Related papers: Habitable Zones in Binary Star Systems: A Zoology
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 search for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the Solar System is one of the most compelling scientific opportunities of our time. Nevertheless, the high cost of building facilities that can address this topic and the keen public…
With thousands of exoplanets now identified, the characterization of habitable planets and the potential identification of inhabited ones is a major challenge for the coming decades. We review the current working definition of habitable…
In this work, we hunt for the best places to find exo-Earths in the currently known exoplanet population. While it is still unclear whether Jupiter had a beneficial or detrimental effect on the creation of the right environment for a…
The study of planets beyond the solar system and the search for other habitable planets and life is just beginning. Ground-based (radial velocity and transits) and space-based surveys (transits and astrometry) will identify planets spanning…
In this paper we discuss how we can read a planets spectrum to assess its habitability and search for the signatures of a biosphere. After a decade rich in giant exoplanet detections, observation techniques have now reached the ability to…
We investigate the possibility of finding Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of 34 nearby FGK-dwarfs, each known to host one giant planet exterior to their habitable zone detected by RV. First we simulate the dynamics of the planetary…
Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global…
Continuous habitability of a planet is a critical condition for advanced forms of life to appear, but it can be endangered by astronomical events such as stellar encounters. The purpose of this study is to analyze close stellar encounters…
The astrobiology is an interdisciplinary science, combining the methods and the means of physics, biology, chemistry and astronomy. Its main purpose is to find out if the exoplanets are habitable and if so, to confirm life on them. The…
In a multiverse context, determining the probability of being in our particular universe depends on estimating its overall habitability compared to other universes with different values of the fundamental constants. One of the most…
The search for habitable planets, and even for ``Earth 2.0'', is a major driver in contemporary astronomy. However selecting target fields to prioritise for such searches presents a challenge. Here we establish a statistical analysis of the…
The field of exoplanetary science is making rapid progress both in statistical studies of exoplanet properties as well as in individual characterization. As space missions provide an emerging picture of formation and evolution of…
The diversity of planetary systems that have been discovered are revealing the plethora of possible architectures, providing insights into planet formation and evolution. They also increase our understanding of system parameters that may…
The habitable zones of main sequence stars have traditionally been defined as the range of orbits that intercept the appropriate amount of stellar flux to permit surface water on a planet. Terrestrial exoplanets discovered to orbit M stars…
Exoplanet habitability is traditionally assessed by comparing a planet's semi-major axis to the location of its host star's "habitable zone," the shell around a star for which Earth-like planets can possess liquid surface water. The Kepler…
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…
Since the discovery of the first confirmed exoplanet, observations have revealed a remarkable diversity of worlds. A wide variety of orbital and physical characteristics are detected in the exoplanet population, and much work has been…
The catalog of stellar evolution tracks discussed in our previous work is meant to help characterize exoplanet host-stars of interest for follow-up observations with future missions like JWST. However, the utility of the catalog has been…
Can information theory provide insights into whether exoplanets are habitable? Here we apply information theory to a range of simulated exoplanet transmission spectra as a diagnostic tool to search for potential signatures of life on…