Related papers: Quantifying Building Blocks of Life in Planetary A…
The search for life in the Solar System hinges on data from planetary missions. Detecting biosignatures based on molecular identity, isotopic composition, or chiral excess requires measurements that current and planned missions can only…
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…
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…
The search for biosignatures on exoplanets connects the fields of biology and biochemistry to astronomical observation, with the hope that we might detect evidence of active biological processes on worlds outside the solar system. Here we…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Amino acids (AAs) are a key target in the search for life beyond Earth due to their extensive role in the machinery of all known life, persistence over geologic timescales, and analytical detectability. However, AAs can also arise from…
Chemical disequilibrium in exoplanetary atmospheres (detectable with remote spectroscopy) can indicate life. The modern Earth's atmosphere-ocean system has a much larger chemical disequilibrium than other solar system planets with…
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 organic haze of aerosols that shrouds the Saturnian moon Titan has previously been studied by both observations and laboratory simulation experiments. Here we report the abiotic formation of amino acid precursors in complex organic…
Oxygen is a well-studied biosignature. Studying potential abiotic pathways for O2 build-up in exoplanet atmospheres is essential for evaluating whether the detection of O2 would constitute a biosignature detection on other worlds. Previous…
The building blocks of life, amino acids and nucleobases, are believed to have been synthesized in the extreme conditions that prevail in space starting from simple molecules containing hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. However, the…
Extraterrestrial amino acids, the chemical building blocks of the biopolymers that comprise life as we know it on Earth are present in meteoritic samples. More recently, glycine (NH$_2$CH$_2$COOH), the simplest amino acid, was detected by…
The near-term capability to characterize terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres may bring us closer to discovering alien life through atmospheric data. However, remotely detectable candidate biosignature gases are subject to false positive…
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…
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…
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…
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…