Bibcode
Montanes Rodriguez, P.
Bibliographical reference
European Planetary Science Congress 2006. Berlin, Germany, 18 - 22 September 2006., p.573
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2006
Citations
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Refereed citations
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Description
Since the discovery of the first planet outside the solar system, the
number of planet detections is increasing exponentially. Although we
have not been capable of detecting and exploring planets like our own
yet, challenging space missions are already being planned for the next
decades, and the discovery of earth-like planets is only a matter of
time. When the time arrives, one of our main concerns will be to
determine their degree of similarity with our own planet, and to answer
a more intriguing question for the humankind: if there is life on them.
An indication of complex life is the vegetation's red edge. Using real
cloud cover observations from satellite, we have unequivocally detected
the vegetation's signature in the Earth's globally averaged spectrum.
The signature is stronger when large vegetated regions of the Earth are
seen free of clouds. Our results show that, considering the real cloud
cover present in our planet, previous estimates of the vegetation signal
strength were over-optimistic.