Related papers: Comparative biosignatures with systemic retrievals
Atmospheric retrieval studies are essential to determine the science requirements for future generation missions, such as the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE). The use of heterogeneous absorption cross-sections might be the cause…
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…
Previous research has indicated that high amounts of ozone (O3) and oxygen (O2) may be produced abiotically in atmospheres with high concentrations of CO2. The abiotic production of these two gases, which are also characteristic of…
Determining the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets is a complex problem that represents the next major step for the astrophysical community. The majority of current models treat these planets as homogeneous or contain heterogeneity that…
The search for extrasolar Earth-like planets is underway. Over 100 extrasolar giant planets are known to orbit nearby sun-like stars, including several in multiple-planet systems. These planetary systems are stepping stones for the search…
Spectral retrieval has long been a powerful tool for interpreting planetary remote sensing observations. Flexible, parameterised, agnostic models are coupled with inversion algorithms in order to infer atmospheric properties directly from…
A habitable exoplanet is a world that can maintain stable liquid water on its surface. Techniques and approaches to characterizing such worlds are essential, as performing a census of Earth-like planets that may or may not have life will…
What is habitability? Can we quantify it? What do we mean under the term habitable or potentially habitable planet? With estimates of the number of planets in our Galaxy alone running into billions, possibly a number greater than the number…
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to telescopically constrain the frequency and abundance of biospheres in the solar neighborhood. Origin-of-life theories vary in their predictions for the environmental requirements and the…
Can multicellular life be distinguished from single cellular life on an exoplanet? We hypothesize that abundant upright photosynthetic multicellular life (trees) will cast shadows at high sun angles that will distinguish them from single…
Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…
Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…
Future exoplanet direct imaging missions, such as HabEx and LUVOIR, will select target stars to maximize the number of Earth-like exoplanets that can have their atmospheric compositions characterized. Because one of these missions' aims is…
We explore the potential multistability of the climate for a planet around the habitable zone. We focus on conditions reminiscent to those of the Earth system, but our investigation aims at presenting a general methodology for dealing with…
We study the spectrum of a planetary atmosphere to derive detectable features in low resolution of different global geochemical cycles on exoplanets - using the sulphur cycle as our example. We derive low resolution detectable features for…
A first characterization of many exoplanets has recently been achieved by the observational determination of their radius. For some planets, a measurement of the luminosity has also been possible, with many more directly imaged planets…
Direct imaging spectroscopy with future space-based telescopes will constrain terrestrial planet atmospheric composition and potentially detect biosignature gases. One promising indication of life is abundant atmospheric O2. However,…
The parameters of many classes of birth-death processes cannot be inferred uniquely from phylogenetic trees: infinitely many parameter combinations yield the same distribution of phylogenetic trees. Here, we show that parameter…
Terrestrial extrasolar planets around low-mass stars are prime targets when searching for atmospheric biosignatures with current and near-future telescopes. The habitable-zone Super-Earth LHS 1140 b could hold a hydrogen-dominated…
We propose a model of multispecies populations surviving on distributed resources. System dynamics are investigated under changes in abiotic factors such as the climate, as parameterized through environmental temperature. In particular, we…