Habitability Models for Planetary Sciences
Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global scales.
Astrobiologists have been proposing different habitability models for some time, with little integration and consistency between them and different in function to those used by ecologists. In this white paper, we suggest a mass-energy habitability model as an example of how to adapt and expand the models used by ecologists to the astrobiology field. We propose to implement these models into a NASA Habitability Standard (NHS) to standardize the habitability objectives of planetary missions.
These standards will help to compare and characterize potentially habitable environments, prioritize target selections, and study correlations between habitability and biosignatures. Habitability models are the foundation of planetary habitability science. The synergy between the methods used by ecologists and astrobiologists will help to integrate and expand our understanding of the habitability of Earth, the Solar System, and exoplanets.
Abel MĂ©ndez, Edgard G. Rivera-ValentĂn, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, Justin Filiberto, Ramses RamĂrez, Tana E. Wood, Alfonso Dávila, Chris McKay, Kevin Ortiz Ceballos, Marcos Jusino-Maldonado, Guillermo Nery, RenĂ© Heller, Paul Byrne, Michael J. Malaska, Erica Nathan, Marta Filipa Simões, AndrĂ© Antunes, JesĂşs MartĂnez-FrĂas, Ludmila Carone, Noam R. Izenberg, Dimitra Atri, Humberto Itic Carvajal Chitty, Priscilla Nowajewski-Barra, Frances Rivera-Hernández, Corine Brown, Kennda Lynch, Howard Chen, Grizelle González, Madhu Kashyap Jagadeesh, Jorge Zuluaga, Charles S. Cockell, Jacob Haqq-Misra, Rory Barnes
Comments: White Paper for the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2007.05491 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2007.05491v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Abel Mendez
[v1] Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:20:18 UTC (539 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05491
Astrobiology