Related papers: Venus Life Finder Mission Study
NASA should design missions to Mars for the purpose of generating "Aha!" discoveries to jolt scientists contemplating the molecular origins of life. These missions should be designed with an understanding of the privileged chemistry that…
Plasma waves are observed in almost all the solar system objects. The planetary ionospheres are capable of sustaining plasma waves which are observed there and play an important role in the ionospheric dynamics. Venus does not possess a…
In this paper we review the search for astrophysical neutrinos. We begin by summarizing the various theoretical predictions which correlate the expected neutrino flux with data from other messengers, specifically gammas and ultra-high…
We report Venus image observations around the two maximum elongations of the planet at June and October 2015. From these images we describe the global atmospheric dynamics and cloud morphology in the planet before the arrival of JAXA…
The planetary mass and radius sensitivity of exoplanet discovery capabilities has reached into the terrestrial regime. The focus of such investigations is to search within the Habitable Zone where a modern Earth-like atmosphere may be a…
A multi-beam ultra-high vacuum apparatus is presented. In this article we describe the design and construction of a new laboratory astrophysics experiment -- VErs de NoUvelles Synth\`eses (VENUS) -- that recreates the solid-state…
The recently discovered transiting super-Earth LP 890-9 c is potentially one of the best rocky exoplanets for atmospheric characterization. Orbiting an ultracool M-dwarf at the inner edge of the habitable zone, LP 890-9 c offers a new…
The chemical evolution of an exoplanetary Venus-like atmosphere is dependent upon the ultraviolet to near ultraviolet (FUV-NUV) radiation ratio from the parent star, the balance between CO$_{2}$ photolysis and recombination via reactions…
The purpose of this paper is to re-open from a practical perspective the question of the extent in altitude of the Earth's biosphere. We make a number of different suggestions for how searches for biological material could be conducted in…
We explore the dominant modes of variability in the observed albedo at the cloud tops of Venus using the Akatsuki UVI 283-nm and 365-nm observations, which are sensitive to SO2 and unknown UV absorber distributions respectively, over the…
I examine some recent findings in cosmology and their potential implications for the emergence of life in the universe. In particular, I discuss the requirements for carbon-based life, anthropic considerations with respect to the nature of…
The Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator (AtRIS) was used to model the altitude-dependent Venusian absorbed dose and the Venusian dose equivalent. For the first time, we modeled the dose rates for different shape-, size-, and…
The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…
The Voyager 1 and 2 Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) solar and stellar occultation dataset represents one of the primary, pre-Cassini sources of information that we have on the neutral upper atmosphere of Saturn. Despite its importance,…
Much of the focus of exoplanet atmosphere analysis in the coming decade will be atinfrared wavelengths, with the planned launches of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). However,…
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to characterize habitable exoplanets in search of signs of life. However, detectable life may be rare, either because abiogenesis is intrinsically contingent and unlikely, or because biospheres…
An improved high-resolution ground-to-thermosphere version of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) Venus General Circulation Model (VGCM), including non-orographic gravity waves (GW) parameterization and fine-tuned non-LTE parameters,…
Firstly identified in images from JAXA's orbiter Akatsuki, the cloud discontinuity of Venus is a planetary-scale phenomenon known to be recurrent since, at least, the 1980s. Interpreted as a new type of Kelvin wave, this disruption is…
In this paper, we analyze a new possible biological surface feature for habitable worlds orbiting other stars: biofluorescence. High ultraviolet (UV) and blue radiation fluxes drive the strongest biofluorescence in terrestrial fluorescent…
'Most habitable worlds in the cosmos will have no remotely detectable signs of life' is proposed as a biological hypothesis to be tested in studies of exoplanets. Habitable planets could be discovered elsewhere in the Universe, yet there…