Related papers: Spectral signatures from the habitable zone
Terrestrial planetary systems may exist around nearby stars as the Earth-sized counterparts to the many giant planets already discovered within the solar neighborhood. In this chapter we first discuss the numerous techniques which have been…
Next-generation missions designed to detect biosignatures on exoplanets will also be capable of placing constraints on technosignatures (evidence for technological life) on these same worlds. Here, I estimate the detectability of nightside…
Detecting H2O in exoplanet atmospheres is the first step on the path to determining planet habitability. Coronagraphic design currently limits the observing strategy used to detect H2O, requiring the choice of specific bandpasses to…
The vegetation's ``red edge'', an intensity bump in the Earth's spectrum near 700 $nm$ when sunlight is reflected from greenery, is often suggested as a tool in the search for life in terrestrial-like extrasolar planets. Here, through…
Analysis of Kepler mission data suggests that the Milky Way includes billions of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of their host star. Current technology enables the detection of technosignatures emitted from a large fraction of the…
Terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around nearby stars are of great interest and provide a good sample for further characteristics of their habitability. In this paper, we collect a nearby star catalog within 20 pc according to the…
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are prevalent in the universe and interstellar medium but are primarily attributed to anthropogenic sources on Earth, such as fossil fuel combustion and firewood burning. Drawing upon the idea of PAHs as…
It is now understood that the accretion of terrestrial planets naturally involves giant collisions, the moon-forming impact being a well known example. In the aftermath of such collisions the surface of the surviving planet is very hot and…
We address the possibility that intelligent civilisations that destroy themselves could present signatures observable by humanity. Placing limits on the number of self-destroyed civilisations in the Milky Way has strong implications for the…
Atmospheres of transiting extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) such as HD 209458 b must impose features on the spectra of their parent stars during transits; these features contain information about the physical conditions and chemical…
In the near future, extremely-large ground-based telescopes may conduct some of the first searches for life beyond the solar system. High-spectral resolution observations of reflected light from nearby exoplanetary atmospheres could be used…
We use signal enhancement techniques and a matched filter analysis to search for the K band spectroscopic absorption signature of the close orbiting extrasolar giant planet, HD 189733b. With timeseries observations taken with NIRSPEC at the…
For the first time in human history the possibility of detecting and studying Earth-like planets is on the horizon. Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), with a launch date in the 2015 timeframe, is being planned by NASA to find and characterize…
Hazes are common in known planet atmospheres, and geochemical evidence suggests early Earth occasionally supported an organic haze with significant environmental and spectral consequences. The UV spectrum of the parent star drives organic…
Exoplanet characterization missions planned for the future will soon enable searches for life beyond our solar system. Critical to the search will be the development of life detection strategies that can search for biosignatures while…
Planets residing in circumstellar habitable zones (CHZs) offer our best opportunities to test hypotheses of life's potential pervasiveness and complexity. Constraining the precise boundaries of habitability and its observational…
Visible and ultraviolet imaging and spectroscopy of Solar System giant planets can set the paradigm for the atmospheric, ionospheric, and magnetospheric processes shaping the diversity of giant exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and their…
The habitable zone is defined as the orbital region around a star where planetary feedback cycles buffer atmospheric greenhouse gases that, in combination with solar luminosity, maintain surface temperatures suitable for liquid water.…
Giant planets within the habitable zones of the closest several stars can currently be imaged with ground-based telescopes. Within the next decade, the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) will begin to image the habitable zones of a greater…
(Abridged) Super Earth exoplanets are being discovered with increasing frequency and some will be able to retain stable H2-dominated atmospheres. We study biosignature gases on exoplanets with thin H2 atmospheres and habitable surface…