Related papers: Better Than Earth
Dozens of habitable zone, approximately earth-sized exoplanets are known today. An emerging frontier of exoplanet studies is identifying which of these habitable zone, small planets are actually habitable (have all necessary conditions for…
When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…
Searching for life elsewhere in the universe is one of the most highly prioritized pursuits in astronomy today. However, the ability to observe evidence of Earth-like life through biosignatures is limited by the number of planets in the…
The probability that life spontaneously emerges in a suitable environment (abiogenesis) is one of the major unknowns in astrobiology. Assessing its value is impeded by the lack of an accepted theory for the origin of life, and is further…
Direct imaging is likely the best way to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. Previously, Stark et al. (2014, 2015, 2016) estimated the Earth twin yield of future direct imaging…
Are there other planetary systems in our Universe? Indirect evidence has been found for planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy: the gravity of orbiting planets makes the star wobble, and the resulting periodic Doppler shifts have been…
According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy-balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the…
The circumstellar habitable zone and its various refinements serves as a useful entry point for discussing the potential for a planet to generate and sustain life. But little attention is paid to the quality of available energy in the form…
The search for habitable planets, and even for ``Earth 2.0'', is a major driver in contemporary astronomy. However selecting target fields to prioritise for such searches presents a challenge. Here we establish a statistical analysis of the…
Another partial solution of Fermi's famous paradox is proposed, based on our increased understanding of geophysics, geo-engineering and climatology. It has been claimed in the recent astrobiological literature (for instance, in the recent…
The search for a habitable extrasolar planet has long interested scientists, but only recently have the tools become available to search for such planets. In the past decades, the number of known extrasolar planets has ballooned into the…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
Searching for extraterrestrial life and supporting human life in space are traditionally regarded as separate challenges. However, there are significant benefits to an approach that treats them as different aspects of the same essential…
The cosmological principle posits that the universe does not exhibit any specific preference for position or direction. However, it remains unclear whether the universe has a distinct preference for parity: whether certain properties are…
Terrestrial exoplanets are on the verge of joining the ranks of astronomically accessible objects. Interpreting their observable characteristics, and informing decisions on instrument design and use, will hinge on the ability to model these…
Now that we know that Earth-like planets are ubiquitous in the universe, as well as that most of them are much older than the Earth, it is justified to ask to what extent evolutionary outcomes on other such planets are similar, or indeed…
We argue that from the point of view of gauge theory and of an appropriate interpretation of the interferometer experiments with matter waves in a gravitational field, the Einstein-Cartan theory is the best theory of gravity available.…
The notion of a Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), or regions of the Milky Way galaxy that preferentially maintain the conditions to sustain complex life, has recently gained attention due to the detection of numerous exoplanets and advances…
The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital…
Over the past two decades, enormous advances in the detection of exoplanets have taken place. Currently, we have discovered hundreds of earth-sized planets, several of them within the habitable zone of their star. In the coming years, the…