Related papers: In Outer Space without a Space Suit?
Since the launch of Kepler and Hubble more than a decade ago, we have come a long way in the quest to find a potentially habitable exoplanet. To date, we have already discovered more than 4000 exoplanets most of which are not suitable for…
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…
In his 1948 lecture to the British Interplanetary Society, Olaf Stapledon considered the ultimate purpose of colonising other worlds. Having examined the possible motivations arising from improved scientific knowledge and access to…
From the basic impact of nutrient intake on health maintenance to the psychosocial benefits of mealtime, great advancements in nutritional sciences for support of human space travel have occurred over the past 60 years. Nutrition in space…
The shell bound by the Karman line at a height of 80 to 100km above the Earth's surface, and Geosynchronous Orbit, at 36,000km, is defined as the orbital space surrounding the Earth. It is within this region, and especially in Low Earth…
Predicting the rate of escape and thermal structure of Pluto's upper atmosphere in preparation for the New Horizons Spacecraft encounter in 2015 is important for planning and interpreting the expected measurements. Having a moderate Jeans…
Mars is the next destination after Earth to support terrestrial life. Decades of Mars exploration has fascinated space explorers to endeavour for a human expedition. But human Mars enterprise is complicated than conventional mission as the…
In the next decades, the astrobiological community will debate whether the first observations of oxygen in an exoplanet$'$s atmosphere signifies life, so it is critical to establish procedures now for collection and interpretation of such…
The habitable zone concept is important because it focuses the scientific search for extraterrestrial life and aids the planning of future telescopes. Recent work has shown that planets near the outer edge of the habitable zone might not…
Titan is the only moon with a substantial atmosphere, the only other thick N$_{2}$ atmosphere besides Earth's, the site of extraordinarily complex atmospheric chemistry that far surpasses any other solar system atmosphere, and the only…
Some atmospheric gases have been proposed as counter indicators to the presence of life on an exoplanet if remotely detectable at sufficient abundance (i.e., antibiosignatures), informing the search for biosignatures and potentially…
Our planet and our species are at an existential crossroads. In the long term, climate change threatens to upend life as we know it, while the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic revealed that the world is unprepared and ill-equipped to handle acute…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
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…
Searching for life in the universe will make use of several large space missions in the visible and thermal infrared, each with increasing spectral and angular resolution. They will require long-term planning over the coming decades. We…
A massive naked singularity would be cloaked by accreted matter, and thus may appear to a distant observer as an opaque \mbox{(quasi-)}spherical surface of a fluid, not unlike that of a star or planet. We present here analytical solutions…
The detection of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, and their spectroscopic characterization in a search for biosignatures, requires starlight suppression that exceeds the current best ground-based performance by…
We apply a mathematical model for photosynthesis to quantitatively assess the habitability of a hypothetical planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, inside the so called habitability zone. Results suggest significant viability for primary…
With the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets and a potentially huge number of Earth-like planets waiting to be discovered, the conditions for their habitability have become a focal point in exoplanetary research. The classical picture of…
Ozone ($\textrm{O}_3$) is important for the survival of life on Earth because it shields the surface from ionising ultraviolet (UV) radiation. However, the existence of $\textrm{O}_3$ in Earth's atmosphere is not always beneficial.…