Related papers: The Venus Life Equation
The competition between the torques induced by solid and thermal tides drives the rotational dynamics of Venus-like planets and super-Earths orbiting in the habitable zone of low-mass stars. The tidal responses of the atmosphere and…
Transiting planets have greatly expanded and diversified the exoplanet field. These planets provide greater access to characterization of exoplanet atmospheres and structure. The Kepler mission has been particularly successful in expanding…
The origin of life on Earth involves the early appearance of an information-containing molecule such as RNA. The basic building blocks of RNA could have been delivered by carbon-rich meteorites, or produced in situ by processes beginning…
In a recent paper [1] Lineweaver and Davis performed a statistical analysis to claim that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth indicates high probability of biogenesis on terrestrial- type planets. We argue that the rapid appearance of life…
Ozone ($\textrm{O}_3$) is important for the survival of life on Earth because it shields the surface from ionising ultraviolet (UV) radiation. However, the existence of $\textrm{O}_3$ in Earth's atmosphere is not always beneficial.…
For more than 100 years, humanity (both specialists and enthusiastic laics) has been searching for extraterrestrial life hoping we are not alone. The first step in the quest for extraterrestrial life is to define what and where exactly to…
We propose a scenario for the origin of life based on the coevolution of lipid bilayer vesicles and protein channels.
Several exoplanets have been discovered to date, and the next step is the search for extraterrestrial life. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of life-bearing exoplanets because our only template is based on life on Earth. In…
The prediction that (due to the limited amount of hydrogen available as fuel in the Sun) the future duration of our favourable terrestrial environment will be short (compared with the present age of the Earth) has been interpreted as…
One of the chief paradoxes of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) is that it is an essential requirement for multicellular eukaryotes on Earth while simultaneously posing a threat to their survival via the formation of reactive oxygen species. In this…
Many habitable zone exoplanets are expected to form with water mass fractions higher than that of the Earth. For rocky exoplanets with 10-1000x Earth's H2O but without H2, we model the multi-Gyr evolution of ocean temperature and chemistry,…
The origin of life and the detection of alien life have historically been treated as separate scientific research problems. However, they are not strictly independent. Here, we discuss the need for a better integration of the sciences of…
Measurements of trace-gases in planetary atmospheres help us explore chemical conditions different to those on Earth. Our nearest neighbor, Venus, has cloud decks that are temperate but hyper-acidic. We report the apparent presence of…
It is often presumed, that life evolves relatively fast on planets with clement conditions, at least in its basic forms, and that extended periods of habitability are subsequently needed for the evolution of higher life forms. Many planets…
Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? We address this question by calculating the relative formation probability per unit time of habitable Earth-like planets within a fixed comoving volume of…
Element synthesis which started with p-p chain has resulted in several specific characteristics including lack of any stable isotope having atomic masses 5 or 8. The carbon to oxygen ratio is fixed early by the chain of coincidences. These,…
The path toward the emergence of life in our biosphere involved several key events allowing for the persistence, reproduction and evolution of molecular systems. All these processes took place in a given environmental context and required…
It has long been thought that the presence of a giant planet is a pre-requisite for the development of life on potentially habitable planets. Without Jupiter, it was argued, the Earth would have been subject to a punishing impact regime,…
The habitable zone is the circumstellar region in which a terrestrial-mass planet with an atmosphere can sustain liquid water on its surface. However, despite the usefulness of this concept, it is being found to be increasingly limiting in…
The thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life asserts a thermodynamic imperative for the origin of life, suggesting that the fundamental molecules of life originated as self-organized molecular photon dissipative structures…