AbSciCon26 tipsheet 1: Exoplanet Earth, evolution, biosignatures, habitable worlds

Astrobiology Science Conference 2026
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center
One John Nolen Drive
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
17 - 22 May 2026

Press contact: Liza Lester, +1 (202) 777-7494, [email protected]

WASHINGTON - The 2026 Astrobiology Science Conference, sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), will convene next week in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The biennial conference brings together a diverse, international astrobiology community to share new research investigating life's potential, from Earth's extreme environments and deep past to our Solar System's icy moons and distant exoplanets.

Tips in this advisory:

• Biosignatures
• Earth extremes
• Evolution
• Exoplanets and habitable zones

Reporters and press officers interested in press registration should email [email protected]. Please include a link to a byline, masthead or a staff page listing your name and position. Freelancers should provide a link to a portfolio or links to at least three bylined science news stories published in the last 12 months. Let us know whether you plan to attend AbSciCon26 online or to come to Madison in person. Media access to the meeting is issued at the discretion of AGU Media Relations. Learn about AGU's press eligibility requirements.

AbSciCon26 will host about 900 scientific posters, talks, town halls and plenary lectures. Browse the conference program for a preview of the scientific sessions. Registered attendees can log in to build a personal schedule in the conference desktop planner and mobile app.

Although AbSciCon26 is primarily an in-person meeting, remote reporters can join a small set of online-only discussion sessions on Zoom via the conference app by registering to attend the conference virtually. Recordings of the audio and slide presentations from in-person town halls, plenaries and oral sessions will be available on demand on the conference app about 72 hours after each session is finished. AGU media relations will be on site to help reporters connect with attending scientists.

Recommended sessions part 1:

*Session start times listed in conference local Central Daylight Time (GMT - 5 hours)

Biosignatures

Signs of exoplanet life in atmospheric complexity
Monday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Assembly Theory Across Scales: From Molecules to Planetary Systems I eLightning

• Life is a planetary process that accrues complexity on a global scale. To detect life beyond Earth without limiting the search to Earth's particular biology, scientists have proposed looking for thresholds of molecular complexity based on the number of steps needed to construct a molecule. Biological molecules have a large "assembly index" of greater than 15. By extending this concept to atmospheric complexity, researchers can search for life in the spectra of exoplanet atmospheres as observed from our home planet (or general vicinity).

Humpback whale night thrums and other possible missed signals from non-human intelligences
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Searching for Technological Signatures of Life Beyond Earth II Poster

• The search for extraterrestrial life is limited by human capacity to imagine how to look, listen and recognize intelligence. Low pitched (30 to 250 Hertz), above-water rumbles of humpback whales, recorded for the first time by scientific observers, demonstrate how observing the communication of non-human intelligent life on Earth expands our imagination of life beyond Earth. The "night thrums" can travel more than 10 kilometers above the waves, and had been noted by sea kayakers, lighthouse keepers and other quiet ocean visitors. The new study confirms a spectrum of other humpback aerial pizzles, chuffs, boils, howls and hoots that add an open-air dimension to the whales' communication.

Signs of life as we don't know it: molecular construction vs algorithmic complexity in the search for life
Monday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Assembly Theory Across Scales: From Molecules to Planetary Systems I eLightning

Tiny magnets inside bacteria could point to life signs on energy-poor exoplanets
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Applying Biosignatures to Constrain the Fingerprint, Origins, Evolution, and Evolvability of Life I Poster

Chemical fingerprints of life past and present support view that random processes shaped early evolution
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Applying Biosignatures to Constrain the Fingerprint, Origins, Evolution, and Evolvability of Life I Poster

Biosignatures of Earth's earliest life and how to spot them
Tuesday 10:00 AM abstract | app schedule
Session: Deciphering Planetary Organic Inventories Across the Abiotic - Prebiotic - Biotic Spectrum: Uncovering the Signs of Life as We Might Not Know It I Oral

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Earth extremes

Drill expedition finds living microbes 1 kilometer deep into the seafloor
Tuesday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Turning Ocean Worlds Inside Out: From Drilling Beneath the Seafloor to Cryosphere Surfaces I Oral

• Deep in Earth's crust, single-celled organisms are carrying on with life, suggesting similar conditions could be habitable on other ocean worlds. The International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 399 visited the Atlantis Massif, an underwater mountain rising 14,000 feet from the seafloor in the middle of the Atlantic, where tectonic activity has brought typically inaccessible mantle rock to the surface. The researchers were on a mission to sample life below the seabed and explore how non-biological reactions between water and rocks in this environment may simulate the ancient conditions that set the stage for life on Earth and, possibly, other worlds in our Solar System. They drilled 1,267.8 meters (4,159 feet) down from the southern wall near The Lost City Hydrothermal Field and found metabolically active microbes..

