Related papers: Characterizing Earth-like Planets with Terrestrial…
To date the search for habitable Earth-like planets has primarily focused on nuclear burning stars. I propose that this search should be expanded to cool white dwarf stars that have expended their nuclear fuel. I define the continuously…
With thousands of exoplanets now identified, the characterization of habitable planets and the potential identification of inhabited ones is a major challenge for the coming decades. We review the current working definition of habitable…
The upcoming extremely large telescopes will provide the first opportunity to search for signs of habitability and life on non-transiting terrestrial exoplanets using high-contrast, high-resolution instrumentation. However, the suite of…
With recent observations confirming exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs, there is growing interest in exploring and quantifying the habitability of temperate rocky planets around white dwarfs. In this work, the limits of the habitable zone of…
The Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 highlights the importance of advancing research focused on discovering and characterizing habitable worlds. In line with this priority, our goal is to investigate how planetary systems…
In the past, measures of ``Earth-likeness'' of exoplanets have been qualitative, considered an abiotic Earth, or required discretionary choices of what parameters make a planet Earth-like. With the advent of high-resolution exoplanet…
The Earth viewed from outside the Solar system would be identified merely like a pale blue dot, as coined by Carl Sagan. In order to detect possible signatures of the presence of life on a second earth among several terrestrial planets…
The Kepler Mission is exploring the diversity of planets and planetary systems. Its legacy will be a catalog of discoveries sufficient for computing planet occurrence rates as a function of size, orbital period, star-type, and insolation…
In support of the Astrobiology Science Strategy, this whitepaper outlines some key technology challenges pertaining to the remote search for life in exoplanetary systems. Finding evidence for life on rocky planets outside of our solar…
The presence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in Earth's atmosphere is a direct result of technology. Ozone-depleting CFCs have been banned by most countries, but some CFCs have persistent in elevated concentrations due to their long…
The ESA Ariel mission has been adopted for launch in 2029 and will conduct a survey of around one thousand exoplanetary atmospheres during its primary mission life. By providing homogeneous datasets, with a high SNR and wide wavelength…
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…
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…
Study of exoplanets has been of considerable interest for Astronomers, Planetary Scientists and Astrobiologists. Analysis of huge planetary data from space missions such as CoRoT and Kepler is directed ultimately at finding a planet similar…
The quest for other habitable worlds and the search for life among them are major goals of modern astronomy. One way to make progress towards these goals is to obtain high-quality spectra of a large number of exoplanets over a broad range…
The habitable fraction of a planet's surface is important for the detectability of surface biosignatures. The extent and distribution of habitable areas is influenced by external parameters that control the planet's climate, atmospheric…
The field of exoplanetary science is making rapid progress both in statistical studies of exoplanet properties as well as in individual characterization. As space missions provide an emerging picture of formation and evolution of…
This tutorial is an introduction to techniques used to characterize the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. We intend it to be a useful guide for the undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral scholar who wants to begin research in…
The detections of small, rocky exoplanets have surged in recent years and will likely continue to do so. To know whether a rocky exoplanet is habitable, we have to characterise its atmosphere and surface. A promising characterisation method…
A re-purposed Kepler mission could continue the search for nearly Earth-sized planets in very short-period (< 1 day) orbits. Recent surveys of the Kepler data already available have revealed at least a dozen such planetary candidates, and a…