Related papers: Five or six step scenario for evolution?
This chapter is dedicated to the slow dynamics of the climate system, at time scales of one~thousand to one million years. We focus specifically on the phenomenon of ice ages that has characterised the slow evolution of climate over the…
The data recently accumulated by the Kepler mission have demonstrated that small planets are quite common and that a significant fraction of all stars may have an Earth-like planet within their Habitable Zone. These results are combined…
Atmospheric escape is an important process that influences the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A variety of physical mechanisms can contribute to escape from an atmosphere, including thermal escape, ion escape, photochemical escape, and…
Definition of habitability depends on the organisms under consideration. One way to determine habitability of some environment is to compare its certain parameters to environments where extremophilic micro-organisms thrive on Earth. We can…
The path toward the emergence of life in our biosphere involved several key events allowing for the persistence, reproduction and evolution of molecular systems. All these processes took place in a given environmental context and required…
Ongoing and future space missions aim to identify potentially habitable planets in our Solar System and beyond. Planetary habitability is determined not only by a planet's current stellar insolation and atmospheric properties, but also by…
This roadmap outlines research pathways to determine whether Mars could be warmed with non-biological methods. It does not presuppose that warming Mars is desirable; its purpose is to identify what would need to be true for Mars to be…
The Hadean, once thought to be uninhabitable and tumultuous, has more recently been recontextualized as a clement time in which oceans, land, and life likely appeared on Earth. This non-exhaustive chapter follows multiple threads from…
Many evolutionary models of giant exoplanets still rely on simplifying assumptions that are no longer adequate given detailed constraints from Jupiter, Saturn, and modern exoplanet observations. Here, we identify the key physical…
Standard definitions of habitability assume that life requires the presence of planetary gravity wells to stabilize liquid water and regulate surface temperature. Here the consequences of relaxing this assumption are evaluated. Temperature,…
Many dynamical aspects of the solar system can be explained by the outer planets experiencing a period of orbital instability sometimes called the Nice Model. Though often correlated with a perceived delayed spike in the lunar cratering…
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering…
A key result of hydrogravitational dynamics cosmology relevant to astrobiology is the early formation of vast numbers of hot primordial-gas planets in million-solar-mass clumps as the dark matter of galaxies and the hosts of first life.…
The scientific data about the state of our planet, presented at the 2012 (Rio+20) summit, documented that today's human family lives even less sustainably than it did in 1992. The data indicate furthermore that the environmental impacts…
If two physical timescales are independent, i.e. they depend on different physics, then (statistically) there is no reason to believe that their values should be equal, even to an order of magnitude. The timescale for abiogenesis…
Evolution by natural selection can be seen an algorithm for generating creative solutions to difficult problems. More precisely, evolution by natural selection is a class of algorithms that share a set of properties. The question we address…
This paper presents the first structured evaluation of Solar System bodies hypothetically relocated to Earth orbit (1 AU) to assess their potential as alternative habitats. Using comparative criteria, planetary size and gravity, atmospheric…
The Great Filter hypothesis proposes that the emergence of technological societies capable of interstellar travel depends on a small number of exceptionally hard and highly improbable steps. Traditional versions of this hypothesis enumerate…
Planetary embryos form protoplanets via mutual collisions, which can lead to the development of magma oceans. During their solidification, large amounts of the mantles' volatile contents may be outgassed. The resulting H$_2$O/CO$_2$…
Stellar evolution models predict that the solar luminosity was lower in the past, typically 20-25 % lower during the Archean (3.8-2.5 Ga). Despite the fainter Sun, there is strong evidence for the presence of liquid water on Earth's surface…