At mountain summits, soil microbes use hydrogen gas to make energy
Wednesday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: How Disequilibrium Fuels Life: Observations of Metabolic Opportunities Related to Dramatic Environmental Gradients I Oral

• In the extreme heights of the Andes, soil microbes unlock hydrogen power
  Thousands of meters up on Mt. Aconcagua in the Andes, in freezing cold, parching dryness, and intense UV radiation, microbes' metabolisms get weird. After studying soil samples at elevations from 3,300 to 6,900 meters above sea level, researchers found that the higher the elevation, the more soil microbes use "trace hydrogen oxidation" to derive energy from tiny amounts of hydrogen gas in the atmosphere. Near the mountain's summit, microbes used this strategy 75 times more intensely than at the lowest elevation where it was observed. The finding helps researchers understand how life persists not only in extreme Earth environments, but potentially under similar conditions on Mars.

These microbes may subsist on oxygen made by rocks
Wednesday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Aerobic Aliens: Are Aerobic Worlds Inevitable? Pathways to Planetary Oxygenation I eLightning

• With no plants around, these underground microbes get oxygen from rocks
  Deep underground, the lack of sunlight prevents the creation of oxygen through photosynthesis by organisms like plants and algae, the way most oxygen on Earth is made - but microbes down there have other ways to get the gas. When crushed-up silicate minerals react with oxygen-free water, researchers found, they produce enough oxygen and hydrogen to support hardy subterranean microbes that don't require much oxygen to live. Since silicate minerals and water occur on worlds like Mars, Europa, and Enceladus, it's possible life could subsist in a similar way beyond Earth.

Slow lifestyle of the subseafloor sediments evolved extra stable enzymes to live millions of years
Tuesday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Energetics and Habitability of Mineral-Supported Planetary Analog Subsurface Regions I Oral

In a mission named after a sci-fi desert planet, scientists search Alaskan dunes for clues to how life might survive in alien sands
Wednesday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Titan Astrobiology: From the Cassini Era to Dragonfly and Beyond I Oral

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Evolution of life near and far

Infrared light photosynthesis pushes "red edge" of habitability on Earth and beyond
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Exoplanet Surface Biosignatures I Poster

What conditions make multicellularity a repeat winning strategy?
Tuesday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: The Evolution of Multicellularity and Cellular Differentiation II Poster

Life may have started without genes. At that point, would Darwinian evolution have still applied?
Wednesday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: New Approaches to Bridging the Abiotic-Biotic Divide: From Catalytic Assemblies to Network Analysis to Information Theory I Poster

Could life on another world consist of just one species?
Thursday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Symbiosis, Gene Transfers, and Biological Interactions as Universal Drivers of Life I Oral

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Exoplanets and habitable zones

Detecting life could be harder on planets with extreme boom-bust seasons
Monday 2:00 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Climates of Potentially Habitable Rocky Exoplanets I Oral

Lunar orbiter sees glint of Earth's oceans, testing method to find exo-oceans
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Exoplanet Surface Biosignatures I Poster

Extreme seasons may boost marine life but limit life on land
Monday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Climates of Potentially Habitable Rocky Exoplanets II Poster

"Hycean" early Earth may have had a short-lived hydrogen atmosphere that set the conditions for life
Tuesday 3:45 PM abstract | app schedule
Session: Habitable subNeptunes: Theory and Prospects for Observational Identification I Poster

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Save the date for more 2026 science

• JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 24 - 29 May in Makuhari, Chiba City, Japan
• AGU26 Annual Meeting, 7 - 11 December in San Francisco, California, USA

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