CY Cergy Paris Université
17 de octubre de 2025
17 de octubre de 2025
Formation of molecules on cold interstellar dust grains from an experimental perspective
Hundreds of different molecules have been observed in space. Some of these are relatively complex (alcohols, acids, peptides, etc.) and may serve as the basis for prebiotic chemistry, the beginnings of which are thought to have been found in the cold environments of the molecular clouds that precede the birth of stars. What is certain is that molecular diversity initially develops in these dense environments (for space: n >10e4 particles/cm3), protected from UV radiation, where the temperature drops to around 10K. In these regimes, molecules and atoms freeze on the surface of interstellar dust (condensates of silicates or carbonaceous soot of submicronic size) and undergo a very profound chemical transformation before returning to the gas phase on numerous occasions (birth of stars, collisions, cometary outgassing, etc.). The transition from gas to grain and back to gas is still poorly constrained, and this is the focus of our team's experimental work.
We study the transformation of atoms (O, H, etc.) and the molecules they generate (H2, H2O, etc.) at the surface of interstellar dust grains, without any external energy input (photons, electrons, etc.). We are interested in accretion or sticking, surface diffusion and return to the gas phase, as well as reaction pathways. In dedicated UHV chambers, we expose cold surfaces (10-100K) to atomic (H,O,N..) or molecular (CO, H2O...) gases, monitoring the composition of the surface by infrared spectroscopy, and exchanges with the gas phase by mass spectroscopy. We are particularly interested in surface mechanisms at the molecular layer (or sub-layer) scale, where the most efficient processes take place.
In my presentation, after setting out the astrophysical context, I will present our experimental set-up, illustrating the methods we use to study the formation of H2 and H2O, as didactical example, before before moving on briefly to other topics such as the formation of complex molecules, or the study of snow lines displaced by the formation of ammonium salts.
Javier Piqueras Lopez
Centro de Astrobiología
23 de octubre de 2025
23 de octubre de 2025
The Largest Eye on the Sky: CAB contribution to the ELT
The Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, INTA-CSIC) plays an active role in the development of several key instruments for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the flagship observatory of the next generation of ground-based astronomy. Through its participation in international consortia, the CAB contributes to the design, integration, and scientific exploitation of cutting-edge instruments that will explore the Universe with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution. In particular, CAB researchers are involved in the HARMONI, MOSAIC, and ANDES instruments, covering a wide range of scientific objectives —from the study of galaxy formation and evolution to the search for exoplanets and the characterization of the earliest stellar populations. This talk will review the current status of the ELT and highlight the scientific and technological contributions of CAB to its instrumentation program, in particular to HARMONI, the ELT first-generation integral field spectrograph.
Gabriel A. Pinto
Université Libre de Bruxelles
30 de octubre de 2025
30 de octubre de 2025
Breaking the ice with the ULTIMO project: The accumulation of extraterrestrial material in the Belgica Mountains, Antarctica
Antarctica remains one of Earth’s least explored scientific frontiers. Over the past decade, Belgian Antarctic expeditions have recovered more than 1,300 meteorites from blue-ice fields, retrieved ~50,000 microscopic extraterrestrial (ET) particles from high-altitude sedimentary deposits (including micrometeorites, airburst debris, and impact ejecta), and constrained geological and exposure histories for rock outcrops, moraines, and ice in the eastern sector of the continent. Our latest campaign has reached the Belgica Mountains, an isolated ~16-km-long mountain range located, whose scientific potential remains largely untapped. Named during the 1957–1958 Belgian Antarctic Expedition, the area was revisited only briefly by a Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition in 1998, which recovered 37 meteorites in three days. The ULTIMO project aims to (1) validate the predictive power of existing machine learning approaches to locate meteorite concentration zones and collect/characterize finds in adjacent blue-ice fields, (2) expand the inventory of ET particles and cosmic events by sampling previously unexplored deposits in the Belgica Mountains, (3) assess the potential of surrounding blue-ice fields to preserve ancient ice, (4) study the geological and exposure history of the Belgica Mountains bedrock and associated moraines, and (5) quantify biomass accumulation and microbial colonization in meteorites and soils from this isolated environment. Together, these efforts will advance our understanding of Solar System origins and planetary formation, refine records of past climate, and illuminate the formation and exposure of regional geological and glaciological features.
