Psychrophilic and psychrotolerant microorganisms have the unique ability to grow below 0°C, which makes them ideal candidates for studying how life could survive on the icy moons of the solar […]
Among potentially habitable worlds, rocky planets orbiting M dwarfs offer the most favorable prospects for atmospheric characterization, yet their climates may differ substantially from those of Earth analogs.
Royal Society Publishing has recently published an OPEN ACCESS theme issue of Philosophical Transactions A: Planetary Protection for sustainable space exploration compiled and edited by Karen Olsson-Francis, Athena Coustenis, Peter […]
In the whole history of Earth’s climate, few events are as extreme as those that geologists call “Snowball Earth.”
Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are key targets in the search for habitability due to the potential presence of subsurface oceans. Detecting complex organic molecules (COMs), essential for prebiotic chemistry, is […]
Volatile loss from exoplanetary atmospheres and its possible implications for the longevity of habitable surface conditions is a topic of vigorous debate currently.
In the eastern Utah desert, carbon-dioxide-saturated water bubbles, sprays and foams from the ground. These cold-water geysers, sometimes called ‘soda pop geysers,’ are a new and reliable Earth-based analog for […]
The concept of a system-wide measure of the sustainment of life (habitability) for space-faring interplanetary species is introduced and explored.
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is humanity’s most ambitious scientific endeavor to explore nearby sun-like stars for the presence of habitable rocky exoplanets and the possible presence of life.
Earth’s climate is influenced by over a dozen feedbacks, but only three dominate its long-term climate behavior. Models of the exoplanet habitable zone (HZ) assume that this is similar for […]
