Related papers: Alternative solvents for life: framework for evalu…
Recent experimental results indicate that phosphorus, a single-component system, can have two liquid phases: a high-density liquid (HDL) and a low-density liquid (LDL) phase. A first-order transition between two liquids of different…
The observable universe is necessarily hospitable for life. There are indications, however, that the laws of physics and cosmological parameters need not take the form and values observed, and if they were slightly different life could not…
The relative abundances of exotic environments provides us with (uninformed) bounds on the habitability of those environments relative to our own, on the basis that our presence here is not too atypical. For instance, since red stars…
Despite the modern level of development of computational chemistry methods and techno-logical progress, fast and accurate determination of solvation free energy remains a huge problem for physical chemists. In this paper, we describe two…
Earth is the only known inhabited planet in the universe to date. However, advancements in the fields of astrobiology and observational astronomy, and the discovery of large varieties of extremophiles with extraordinary capablities to…
There has been on-going philosophical debate on whether artificial life models, also known as digital organisms, are truly alive. The main difficulty appears to be finding an encompassing and definite definition of life. By examining…
The recent discovery of seven potentially habitable Earth-size planets around the ultra-cool star TRAPPIST-1 has further fueled the hunt for extraterrestrial life. Current methods focus on closely monitoring the host star to look for…
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,…
Porous media processes involve various physical phenomena such as mechanical deformation, transport, and fluid flow. Accurate simulations must capture the strong couplings between these phenomena. Choosing an efficient solver for the…
Organisms leave a distinctive chemical signature in their environment because they synthesize those molecules that maximize their fitness. As a result, the relative concentrations of related chemical monomers in life-bearing environmental…
A long-standing issue in astrobiology is whether planets orbiting the most abundant type of stars, M-dwarfs, can support liquid water and eventually life. A new study shows that subglacial melting may provide an answer, significantly…
In a multiverse setting, we expect to be situated in a universe that is exceptionally good at producing life. Though the conditions for what life needs to arise and thrive are currently unknown, many will be tested in the coming decades.…
This paper analytically investigates the Darcy-Poisson-Nernst-Planck system. This system is a mathematical model for electrolyte solutions. In this paper, we consider electrolyte solutions, which consist of a neutral fluid and two suspended…
Chemical disequilibrium in exoplanetary atmospheres (detectable with remote spectroscopy) can indicate life. The modern Earth's atmosphere-ocean system has a much larger chemical disequilibrium than other solar system planets with…
Traditionally, solubility and mixing belong to the realm of chemistry and material sciences and many standard textbooks on physical chemistry treat this problem, usually within the scope of thermodynamics. Here apart from thermodynamics we…
While modern physics and biology satisfactorily explain the passage from the Big Bang to the formation of Earth and the first cells to present-day life, respectively, the origins of biochemical life still remain an open question. Since…
Water is commonly associated to the existence of life. However, there is no clear reason why water should be the only liquid in which life could form and survive. Since the seminal work of L. J. Henderson in 1913, scientists are trying to…
The detection of habitable worlds is one of humanity's greatest endeavors. So far, astrobiological studies show that one of the most critical components for life development is liquid water. Its chemical properties and its capacity to…
Water is crucial for the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. Recent studies of the water content in early forming planetary systems similar to our own show that water is an abundant and ubiquitous molecule, initially synthesized on…
The availability of bioessential elements for "life as we know it", such as phosphorus (P) or possibly molybdenum (Mo), is expected to restrict the biological productivity of extraterrestrial biospheres. Here, we consider worlds with…