Bibcode
Fujii, Yuka; Angerhausen, Daniel; Deitrick, Russell; Domagal-Goldman, Shawn; Grenfell, John Lee; Hori, Yasunori; Kane, Stephen R.; Pallé, E.; Rauer, Heike; Siegler, Nicholas; Stapelfeldt, Karl; Stevenson, Kevin B.
Bibliographical reference
Astrobiology, Volume 18, Issue 6, 2018, pp.739-778
Advertised on:
6
2018
Journal
Citations
137
Refereed citations
119
Description
Exoplanet hunting efforts have revealed the prevalence of exotic worlds
with diverse properties, including Earth-sized bodies, which has fueled
our endeavor to search for life beyond the Solar System. Accumulating
experiences in astrophysical, chemical, and climatological
characterization of uninhabitable planets are paving the way to
characterization of potentially habitable planets. In this paper, we
review our possibilities and limitations in characterizing temperate
terrestrial planets with future observational capabilities through the
2030s and beyond, as a basis of a broad range of discussions on how to
advance "astrobiology" with exoplanets. We discuss the observability of
not only the proposed biosignature candidates themselves but also of
more general planetary properties that provide circumstantial evidence,
since the evaluation of any biosignature candidate relies on its
context. Characterization of temperate Earth-sized planets in the coming
years will focus on those around nearby late-type stars. The James Webb
Space Telescope (JWST) and later 30-meter-class ground-based telescopes
will empower their chemical investigations. Spectroscopic studies of
potentially habitable planets around solar-type stars will likely
require a designated spacecraft mission for direct imaging, leveraging
technologies that are already being developed and tested as part of the
Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission. Successful
initial characterization of a few nearby targets will be an important
touchstone toward a more detailed scrutiny and a larger survey that are
envisioned beyond 2030. The broad outlook this paper presents may help
develop new observational techniques to detect relevant features as well
as frameworks to diagnose planets based on the observables.
Related projects
Exoplanets and Astrobiology
The search for life in the universe has been driven by recent discoveries of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets), becoming one of the most active fields in modern astrophysics. The growing number of new exoplanets discovered in recent years and the recent advance on the study of their atmospheres are not only providing new valuable
Enric
Pallé Bago