▪ Abstract We review the state of observational and theoretical studies of the shaping of planetary nebulae (PNe) and protoplanetary nebulae (pPNe). In the past decade, high-resolution studies of PNe have revealed a bewildering array of morphologies with elaborate symmetries. Recent imaging studies of pPNe exhibit an even richer array of shapes. The variety of shapes, sometimes multiaxial symmetries, carefully arranged systems of low-ionization knots and jets, and the often Hubble-flow kinematics of PNe and pPNe indicate that there remains much to understand about the last stages of stellar evolution. In many cases, the basic symmetries and shapes of these objects develop on extremely short timescales, seemingly at the end of AGB evolution when the mode of mass loss abruptly and radically changes. No single explanation fits all of the observations. The shaping process may be related to external torques of a close or merging binary companion or the emergence of magnetic fields embedded in dense outflowing stellar winds. We suspect that a number of shaping processes may operate with different strengths and at different stages of the evolution of any individual object.

We investigate mass transfer and the formation of discs in binary systems using a combination of numerical simulations and theory. We consider six models distinguished by binary separation, secondary mass and outflow mechanism. Each system consists of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star and an accreting secondary. The AGB star loses its mass via a wind. In one of our six models, the AGB star incurs a short period of outburst. In all cases, the secondary accretes part of the ejected mass and also influences the mass-loss rate of the AGB star. The ejected mass may remain gravitationally bound to the binary system and form a circumbinary disc, or contribute to an accretion disc around the secondary. In other cases, the ejecta will escape the binary system. The accretion rate on to the secondary changes non-linearly with binary separation. In our closest binary simulations, our models exemplify the wind Roche lobe overflow while in our wide binary cases, the mass transfer exhibits Bondi–Hoyle accretion. The morphologies of the outflows in the binary systems are varied. The variety may provide clues to how the late AGB phase influences planetary nebula shaping. We employ the adaptive-mesh-refinement code astrobear for our simulations and include ray tracing, radiation transfer, cooling and dust formation. To attain the highest computational efficiency and the most stable results, all simulations are run in the corotating frame.

We present the first results from high-energy-density laboratory astrophysics experiments that explore the interaction of supersonic jets/outflows with an ambient medium. Our experiments were conducted on the Omega laser facility, a large Inertial Confinement Fusion facility. In our experiments, a laser pulse drives a supersonic jet into foam. High-resolution X-ray radiography reveals the resulting highly structured bow shock. These are the first laboratory astrophysics experiments to capture the behavior of both the jet and the bow shock. We discuss the astrophysical relevance of the flow processes that we observe in the experiments and in the accompanying numerical models. Scaling arguments suggest that our experiments are most directly relevant to active galactic nucleus jets and planetary nebula outflows, while future work may allow our experiments to extend into regimes relevant to radiative outflows from young stellar objects.

The intuition suggested by the Drake equation implies that technology should be less prevalent than biology in the galaxy. However, it has been appreciated for decades in the SETI community that technosignatures could be more abundant, longer-lived, more detectable, and less ambiguous than biosignatures. We collect the arguments for and against technosignatures’ ubiquity and discuss the implications of some properties of technological life that fundamentally differ from nontechnological life in the context of modern astrobiology: It can spread among the stars to many sites, it can be more easily detected at large distances, and it can produce signs that are unambiguously technological. As an illustration in terms of the Drake equation, we consider two Drake-like equations, for technosignatures (calculating N(tech)) and biosignatures (calculating N(bio)). We argue that Earth and humanity may be poor guides to the longevity term L and that its maximum value could be very large, in that technology can outlive its creators and even its host star. We conclude that while the Drake equation implies that N(bio) ≫ N(tech), it is also plausible that N(tech) ≫ N(bio). As a consequence, as we seek possible indicators of extraterrestrial life, for instance, via characterization of the atmospheres of habitable exoplanets, we should search for both biosignatures and technosignatures. This exercise also illustrates ways in which biosignature and technosignature searches can complement and supplement each other and how methods of technosignature search, including old ideas from SETI, can inform the search for biosignatures and life generally.

Winds from accretion disks have been proposed as the driving source for precessing jets and extreme bipolar morphologies in planetary nebulae (PNs) and proto-PNs (PPNs). Here we apply MHD disk wind models to PNs and PPNs by estimating separately the asymptotic MHD wind velocities and mass-loss rates. We discuss conditions that may occur in PN and PPN accretion disks that form via binary interactions. We show that the resulting winds can recover the observed momentum and energy input rates for PNs and PPNs. High accretion rates (Ma ≈ 10-4 M☉ yr-1) may be required in the latter case. We find that the observed total energy and momentum in PPNs can be recovered with disk wind models using existing disk formation scenarios. When combined with existing scenarios for accretion disk formation from disrupted stellar companions, our models may provide an explanation for the existence of high-speed polar knots (FLIERS) observed in some PNs.

Conventionally, intelligence is seen as a property of individuals. However, it is also known to be a property of collectives. Here, we broaden the idea of intelligence as a collective property and extend it to the planetary scale. We consider the ways in which the appearance of technological intelligence may represent a kind of planetary scale transition, and thus might be seen not as something which happens on a planet but to a planet, much as some models propose the origin of life itself was a planetary phenomenon. Our approach follows the recognition among researchers that the correct scale to understand key aspects of life and its evolution is planetary, as opposed to the more traditional focus on individual species. We explore ways in which the concept may prove useful for three distinct domains: Earth Systems and Exoplanet studies; Anthropocene and Sustainability studies; and the study of Technosignatures and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We argue that explorations of planetary intelligence, defined as the acquisition and application of collective knowledge operating at a planetary scale and integrated into the function of coupled planetary systems, can prove a useful framework for understanding possible paths of the long-term evolution of inhabited planets including future trajectories for life on Earth and predicting features of intelligentially steered planetary evolution on other worlds.