Related papers: Expecting the unexpected in the search for extrate…
Despite years of research, understanding of the space radiation environment and the risk it poses to long-duration astronauts remains limited. There is a disparity between research results and observed empirical effects seen in human…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will perform a two-year survey of nearly the entire sky, with the main goal of detecting exoplanets smaller than Neptune around bright and nearby stars. There do not appear to be any…
Exploring the Universe is one of the great unifying themes of humanity. Part of this endeavour is the search for extraterrestrial life. But how likely is it that we will find life, or that if we do it will be similar to ourselves? And…
People often deviate from expected utility theory when making risky and intertemporal choices. While the effects of probabilistic risk and time delay have been extensively studied in isolation, their interplay and underlying theoretical…
Terrestrial exoplanets are on the verge of joining the ranks of astronomically accessible objects. Interpreting their observable characteristics, and informing decisions on instrument design and use, will hinge on the ability to model these…
Exoplanet occurrence rates facilitate comparisons between observations of planets and theoretical models of planet formation. Despite their deductive power, exoplanet occurrence rates for half the stars in the sky are missing because…
The concept of evaluation gaps captures potential discrepancies between what researchers value about their research, in particular research quality, and what metrics measure. The existence of evaluation gaps can give rise to questions about…
Some risks have extremely high stakes. For example, a worldwide pandemic or asteroid impact could potentially kill more than a billion people. Comfortingly, scientific calculations often put very low probabilities on the occurrence of such…
We use a probability theory framework to discuss the search for biosignatures. This perspective allows us to analyse the potential for different biosignatures to provide convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life and to formalise…
In the last two decades, Bayesian inference has become commonplace in astronomy. At the same time, the choice of algorithms, terminology, notation, and interpretation of Bayesian inference varies from one sub-field of astronomy to the next,…
The requirements on space missions designed to study Terrestrial exoplanets are discussed. We then investigate whether the design of such a mission, specifically the Darwin nulling interferometer, can be carried out in a simplified…
Policy Brief on "Large Projects in Astronomy: An Indian Endeavour", distilled from the corresponding panel that was part of the discussions during S20 Policy Webinar on Astroinformatics for Sustainable Development held on 6-7 July 2023.…
The search for life beyond the Earth is the overarching goal of the NASA Astrobiology Program, and it underpins the science of missions that explore the environments of Solar System planets and exoplanets. However, the detection of…
Future space telescopes may be able to directly image $\sim$10 - 100 planets with sizes and orbits consistent with habitable surface conditions ("exo-Earth candidates" or EECs), but observers will face difficulty in distinguishing these…
The thesis of this essay is that, in heterogeneous agent macroeconomics, the assumption of rational expectations about equilibrium prices is unrealistic and should be replaced. Rational expectations imply that decision makers forecast…
A brief review is given of a university outreach programme by a commercial organisation, which uses the Kepler exoplanet data. Key insights derived from this research are presented, along with discussion of the benefi ts and challenges of…
Econophysics is a science in its infancy, born about ten years ago at this time of writing, at the crossing roads of physics, mathematics, computing and of course economics and finance. It also covers human sciences, because all economics…
The process of discovery in the physical, biological and medical sciences can be painstakingly slow. Most experiments fail, and the time from initiation of research until a new advance reaches commercial production can span 20 years. This…
Space biology research aims to understand fundamental effects of spaceflight on organisms, develop foundational knowledge to support deep space exploration, and ultimately bioengineer spacecraft and habitats to stabilize the ecosystem of…
Since time immemorial life has been viewed as being fragile, yet over the past few decades it has been found that many extreme environments are inhabited by organisms known as extremophiles.Knowledge of their emergence, adaptability, and…