Related papers: The Engine of Life
Simple climate models have been around for more than a century but have recently come back into fashion: they are useful for explaining global warming and the habitability of extrasolar planets. The Climate App (https://www.climateapp.ca)…
First part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the day and night cycle and the seasons, including the construction of a simplified solar system model and its use as a resource to discuss…
Recently, a formal analogy between the fluctuating diffusivity and thermodynamics has been proposed based on phenomena of heterogeneous diffusion observed in living cells. This not only offers the analogs of the quantity of heat and work as…
Definition of habitability depends on the organisms under consideration. One way to determine habitability of some environment is to compare its certain parameters to environments where extremophilic micro-organisms thrive on Earth. We can…
Habitability is a measure of an environment's potential to support life, and a habitable exoplanet supports liquid water on its surface. However, a planet's success in maintaining liquid water on its surface is the end result of a complex…
Exploring planetary systems similar to our solar system can provide a means to explore a large range of possibly temperate climates on Earth-like worlds. Rather than run hundreds of simulations with different eccentricities at fixed…
We present the relatively less known thermodynamic concept of exergy in the context of ecology and sustainability. To this end, we first very briefly outline thermodynamics as it arose historically via engineering studies. This enables us…
With the detection of extrasolar moons (exomoons) on the horizon, it is important to consider their potential for habitability. If we consider the circumstellar Habitable Zone (HZ, often described in terms of planet semi-major axis and…
It is essential that there be coordinated and co-optimized observations in X-rays, gamma-rays, and EUV during the peak of solar cycle 26 (~2036) to significantly advance our understanding of impulsive energy release in the corona. The open…
Solar activity can be witnessed in the form of sunspots and active regions, where the magnetic field is enhanced by up to a factor 1000 as compared to that of the quiet Sun. In addition, solar activity manifests itself in terms of flares,…
How much wind energy does the atmosphere generate, and how much of it can at best be used as renewable energy? This review aims to give first-order estimates and sensitivities to answer these questions that are consistent with those…
Biological functions in each animal cell depend on coordinated operations of a wide variety of molecular motors. Some of the these motors transport cargo to their respective destinations whereas some others are mobile workshops which…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
The discovery of an increasing number of Jupiter-like planets in orbit around other stars (or extra-solar planets) is a promising first step toward the search for Life in the Universe. We review all aspects of the question: - definition of…
Electricity in the atmosphere provides an ideal topic for educational outreach in environmental science. To support this objective, a simple instrument to measure real atmospheric electrical parameters has been developed and its performance…
The intensity and energy spectrum of energetic charged radiation in the heliosphere are significantly influenced by solar activity. This phenomenon is known as solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays. As interplanetary travel becomes a…
Planktonic active matter represents an emergent system spanning different scales: individual, population and community; and complexity arising from sub-cellular and cellular to collective and ecosystem scale dynamics. This cross-scale…
Atmospheric electrification is not a purely terrestrial phenomenon: all Solar System planetary atmospheres become slightly electrified by cosmic ray ionisation. There is evidence for lightning on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and it…
In the search for life beyond our Solar system, attention should be focused on those planets that have the potential to maintain habitable conditions over the prolonged periods of time needed for the emergence and expansion of life as we…
Planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars are often assumed to be in a state of tidally synchronized rotation, which would considerably affect their putative habitability. Although thermal tides cause Venus to rotate retrogradely,…