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The disequilibrium combination of abundant methane and carbon dioxide has been proposed as a promising exoplanet biosignature that is readily detectable with upcoming telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope. However, few studies…
One of the prime goals of future investigations of extrasolar planets is to search for life as we know it. The Earth's biosphere is adapted to current conditions. How would the atmospheric chemistry of the Earth respond if we moved it to…
The current progress in the detection of terrestrial type exoplanets has opened a new avenue in the characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres and in the search for biosignatures of life with the upcoming ground-based and space missions.…
O2 and O3 have been long considered the most robust individual biosignature gases in a planetary atmosphere, yet multiple mechanisms that may produce them in the absence of life have been described. However, these abiotic planetary…
'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…
A wide variety of scenarios for the origin of life have been proposed, with many influencing the prevalence and distribution of biosignatures across exoplanet populations. This relationship suggests these scenarios can be tested by…
The future biosphere on Earth (as with its past) will be made up predominantly of unicellular microorganisms. Unicellular life was probably present for at least 2.5 Gyr before multicellular life appeared and will likely be the only form of…
The search for atmospheric biosignatures in Earth-like exoplanets is one of the most pressing challenges in observational astrobiology. Detecting biogenic gases in terrestrial planets requires high-resolution observations and long…
Humankind has spread worldwide supported by cultural and technological knowledge, but the environmental sustainability on the human niche evolution depends on a new human beings relationship with the biosphere. Human lifestyles nowadays are…
In a famous paper, Sagan et al.(1993) analyzed a spectrum of the Earth taken by the Galileo probe, searching for signatures of life. They concluded that the large amount of O2 and the simultaneous presence of CH4 traces are strongly…
Studying exoplanet atmospheres is essential for assessing their potential to host liquid water and their capacity to support life (their habitability). Each atmosphere uniquely influences the likelihood of surface liquid water, defining the…
The ancestor philosophers' dream of thousands of new worlds is finally realised: about 3500 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the neighborhood of our Sun. Most of them are very different from those we used to know in our Solar…
Modeling the detection of life has never been more opportune. With next generation space telescopes, like the currently developing Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) concept, we will begin to characterize rocky exoplanets potentially…
With the recent discoveries of terrestrial planets around active M-dwarfs, destruction processes masking the possible presence of life are receiving increased attention in the exoplanet community. We investigate potential biosignatures of…
The search for habitable exoplanets inspires the question - how do habitable planets form? Planet habitability models traditionally focus on abiotic processes and neglect a biotic response to changing conditions on an inhabited planet. The…
Recent discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets have ignited the prospect of spectroscopic investigations of exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres for signs of life. This chapter provides an overview of potential surface and temporal…
Recent detections of carbon-bearing molecules in the atmosphere of a candidate Hycean world, K2-18 b, with JWST are opening the prospects for characterising potential biospheres on temperate exoplanets. Hycean worlds are a recently…
The characterization of extrasolar earth-like atmospheres for biosignatures remains one of the most compelling and elusive challenges in astronomy. Coronagraphy, nulling interferometry and free-flying occulters have been advanced as…
We present a new approach to exoplanet characterisation using techniques from complexity science, with potential applications to biosignature detection. This agnostic method makes use of the temporal variability of light reflected or…
The James Webb Space Telescope and the future Habitable Worlds Observatory aim to discover exoplanet atmospheric spectra that detect life. Currently, most existing spectral "retrieval" algorithms focus on inferring the abundances of…