Related papers: A Gaian Habitable Zone
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…
The Gaia hypothesis considers the life-environment coupled system as a single entity that acts to regulate and maintain habitable conditions on Earth. In this paper we discuss three mechanisms which could potentially lead to Gaia: Selection…
The search for biosignatures necessitates developing our understanding of life under different conditions. If life can influence the climate evolution of its planet then understanding the behaviour of life-climate feedbacks under extreme…
The dominant paradigm in assigning "habitability"' to terrestrial planets is to define a circumstellar habitable zone: the locus of orbital radii in which the planet is neither too hot nor too cold for life as we know it. One dimensional…
The Gaia hypothesis postulates that life regulates its environment to be favorable for its own survival. Most planets experience numerous perturbations throughout their lifetimes such as asteroid impacts, volcanism, and the evolution of…
Life on Earth has experienced numerous upheavals over its approximately 4 billion year history. In previous work we have discussed how interruptions to stability lead, on average, to increases in habitability over time, a tendency we called…
With the growing number of discovered exoplanets, the Gaia concept finds its second wind. The Gaia concept defines that the biosphere of an inhabited planet regulates a planetary climate through feedback loops such that the planet remains…
Habitability is a measure of an environment's potential to support life, and a habitable exoplanet supports liquid water on its surface. However, a planet's success in maintaining liquid water on its surface is the end result of a complex…
The dynamic nature of life's ability to thrive in diverse and changing planetary environments suggests that habitability and survival depend on the evolutionary path and life adaptation to environmental conditions. Here we explore such…
Determining planetary habitability is a complex matter, as the interplay between a planet's physical and atmospheric properties with stellar insolation has to be studied in a self consistent manner. Standardized atmospheric models for…
Exoplanetary systems exhibit a broad range of architectures which, in turn, enable a variety of dynamical environments. Many of the known planetary systems do not transit the host star, and so we measure the minimum masses of their planets,…
The habitable zone is defined as the orbital region around a star where planetary feedback cycles buffer atmospheric greenhouse gases that, in combination with solar luminosity, maintain surface temperatures suitable for liquid water.…
Dozens of habitable zone, approximately earth-sized exoplanets are known today. An emerging frontier of exoplanet studies is identifying which of these habitable zone, small planets are actually habitable (have all necessary conditions for…
The investigation of exoplanetary habitability is integral to advancing our knowledge of extraterrestrial life potential and detailing the environmental conditions of distant worlds. In this analysis, we explore the properties of exoplanets…
Habitability is usually defined as the requirement for a terrestrial planet's atmosphere to sustain liquid water. This definition can be complemented by the dynamical requirement that other planets in the system do not gravitationally…
Conventional definitions of habitability require abundant liquid surface water to exist continuously over geologic timescales. Water in each of its thermodynamic phases interacts with solar and thermal radiation and is the cause for strong…
The Habitable Zone for a given star describes the range of circumstellar distances from the star within which a planet could have liquid water on its surface, which depends upon the stellar properties. Here we describe the development of…
The aim of my dissertation is to investigate habitability in extra-Solar Systems. Most of the time, only planets are considered as possible places where extraterrestrial life can emerge and evolve, however, their moons could be inhabited,…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…