Related papers: Expanding and Improving the Search for Habitable W…
Over the last twenty years, the search for extrasolar planets revealed us the rich diversity of the outcomes of the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In order to fully understand how these extrasolar planets came to be, however,…
Terrestrial planetary systems may exist around nearby stars as the Earth-sized counterparts to the many giant planets already discovered within the solar neighborhood. In this chapter we first discuss the numerous techniques which have been…
Next-generation space observatories will conduct the first systematic surveys of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres and search for evidence of life beyond Earth. While in-depth observations of the nearest habitable worlds may yield enticing…
What kind of environment may exist on terrestrial planets around other stars? In spite of the lack of direct observations, it may not be premature to speculate on exoplanetary climates, for instance to optimize future telescopic…
Due to its absence of an atmosphere and relative geological inertness, the Moon's surface records past impacts of objects from the Solar system and beyond. We examine the prospects for discovering extrasolar material near the lunar surface…
Over the past three decades, exoplanet research has delivered an extensive census of planets spanning a wide range of masses, sizes, and orbital configurations. Despite this progress, the physical interpretation of these populations remains…
A habitable zone of a star is defined as a range of orbits within which a rocky planet can support liquid water on its surface. The most intriguing question driving the search for habitable planets is whether they host life. But is the age…
The experiment of exo-ecosystem and the exploration of extraterrestrial habitability aims to explore the adaptation of terrestrial life in space conditions for the manned space program and the future interstellar migration, which shows…
For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable a mission capable of discovering and characterizing habitable planets like Earth orbiting sunlike stars other than the Sun. At the same time, such a…
We investigate the prospects for the past or current existence of habitable conditions deep underneath the surfaces of the Moon and Mars as well as generic bound and free-floating extrasolar rocky objects. We construct a simple model that…
The concept of a system-wide measure of the sustainment of life (habitability) for space-faring interplanetary species is introduced and explored. Although largely agnostic to the details of how interplanetary life might operate (e.g., via…
The search for life on planets outside our solar system has largely been the province of the astrophysics community until recently. A major development since the NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015 document (AS15) has been the integration of…
In support of the National Acadamies' Exoplanet Science Strategy, this whitepaper outlines key technology challenges for studying the diversity of worlds in the Galaxy and in searching for habitable planets. Observations of habitable…
In the near future we will have ground- and space-based telescopes that are designed to observe and characterize Earth-like planets. While attention is focused on exoplanets orbiting main sequence stars, more than 150 exoplanets have…
The search for an inhabited planet, other than our own, is a driver of planetary exploration in our solar system and beyond. Using information from our own planet to inform search strategies allows for a targeted search. It is, however,…
In this outlook we describe what could be the next steps of the direct characterization of habitable exoplanets after first the medium and large mission projects and investigate the benefits of the spectroscopic and direct imaging…
This is a scientific strategy for the detection and characterization of extrasolar planets; that is, planets orbiting other stars. As such, it maps out over a 15-year horizon the techniques and capabilities required to detect and measure…
The study of planetary habitability beyond Earth remains a central and challenging project in planetary science. Analysis of large volumes of planetary data from space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, and JWST is directed ultimately at…
With most planets and planetary candidates detected in the stellar habitable zone (HZ) being super-Earths and gas giants, rather than Earth-like planets, we naturally wonder if their moons could be habitable. The first detection of such an…
The selection of optimal targets in the search for life represents a highly important strategic issue. In this Letter, we evaluate the benefits of searching for life around a potentially habitable planet orbiting a star of arbitrary mass…