Astronomy & Telescopes

Network and Kinetics-based Biosignatures: Implications for the Putative Habitable World Observatory Design

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.IM

January 11, 2025

Filed under astronomy, atmosphere, exoplanet, habitability, Habitable Worlds Observatory, telescope, thermochemical kinetics

Network and Kinetics-based Biosignatures: Implications for the Putative Habitable World Observatory Design — Simplified examples of atmospheric chemical reaction networks. The network on the left represents the topology typically seen in most planetary atmospheres, such as Mars; on the right, a network modeled after Earth’s atmospheric chemical reaction network. — astro-ph.IM

The proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory is intended to observe the atmospheres of nearby terrestrial exoplanets with a resolution greater than that of any previous instrument. While these observations present a substantial opportunity for astrobiology, they also incur the risk of false positives and false negatives.

Here, we explore the use of systems science (in the form of network theory and thermochemical kinetics) to mitigate these risks, and briefly describe the technical specifications HWO would require in order to use these methodologies.

Theresa Fisher, Chester Harman, Estelle Janin, Megan Shabram, Shang-Min Tsai, Nicholas Wogan, Michael Wong

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2501.04737 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2501.04737v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.04737
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Submission history
From: Theresa Fisher
[v1] Wed, 8 Jan 2025 00:32:07 UTC (729 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.04737
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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