Related papers: Habitability and Biosignatures
The search for exoplanetary life must encompass the complex geological processes reflected in an exoplanet's atmosphere, or we risk reporting false positive and false negative detections. To do this, we must nurture the nascent discipline…
Since its inception six decades ago, astrobiology has diversified immensely to encompass several scientific questions including the origin and evolution of Terran life, the organic chemical composition of extraterrestrial objects, and the…
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 Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is the first NASA Astrophysics flagship mission with a key science goal of searching for signs of life on rocky habitable exoplanets beyond our solar system. The Living Worlds Community Working Group…
The term Biosphere Substrate is introduced for celestial bodies, like terrestrial planets or big gas giant moons, suitable to sustain full-scale open biosphere after Terraforming. The purpose of the work is to examine the range of…
When searching for inhabited exoplanets, understanding the boundaries of the habitable zone around the parent star is key. If life can strongly influence its global environment, then we would expect the boundaries of the habitable zone to…
Can information theory provide insights into whether exoplanets are habitable? Here we apply information theory to a range of simulated exoplanet transmission spectra as a diagnostic tool to search for potential signatures of life on…
Oxygen is a promising exoplanet biosignature due to the evolutionary advantage conferred by harnessing starlight for photosynthesis, and the apparent low likelihood of maintaining oxygen-rich atmospheres without life. Hypothetical scenarios…
Life has had a dramatic impact on the composition of Earth's atmosphere over time, which suggests that statistical studies of other inhabited planets' atmospheres could reveal how they co-evolve with life. While many evolutionary pathways…
With over 1800 planets discovered outside of the Solar System in the past two decades, the field of exoplanetology has broadened our perspective on planetary systems. Research priorities are now moving from planet detection to planet…
According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy-balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
Ocean worlds are considered as targets for life detection missions because they meet several key requirements for habitability. However, identifying potential life on other worlds requires observing clear and unambiguous biosignature…
With the advanced capabilities of ground- and space-based telescopes, exoplanet science is beginning to characterize the physics and chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres. However, interpreting exoplanet observations requires sophisticated…
The detection of moons orbiting extrasolar planets ("exomoons") has now become feasible. Once they are discovered in the circumstellar habitable zone, questions about their habitability will emerge. Exomoons are likely to be tidally locked…
As oxygen is essential for respiration and metabolism for multicellular organisms on Earth, its presence may be crucial for the development of a complex biosphere on other planets. And because life itself, through photosynthesis,…
The search for habitable conditions beyond Earth is a top priority in astrophysics. The discovery of habitable exoplanets beyond our solar system will require a suite of instruments providing long-term monitoring for detection (e.g. with…
The notion of a Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), or regions of the Milky Way galaxy that preferentially maintain the conditions to sustain complex life, has recently gained attention due to the detection of numerous exoplanets and advances…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
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…