Related papers: Molecular Cloud Biology
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…
Here we review how environmental context can be used to interpret whether O2 is a biosignature in extrasolar planetary observations. This paper builds on the overview of current biosignature research discussed in Schwieterman et al. (2017),…
It is important to understand the origin of molecular line intensities and chemical composition in the molecular-cloud scale in the Galactic sources because it serves as a benchmark to compare with the chemical compositions of extragalactic…
Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has been predominantly focused on rocky exoplanets. Hycean worlds are a class of habitable sub-Neptunes with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres. Their broad range of possible sizes…
Detailed characterization of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere provides the best hope for distinguishing the makeup of its outer layers, and the only hope for understanding the interplay between initial composition, chemistry, dynamics &…
Molecular clouds (MC) are the densest and coldest component of the interstellar gas, and the sites of star formation. They are also turbulent and fractal and their masses and sizes span several orders of magnitude. It is also generally…
In the past 15 years, astronomers have revealed that a significant fraction of the stars should harbor planets and that it is likely that terrestrial planets are abundant in our galaxy. Among these planets, how many are habitable, i.e.…
This article examines recent research in molecular communications from a telecommunications system design perspective. In particular, it focuses on channel models and state-of-the-art physical layer techniques. The goal is to provide a…
How can scientists conclude with high confidence that an exoplanet hosts life? As telescopes come on line over the next 20 years that can directly observe photons from terrestrial exoplanets, this question will dictate the activities of…
The molecular machinery of life is largely created via self-organisation of individual molecules into functional assemblies. Minimal coarse-grained models, where a whole macromolecule is represented by a small number of particles, can be of…
I review some steps in the conversion of molecular cloud gas into stars and planets, with an emphasis in this presentation on the early stage molecular cloud fragmentation that leads to elongated filaments/ribbons. Magnetic fields can play…
We used CO (2-1) and CO (1-0) data cubes to identify molecular clouds and study their kinematics and dynamics in three nearby galaxies and the inner Milky Way. When observed at similar spatial and velocity resolutions, molecular clouds in…
Equations of motion that recognize biochemical patterns are described. The equations are partial differential equations in a continuous multiple component system in which adequate initial and boundary conditions are given. The biochemical…
Stellar models provide a vital basis for many aspects of astronomy and astrophysics. Recent advances in observational astronomy -- through asteroseismology, precision photometry, high-resolution spectroscopy, and large-scale surveys -- are…
The first potential exoplanet biosignature detections are likely to be ambiguous due to the potential for false positives: abiotic planetary processes that produce observables similar to those anticipated from a global biosphere. Here we…
We develop a statistical approach for description of dense structures (cores) in molecular clouds that might be progenitors of stars. Our basic assumptions are a core mass-density relationship and a power-law density distribution of these…
Understanding of clouds is instrumental in interpreting current and future spectroscopic observations of exoplanets. Modelling clouds consistently is complex, since it involves many facets of chemistry, nucleation theory, condensation…
We present virial models for the global evolution of giant molecular clouds. Focusing on the presence of an accretion flow, and accounting for the amount of mass, momentum, and energy supplied by accretion and star formation feedback, we…
In recent years, progresses in nanotechnology have established the foundations for implementing nanomachines capable of carrying out simple but significant tasks. Under this stimulus, researchers have been proposing various solutions for…
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…