Related papers: From climate models to planetary habitability: tem…
The habitable zone (HZ) is commonly defined as the range of distances from a host star within which liquid water, a key requirement for life, may exist on a planet's surface. Substantially more CO2 than present in Earth's modern atmosphere…
We use a simple organism lifecycle model to explore the viability of an atmospheric habitable zone (AHZ), with temperatures that could support Earth-centric life, which sits above an environment that does not support life. To illustrate our…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
Planets residing in circumstellar habitable zones (CHZs) offer our best opportunities to test hypotheses of life's potential pervasiveness and complexity. Constraining the precise boundaries of habitability and its observational…
As a contribution to the study of the habitability of extrasolar planets, we implemented a 1-D Energy Balance Model (EBM), the simplest seasonal model of planetary climate, with new prescriptions for most physical quantities. Here we apply…
The habitable fraction of a planet's surface is important for the detectability of surface biosignatures. The extent and distribution of habitable areas is influenced by external parameters that control the planet's climate, atmospheric…
The liquid water habitable zone (HZ) describes the orbital distance at which a terrestrial planet can maintain above-freezing conditions through regulation by the carbonate-silicate cycle. Recent calculations have suggested that planets in…
The search for biosignatures necessitates developing our understanding of life under different conditions. If life can influence the climate evolution of its planet then understanding the behaviour of life-climate feedbacks under extreme…
Planetary surface habitability has so far been considered, in the main, upon a global scale. The increasing number of 3D modelling studies of (exo)planetary climate has highlighted the need for a more nuanced understanding of surface…
In this paper we discuss and illustrate the hypothesis that life substantially alters the state of a planetary environment and therefore, modifies the limits of the HZ as estimated for an uninhabited planet. This hypothesis lead to the…
High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3-D global climate…
The dynamic nature of life's ability to thrive in diverse and changing planetary environments suggests that habitability and survival depend on the evolutionary path and life adaptation to environmental conditions. Here we explore such…
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,…
Conventional definitions of habitability require abundant liquid surface water to exist continuously over geologic timescales. Water in each of its thermodynamic phases interacts with solar and thermal radiation and is the cause for strong…
The climate of a planet can be strongly affected by its eccentricity due to variations in the stellar flux. There are two limits for the dependence of the inner habitable zone boundary (IHZ) on eccentricity: (1) the mean-stellar flux…
Kepler-452b is currently the best example of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, a type of planet whose number of detections is expected to increase in the future. Searching for biosignatures in the supposedly…
The ongoing discoveries of extrasolar planets are unveiling a wide range of terrestrial mass (size) planets around their host stars. In this letter, we present estimates of habitable zones (HZs) around stars with stellar effective…
Studying exoplanet atmospheres is essential for assessing their potential to host liquid water and their capacity to support life (their habitability). Each atmosphere uniquely influences the likelihood of surface liquid water, defining the…
Recent detections of carbon-bearing molecules in the atmosphere of a candidate Hycean world, K2-18 b, with JWST are opening the prospects for characterising potential biospheres on temperate exoplanets. Hycean worlds are a recently…
The habitable zone (HZ) is the circular region around a star(s) where standing bodies of water could exist on the surface of a rocky planet. Space missions employ the HZ to select promising targets for follow-up habitability assessment. The…