Álvaro López-Gallifa
Centro de Astrobiología
6 de noviembre de 2025
6 de noviembre de 2025
Comparative study of the full chemical feedstock of Galactic and extragalactic star-forming regions
Most stars, including the Sun, are born in large stellar clusters that contain massive stars. Therefore, the study of the chemical content of these regions is crucial to understand the basic chemical ingredients available at the dawn of planetary systems. This will inform us whether our Solar System - the only one in which we know life is present - was chemically unique, or alternatively, if the basic molecular building blocks of life are widespread in our Galaxy, and even in other galaxies.
To address this, we first study in detail the hot core in the high-mass star-forming region G31.41+0.31 to explore the available chemistry when our Solar System was born, and we compare it with other sources representing different stages of stellar system formation. Secondly, we examine the chemical inventory present also in the same region, but with different physical conditions: a shock-affected region, in which the molecules we detect are less influenced by nearby stellar heating. Finally, we extend our study beyond our Galaxy by examining the central part of the nearby galaxy NGC 253, to understand whether the chemical composition of the Milky Way is also representative of those in external galaxies.
Muammar Mansor
University of Tübingen, Germany
13 de noviembre de 2025
13 de noviembre de 2025
Mineral and fossil biosignatures of microbial life
Microbe-mineral interactions affect the evolution of life, the biogeochemical cycling of various elements (Fe, S, C, N, P, trace metals, nutrients, contaminants), and the preservation of minerals that hold clues to conditions on Earth’s past and potentially in other habitable worlds. In this talk, I will present experiments investigating the long-term fate and preservation of microbial biosignatures. Microbial Fe(II) oxidation results in the formation of Fe(III) minerals in close association with microbial cells, often with unique morphologies. When these biosignatures are buried under anoxic conditions, they are subjected to other microbial and physicochemical processes that result in either their destruction or transformation. We show that while these alterations are ubiquitous, some form of biosignatures could still be recognizable in the form of microfossils in association with iron phosphates (e.g., vivianite) and iron sulfides (e.g., pyrite), while under other conditions, some biosignatures are irrevocably lost. Our work will aid in the detection of high confidence biosignatures for astrobiological exploration.
Elisa Delgado Mena
Centro de Astrobiología
20 de noviembre de 2025
20 de noviembre de 2025
The impact of stellar composition: from galactic chemical evolution to planet formation
The characterization of solar-type stars is fundamental for various fields in astrophysics, including exoplanet detection and the chemical evolution of our Galaxy. In particular, the determination of chemical abundances for stars at different metallicities and ages provides us with a key insight on how and when the various chemical elements were formed within the Galaxy. The chemical trends observed in different parts of the Galaxy (thin disk, thick disk, bulge and halo) also serve to understand how those different populations were formed. On the other hand, knowing the particular characteristics of a given star is essential to be able to detect its hosted planets as well as to characterise their mass, radius, structure and bulk internal composition. The probability of finding planets is clearly related to the chemical makeup of the stars and these planets in turn can have an influence on the stellar composition. In this talk I will review some of the important advances in these topics.
Marí-Paz Zorzano
Centro de Astrobiología
November 27, 2025
November 27, 2025
DNA resilience under martian radiation: implications for life detection on Mars
"The Curiosity rover’s detection of organic carbon and simple organic molecules in 3.5-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks at Gale Crater, Mars, has opened fundamental questions about the long-term preservation of biomolecules under Martian surface conditions. Analyses indicate that these rocks remained buried for most of their geological history and have been exposed to cosmic radiation only within the last 78 million years. If Mars was once habitable, could DNA—or similarly complex information-bearing polymers—survive such an environment?
