Related papers: Molecular diversity as a biosignature
Molecular assembly offers a promising path to detect life beyond Earth, while minimizing assumptions based on terrestrial life. As mass spectrometers will be central to upcoming Solar System missions, predicting molecular assembly from…
Organisms leave a distinctive chemical signature in their environment because they synthesize those molecules that maximize their fitness. As a result, the relative concentrations of related chemical monomers in life-bearing environmental…
Exoplanet science promises a continued rapid accumulation of new observations in the near future, energizing a drive to understand and interpret the forthcoming wealth of data to identify signs of life beyond our Solar System. The large…
Upcoming biosignature searches focus on indirect indicators to infer the presence of life on other worlds. Aside from just signaling the presence of life, however, some biosignatures can contain information about the state that a planet's…
The discovery of inhabited exoplanets hinges on identifying biosignature gases. JWST can reveal biosignature gases, though current discoveries have yet to evidence life. The central challenge is attribution: how can we confidently identify…
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),…
The search for extraterrestrial life hinges on identifying biosignatures, often focusing on gaseous metabolic byproducts as indicators. However, most such biosignatures require assuming specific metabolic processes. It is widely recognized…
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…
We present a new approach to exoplanet characterisation using techniques from complexity science, with potential applications to biosignature detection. This agnostic method makes use of the temporal variability of light reflected or…
We use a probability theory framework to discuss the search for biosignatures. This perspective allows us to analyse the potential for different biosignatures to provide convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life and to formalise…
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…
Finding life on exoplanets from telescopic observations is an ultimate goal of exoplanet science. Life produces gases and other substances, such as pigments, which can have distinct spectral or photometric signatures. Whether or not life is…
Current investigations of exoplanet biosignatures have focused on static evidence of life, such as the presence of biogenic gases like O2 or CH4. However, the expected diversity of terrestrial planet atmospheres and the likelihood of both…
Building blocks of life such as amino acids, nucleobases, and fatty acids are central to prebiotic chemistry and represent key targets in the search for planetary biosignatures. In planetary materials, biomolecules typically occur at trace…
As we prepare for the next planetary mission charged with finding life beyond Earth, the Astrobiology community must continue to improve its understanding of what constitutes a biosignature, through the use of planetary analog samples. The…
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…
The search for a second instance of life is one of the greatest problems of modern science. Outside of creating an artificial origin of life on Earth, the primary targets for the search for life are planets inside or outside the solar…
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…
In the coming years and decades, advanced space- and ground-based observatories will allow an unprecedented opportunity to probe the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially habitable exoplanets for signatures of life. Life on Earth, through…
The search for life beyond the solar system is a central goal in exoplanetary science. Exoplanet surveys are increasingly detecting potentially habitable exoplanets and large telescopes in space and on ground are aiming to detect possible…