Related papers: Red-edge position of habitable exoplanets around M…
We review the latest findings on extra-solar planets and their potential to support Earth-like life. Focusing on planets orbiting Red Dwarf (RD) stars, the most abundant stellar type, we show that including RDs as potential host stars could…
The habitability of a planet depends on various factors, such as delivery of water during the formation, the co-evolution of the interior and the atmosphere, as well as the stellar irradiation which changes in time. Since an unknown number…
In a few years, space telescopes will investigate our Galaxy to detect evidence of life, mainly by observing rocky planets. In the last decade, the observation of exoplanet atmospheres and the theoretical works on biosignature gasses have…
Earth's deciduous plants have a sharp order-of-magnitude increase in leaf reflectance between approximately 700 and 750 nm wavelength. This strong reflectance of Earth's vegetation suggests that surface biosignatures with sharp spectral…
Photosynthesis offers a convenient means of sustaining biospheres. We quantify the constraints for photosynthesis to be functional on the permanent nightside of tidally locked rocky exoplanets via reflected light from their exomoons. We…
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…
Reflection spectroscopy holds great promise for characterizing the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially habitable terrestrial exoplanets. The surface of the modern Earth exhibits a sharp albedo change near 750 nm caused by vegetation -…
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…
The vegetation's ``red edge'', an intensity bump in the Earth's spectrum near 700 $nm$ when sunlight is reflected from greenery, is often suggested as a tool in the search for life in terrestrial-like extrasolar planets. Here, through…
In the search for life on other planets, the presence of photosynthetic vegetation may be detectable from the colors of light it reflects. On the modern Earth, this spectral reflectance is characterized by an increase in reflectance between…
The closest potentially habitable worlds outside our Solar system orbit a different kind of star than our Sun: smaller red dwarf stars. Such stars can flare frequently, bombarding their planets with biologically damaging high-energy UV…
A rigorous definition of the habitable zone and its dependence on planetary properties is part of the search for habitable exoplanets. In this work, we use the general circulation model ExoCAM to determine how the inner edge of the…
Exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zone around M-dwarf stars have been prime targets in the search for life due to the long lifetimes of the host star, the prominence of such stars in the galaxy, and the apparent excess of terrestrial…
Among potentially habitable worlds, rocky planets orbiting M dwarfs offer the most favorable prospects for atmospheric characterization, yet their climates may differ substantially from those of Earth analogs. In the tidally locked limit,…
Exoplanet habitability remains a challenging field due to the large distances separating Earth from other stars. Using insights from biology and astrophysics, we studied the habitability of M-dwarf exoplanets by modeling their surface…
The high reflection of land vegetation in the near-infrared, the vegetation red edge (VRE), is often cited as a spectral biosignature for surface vegetation on exoplanets. The VRE is only a few percent change in reflectivity for a…
Technological civilizations may rely upon large-scale photovoltaic arrays to harness energy from their host star. Photovoltaic materials, such as silicon, possess distinctive spectral features, including an "artificial edge" that is…
The search for Earth-like extrasolar planets is in part motivated by the potential detection of spectroscopic biomarkers. Spectroscopic biomarkers are spectral features that are either consistent with life, indicative of habitability, or…
Volatile loss from exoplanetary atmospheres and its possible implications for the longevity of habitable surface conditions is a topic of vigorous debate currently. The vast majority of the habitable zone terrestrial-like exoplanets known…
Potentially-habitable planets orbiting M-dwarfs are of intense astrobiological interest because they are the only rocky worlds accessible to biosignature search over the next 10+ years due to a confluence of observational effects.…