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Since Viking has conducted its life detection experiments on Mars, many missions have enhanced our knowledge about the environmental conditions on the Red Planet. However, the Martian surface chemistry and the Viking lander results remain…
The discovery of a truly habitable exoplanet would be one of the most important events in the history of science. However, the nature and distribution of habitable environments on exoplanets is currently unconstrained. The exoplanet…
Understanding how giant and terrestrial planets form and evolve, what is their internal structure and that of their atmosphere, represents one of the major challenges of modern astronomy, which is directly connected to the ultimate search…
The built environment is the basis for human experience in the world, yet its current practices contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. This chapter explores the…
Many species of microbes cooperate by producing public goods from which they collectively benefit. However, these populations are under the risk of being taken over by cheating mutants that do not contribute to the pool of public goods.…
Conceptualizing planetary habitability depends on understanding how living organisms originated and what features of environments are essential to foster abiogenesis. Estimates of the abundance of life's building blocks are confounded by…
Recent papers by Ansari et al. (2024, Science Advances 10, eadn4650) and Richardson et al. (2025, arXiv eprint 2504.01455) have suggested that global warming of the Martian surface ('terraforming') by 35 K to sustain local habitats above…
The similarity of Venus and Earth in bulk properties make Venus an appealing target for future colonization. Several proposals have been put forward for colonizing and even terraforming Venus despite the extreme conditions on the planet's…
Recent miniaturization of electronics in very small, low-cost and low-power configurations suitable for use in spacecraft have inspired innovative small-scale satellite concepts, such as ChipSats, centimeter-scale satellites with a mass of…
In living systems, we often see the emergence of the ingredients necessary for computation -- the capacity for information transmission, storage, and modification -- begging the question of how we may exploit or imitate such biological…
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…
Robustness, the ability of a system to maintain performance under significant and unanticipated environmental changes, is a critical property for robotic systems. While biological systems naturally exhibit robustness, there is no…
The field of autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is in continuous growth and increasing levels of autonomy have been reached in the last few years. However, the task becomes more challenging when the focus is on the…
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…
It is currently unknown how common life is on exoplanets, or how long planets can remain viable for life. To date, we have a superficial notion of habitability, a necessary first step, but so far lacking an understanding of the detailed…
Rising interest in Mars colonization from both private and public sectors necessitates a renewed discussion about sovereignty in space. The non-appropriation principle of the Outer Space Treaty currently prohibits any sovereign claims to…
Since time immemorial life has been viewed as being fragile, yet over the past few decades it has been found that many extreme environments are inhabited by organisms known as extremophiles.Knowledge of their emergence, adaptability, and…
The world faces increasing challenges related to climate change and shifting geopolitical situations. The COVID 19 pandemic clearly illustrated the need for resilience not just within civil engineering but also within social and economic…
The search for life has two goals essentially: looking for planets with Earth-like conditions (Earth similarity) and looking for the possibility of life in some form (habitability). Determining habitability from exoplanet data requires that…
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…