In this talk we will share our most recent research around biomarker preservation on Mars. We analyzed analogous sedimentary rocks from Earth, with organic carbon contents comparable to those detected by Curiosity on Mars. These rocks host distinctive microbiomes that can metabolize organic carbon or exploit redox-active minerals for energy. Samples were subjected to extreme gamma radiation doses equivalent to more than 100 million years of exposure on the Martian surface. Using only 0.5 g of material per sample, we extracted and sequenced hundreds of thousands of nucleobases in an ISO Level 5 cleanroom to prevent contamination. Despite fragmentation and nucleobase damage 1.48–8.45% of sequences remained taxonomically identifiable, demonstrating that information-bearing DNA fragments can persist in rocks for over 100 Ma. This result can change our current approach to the search for life on Mars. "
Miguel Sanz-Novo
Centro de Astrobiología
December 4, 2025
December 4, 2025
A journey toward the limits of interstellar chemical complexity: A synergetic laboratory, theoretical and observational study
"The rate of new detections in the interstellar medium (ISM) has skyrocketed in recent years, to the point that more than one third of all known interstellar molecules have been discovered in just the past lustrum. These advances have been enabled by the synergy between high-resolution laboratory spectroscopy, high-level quantum-chemical calculations, and new ultradeep molecular line surveys. In this context, two astronomical sources stand out above the rest: the cold dark cloud TMC-1 and the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027. The latter, a shock-dominated region located in the Galactic Center (GC), has become an “astronomical mine” for detecting species containing the six key biogenic elements (C, H, O, N, S, and P), leading to 25 first detections to date.
In this seminar, I will take you on a journey through some of the most exciting recent interstellar discoveries, with a focus on those achieved toward G+0.693-0.027. Along the way, we will explore the astrochemical implications of detecting molecules ranging from small cationic and neutral tetratomic species such as protonated carbonyl sulfide (HOCS+) and thionylimide (HNSO) -the first interstellar molecule simultaneously containing N, S, and O-, to more complex molecules such as carbonic acid (HOCOOH) -the third carboxylic acid detected in the ISM-, the first interstellar glycine isomer identified in space, glycolamide, and dimethyl sulfide (CH3SCH3, DMS), the dominant volatile organic sulfur compound in Earth’s oceans and previously considered a robust biomarker in exoplanet research.
New observational results suggest that these discoveries likely represent only a small fraction of the molecular inventory yet to be identified, perhaps just the tip of the iceberg. Pushing these frontiers further will require a fully harmonized, multidisciplinary approach that integrates laboratory, observational, and theoretical efforts. This will be essential to uncover the actual levels of chemical complexity in the ISM and to understand how widespread the basic prebiotic ingredients for life might be in space. "
Serena Viti
University of Leiden
11 de diciembre de 2025
11 de diciembre de 2025
Characterising the dense molecular gas in galaxies
Molecules pervade the cooler, denser parts of our Universe, in particular the reservoirs of the matter that forms stars and planets, and the gas in the centres of galaxies. In fact, observations across the Universe reveal a surprisingly large number of molecules and show how complex chemistry in space can become, despite the harsh environment of the interstellar medium. Molecules not only play a key role in the formation and the shaping of galaxies, but they are also great tools to trace their physical characteristics as can be used to discover and explore the dense gas and its chemistry. In this colloquium I will present an overview of molecular astrophysics within the context of the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies. I will show how molecular emission can be used to explore and characterize the physical conditions and energetics, as well as, possibly, the evolutionary status of the interstellar medium. Finally, through an observational and theoretical tour of recent advances in the field, I will show how to make molecules into one of the most powerful diagnostics of the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies.
