Related papers: Exoplanet Biosignatures: Future Directions
The search for extraterrestrial life hinges on identifying biosignatures, often focusing on gaseous metabolic byproducts as indicators. However, most such biosignatures require assuming specific metabolic processes. It is widely recognized…
Here we advocate an observational strategy to help prioritize exoplanet observations. It starts with more easily obtained observational data, and ranks exoplanets for more difficult follow-up observations based on the likelihood of avoiding…
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 goals of the astrobiology community are focussed on developing a framework for the detection of biosignatures, or evidence thereof, on objects inside and outside of our solar system. A fundamental aspect of understanding the limits of…
We review the field of exoplanetary biosignatures with a main focus upon atmospheric gas-phase species. Due to the paucity of data in Earth-like planetary atmospheres a common approach is to extrapolate knowledge from the Solar System and…
One of the promising methods to search for life on extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is to detect life's signatures in their atmospheres. Spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at the modest resolution needed to search for oxygen, carbon dioxide,…
The search for technosignatures from the Galaxy or the nearby universe raises two main questions: What are the possible characteristics of technosignatures? and How can future searches be optimized to enhance the probability of detection?…
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…
The near-term capability to characterize terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres may bring us closer to discovering alien life through atmospheric data. However, remotely detectable candidate biosignature gases are subject to false positive…
The search for biosignatures on exoplanets connects the fields of biology and biochemistry to astronomical observation, with the hope that we might detect evidence of active biological processes on worlds outside the solar system. Here we…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres through transit spectra is becoming increasingly feasible, and technology for direct detection remains ongoing. The possibility of detecting spectral features could enable quantitative…
The search for life on planets outside our solar system will use spectroscopic identification of atmospheric biosignatures. The most robust remotely-detectable potential biosignature is considered to be the detection of oxygen (O_2) or…
The current goals of the astrobiology community are focused on developing a framework for the detection of biosignatures, or evidence thereof, on objects inside and outside of our solar system. A fundamental aspect of understanding the…
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…
As we prepare for the next planetary mission charged with finding life beyond Earth, the Astrobiology community must continue to improve its understanding of what constitutes a biosignature, through the use of planetary analog samples. The…
A fundamental astrobiological question is whether life can be transported between extrasolar systems. We propose a new strategy to answer this question based on the principle that life which arose via spreading will exhibit more clustering…
The search for life on exoplanets is motivated by the universal ways in which life could modify its planetary environment. Atmospheric gases such as oxygen and methane are promising candidates for such environmental modification due to the…
Provided that sufficient resources are deployed, we can look forward to an extraordinary future in which we will characterize potentially habitable planets. Until now, we have had to base interpretations of observations on habitability…
Exoplanetary science is on the verge of an unprecedented revolution. The thousands of exoplanets discovered over the past decade have most recently been supplemented by discoveries of potentially habitable planets around nearby low-mass…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…