Exogeoscience and Its Role in Characterizing Exoplanet Habitability and the Detectability of Life
The search for exoplanetary life must encompass the complex geological processes reflected in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, or we risk reporting false positive and false negative detections.
To do this, we must nurture the nascent discipline of “exogeoscience” to fully integrate astronomers, astrophysicists, geoscientists, oceanographers, atmospheric chemists and biologists. Increased funding for interdisciplinary research programs, supporting existing and future multidisciplinary research nodes, and developing research incubators is key to transforming true exogeoscience from an aspiration to a reality.
Cayman T. Unterborn, Paul K. Byrne, Ariel D. Anbar, Giada Arney, David Brain, Steve J. Desch, Bradford J. Foley, Martha S. Gilmore, Hilairy E. Hartnett, Wade G. Henning, Marc M. Hirschmann, Noam R. Izenberg, Stephen R. Kane, Edwin S. Kite, Laura Kreidberg, Kanani K.M. Lee, Timothy W. Lyons, Wendy R. Panero, Noah J. Planavsky, Christopher T. Reinhard, Joseph P. Renaud, Laura K. Schaefer, Edward W. Schwieterman, Linda E. Sohl, Elizabeth J. Tasker, Michael J. Way
Comments: Submitted as white paper to 2023-2033 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2007.08665 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2007.08665v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Cayman Unterborn
[v1] Thu, 16 Jul 2020 21:50:30 UTC (3,494 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.08665
Astrobiology
