Related papers: Community need for an Astrobiology Sample Reposito…
A wide variety of scenarios for the origin of life have been proposed, with many influencing the prevalence and distribution of biosignatures across exoplanet populations. This relationship suggests these scenarios can be tested by…
The search for life in the universe mainly uses modern Earth as a template. However, we know that Earth's atmospheric composition changed significantly through its geological evolution. Recent discoveries show that transiting, potentially…
The search for evidence of past life on Mars presents a tremendous challenge that requires the usage of very advanced robotic technologies to overcome it. Current digital microscopic imagers and spectrometers used for astrobiological…
Exoplanet hunting efforts have revealed the prevalence of exotic worlds with diverse properties, including Earth-sized bodies, which has fueled our endeavor to search for life beyond the Solar System. Accumulating experiences in…
An increasing number of potentially habitable terrestrial planets and planet candidates are found by ongoing planet search programs. The search for atmospheric signatures to establish planetary habitability and the presence of life might be…
One of the promising methods to search for life on extra-solar planets (exoplanets) is to detect life's signatures in their atmospheres. Spectra of exoplanet atmospheres at the modest resolution needed to search for oxygen, carbon dioxide,…
With the characterisations of potentially habitable planetary atmospheres on the horizon, the search for biosignatures is set to become a major area of research in the coming decades. To understand the atmospheric characteristics that might…
Searching for life elsewhere in the universe is one of the most highly prioritized pursuits in astronomy today. However, the ability to observe evidence of Earth-like life through biosignatures is limited by the number of planets in the…
The detection of exoplanets orbiting other stars has revolutionized our view of the cosmos. First results suggest that it is teeming with a fascinating diversity of rocky planets, including those in the habitable zone. Even our closest…
Scientific open-source software (OSS) has greatly benefited research communities through its transparent and collaborative nature. Given its critical role in scientific research, ensuring the sustainability of such software has become…
The search for life on planets outside our solar system will use spectroscopic identification of atmospheric biosignatures. The most robust remotely-detectable potential biosignature is considered to be the detection of oxygen (O_2) or…
Does life exist outside our Solar System? A first step towards searching for life outside our Solar System is detecting life on Earth by using remote sensing applications. One powerful and unambiguous biosignature is the circular…
This white paper introduces a framework for applying Assembly Theory (AT) to planetary atmospheres as a biosignature framework suitable for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). AT quantifies the minimum combinatorial complexity required…
This white paper was submitted to NASA's Search For Life Science Analysis Group (SFL-SAG): To ensure that the first mission designed to seek signs of extant life since 1976 is able to produce an unambiguous biological interpretation, the…
Searching for signs of life is a primary goal of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). However, merely detecting oxygen, methane, or other widely discussed biosignatures is insufficient evidence for a biosphere. In parallel with…
The detection of life on rocky exoplanets in the habitable zones of nearby stars would be a paradigm-shifting advance, and it is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time. There is no single spectral feature that is an…
As we begin to discover rocky planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars with missions like TESS and CHEOPS, we will need quick advancements on instrumentation and observational techniques that will enable us to answer key science…
The first opportunity to detect indications for life outside the Solar System may be provided already within the next decade with upcoming missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the European Extremely Large Telescope…
The search for life on exoplanets is one of the grand scientific challenges of our time. The strategy to date has been to find (e.g., through transit surveys like Kepler) Earth-like exoplanets in their stars habitable zone, then use…
In the modern search for life elsewhere in the Universe, we are broadly looking for the following: the planets similar to Earth - physical indicators of habitability, and the manifestation of life - the biological signatures. A biosignature…