15 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
Ramses M. Ramirez
To find potentially habitable exoplanets, space missions employ the habitable zone (HZ), which is the region around a star (or multiple stars) where standing bodies of water could exist on the surface of a rocky planet. Follow-up atmospheric characterization could yield biosignatures signifying life. Although most…
Owen R. Lehmer, David C. Catling, Joshua Krissansen-Totton
In the conventional habitable zone (HZ) concept, a CO2-H2O greenhouse maintains surface liquid water. Through the water-mediated carbonate-silicate weathering cycle, atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) responds to changes in surface temperature, stabilizing the climate over geologic timescales. We show that this…
Sean Jordan, Oliver Shorttle, Paul B. Rimmer
The circumstellar liquid-water habitable zone guides our search for potentially inhabited exoplanets but remains observationally untested. We show that the inner edge of the habitable zone can now be mapped among exoplanets using their lack of surface water, which, unlike the presence of water, can be unambiguously…
Guillermo Gonzalez
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on this topic and includes discussions of processes occurring in astrophysical…
Samuel Konatham, Javier Martin-Torres, Maria-Paz Zorzano
The detection of habitable exoplanets is an exciting scientific and technical challenge. Owing to the current and most likely long-lasting impossibility of performing in situ exploration of exoplanets, their study and hypotheses regarding their capability to host life will be based on the restricted low-resolution…
K. Wagner, A. Boehle, P. Pathak, M. Kasper + 38 more
'U. Käufl' 'S. Leveratto' 'A.-L. Maire' 'E. Pantin' 'R. Siebenmorgen' 'G. Zins' 'O. Absil' 'N. Ageorges' 'D. Apai' 'A. Carlotti' 'É. Choquet' 'C. Delacroix' 'K. Dohlen' 'P. Duhoux' 'P. Forsberg' 'E. Fuenteseca' 'S. Gutruf' 'O. Guyon' 'E. Huby' 'D. Kampf' 'M. Karlsson' 'P. Kervella' 'J.-P. Kirchbauer' 'P. Klupar' 'J.…
David Waltham
This paper presents statistical estimates for the location and duration of habitable zones (HZs) around stars of different mass. The approach is based upon the assumption that Earth's location, and the Sun's mass, should not be highly atypical of inhabited planets. The results support climate-model-based estimates for…
Ian A. Boutle, Manoj Joshi, F. Hugo Lambert, Nathan J. Mayne + 4 more
'Duncan Lyster' 'James Manners' 'Robert Ridgway' 'Krisztian Kohary'] Identification of habitable planets beyond our solar system is a key goal of current and future space missions. Yet habitability depends not only on the stellar irradiance, but equally on constituent parts of the planetary atmosphere. Here we show…
Rose M. Jones, Jacqueline M. Goordial, Beth N. Orcutt
Earth’s subsurface is often isolated from phototrophic energy sources and characterized by chemotrophic modes of life. These environments are often oligotrophic and limited in electron donors or electron acceptors, and include continental crust, subseafloor oceanic crust, and marine sediment as well as subglacial lakes…
Eva Garcia-Lopez, Cristina Cid
Icy worlds in the solar system and beyond have attracted a remarkable attention as possible habitats for life. The current consideration about whether life exists beyond Earth is based on our knowledge of life in terrestrial cold environments. On Earth, glaciers and ice sheets have been considered uninhabited for a…
Steven D. Vance, Kathleen L. Craft, Everett Shock, Britney E. Schmidt + 31 more
The habitability of Europa is a property within a system, which is driven by a multitude of physical and chemical processes and is defined by many interdependent parameters, so that its full characterization requires collaborative investigation. To explore Europa as an integrated system to yield a complete picture of…
Marjorie A. Chan, Brenda B. Bowen, Frank A. Corsetti, William H. Farrand + 5 more
'William H. Farrand' 'Emily S. Law' 'Horton E. Newsom' 'Scott M. Perl' 'John R. Spear' 'David R. Thompson'] New approaches to blending geoscience, planetary science, microbiology-geobiology/ecology, geoinformatics and cyberinfrastructure technology disciplines in a holistic effort can be transformative to astrobiology…
Tilman Spohn, Aki Roberge, M. J. Way, João C. Duarte + 4 more
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary interiors, tectonic regimes, continental coverage, volatile cycling, magnetic fields…
Alex Longo, Bruce Damer
Two widely-cited alternative hypotheses propose geological localities and biochemical mechanisms for life’s origins. The first states that chemical energy available in submarine hydrothermal vents supported the formation of organic compounds and initiated primitive metabolic pathways which became incorporated in the…
Amedeo Balbi, Maryam Hami, Andjelka Kovačević
We present a new investigation of the habitability of the Milky Way bulge, that expands previous studies on the Galactic Habitable Zone. We discuss existing knowledge on the abundance of planets in the bulge, metallicity and the possible frequency of rocky planets, orbital stability and encounters, and the possibility…