Exploring Life in Space with Underground Experiments
After briefly present the astroparticle physics projects, I will discuss the LSC research projects approved in the Biology Platform, an infrastructure hosting biology experiments on surface and underground since 2022 which explore the implications of cosmic silence on cellular processes. The list of projects includes, among others, the evolution of viral infection, the origin of multicellularity, the first developmental stages of fishes or aging of human cells. I will present the results of the first experiments which show a differential biological response to the absence of muons and the experimental setup to simulate abiotic stresses influencing life in space by also including microgravity and irradiation with protons.
Understanding taphonomy of lipid-like organics: essential for defining extraterrestrial detection strategies
A fundamental point in planetary exploration is the ability to detect unambiguous signs of a putative extraterrestrial life, either present or past. However, detecting ancient life is a tremendous challenge, not only beyond the Earth, but also on our own planet, as biosignatures can easily loss their diagnostic value through alteration during diagenesis. Furthermore, without the shielding of a protective atmosphere, the effect of cosmic radiation can be lethal to the preservation of molecular evidences of extraterrestrial life.
On Mars, the most habitable planet in the Solar System after Earth, the most plausible window for a Martian life would have been 3 to 4 billion years ago, when liquid water flowed on its surface and the climate was warmer. Detecting such ancient life therefore requires the ability to recognize its molecular traces today. Given the geological timescales involved, astrobiology exploration requires a focus on the most resilient biomarkers, among which lipids (i.e. integral components of cell membranes with capacity to survive over billions of years) are compelling candidates. Yet detecting intact putative biomarkers is highly unlikely due to the intense daily dose of radiation on the Martian surface; therefore, recognizing diagnostic degradation products requires a thorough understanding of their transformation patterns.
In this seminar, I will present the main taphonomic processes that govern the destruction and preservation of lipid biomarkers, with the aim of improving our ability to relate any lipid-like structure detected beyond Earth to life. This knowledge can be applied to lipid-like organics detected beyond Earth (e.g. short n-alkanes on Gale Crater, or different hydrocarbons in meteorites and comets), enhancing our analysis of mission data and informing the development of the next generation of life detection instrumentation.
(Sub-)mm continuum surveys: mapping the dusty galaxy contribution to the star formation history
We review the efforts carried out in the last 25 years to map the contribution of dust-obscured star-forming galaxies to the overall history of star formation and metal enrichment in the Universe. While the contribution of bright dusty star forming galaxies (LIR> 1012Lsun) has been reasonably well characterized up to z~3, their contribution at larger redshifts is still a matter of debate. ALMA surveys have provided an initial view of the properties of cold dust obscuration in systems with LIR> 1011Lsun, while the statistical characterization of the rise and decline of obscured star formation at these luminosities still awaits larger and deeper surveys. We introduce the open-access Legacy Surveys that will be carried out with TolTEC, the new imaging and polarimetric camera on the 50m Large Millimeter Telescope, which is designed to address these issues. We also present predictions from cosmologically motivated simulations to illustrate both the power and limitations we will face in deriving the intrinsic properties of this galaxy population.
Substellar science with the Euclid space telescope
The wealth of data from the Euclid space telescope represents a major resource not only for cosmological studies but also for ultracool dwarf (UCD) science. Its Quick Data Release, covering 63 deg², has already revealed more than 5,000 UCD candidates. Over 10% of these have been spectroscopically confirmed, and more than half have available spectra showing characteristic UCD features. The sample spans spectral types from late M to late T. The first major data release (DR1), scheduled for October 2026, will cover an area 30 times larger, marking the transition of substellar science into the era of big data and enabling the establishment of robust photometric and spectroscopic standards. I will present the current UCD catalogue from the Q1 data release and future prospects with the Euclid data.
Fuencisla Cañadas Blasco
CAB / University of Leeds (UK) / NASA Goddard (USA)
26 de marzo de 2026
26 de marzo de 2026