Earth-like Exoplanets, Volume Three reviews the rapidly expanding study of exoplanets and what these new worlds have revealed regarding planet types located in diverse circumstellar and planetary environments. Currently, Earth remains the only example for life on planets, but other Solar System bodies - Venus, Mars, and the Moon - provide important information about where and when life is possible. As life on Earth and the lack of detected life on bodies in, or near, the habitable zone of the Sun supply much of what is directly known about astrobiology, the possibilities of finding life out there is ripe for new discovery.
- Includes a broad ranging survey of the emerging field of exoplanets and the potential for life in the Universe
- Offers both a comprehensive introduction to, and a modern review of, the coupled field of exoplanet astrobiology
- Highlights exoplanet reviews from experts in the field
Table of Contents
Exoplanets What Have We Found and What is on the Horizon? 1. Kepler's Planet Discoveries and Beyond 2. Tess Planet Finder for Nearby Stars
Habitability of Exoplanets 3. Updated Habitable Zone Definitions 4. The abundance of non-water seas in rocky worlds 5. The Binary Habitability Mechanism
Detection of Biomarkers vs. False Positives 6. Can lightning spectra be a biomarker for Earth-like exoplanets? 7. Detectability of open seas and their reflection spectra on exoplanets 8. Challenges of reading biomarkers from exoplanet atmospheres during transits
The Origin of Organic Matter and Life, In-situ or Panspermia? 9. A survey of solar system and galactic objects with pristine surfaces that record history and perhaps panspermia, with a plan for exploration 10. Panspermia: A panoply of possibilities
Extremophiles Alternate Evolutionary Pathways 11. Can there be a Rogue Earth? 12. Comparison of the multidimensional niches inhabited by Earth extremophiles with the multidimensional spectrum of exoplanets
Life on Exoplanets over Cosmic Time 13. Habitable and super-habitable exoplanets
Authors
Mason, Paul A. Paul A. Mason is a Professor at New Mexico State University and the Director of Picture Rocks Observatory and Astrobiology Research Center. He obtained two B.S. degrees from the University of Arizona-Astronomy and Physics & Mathematics, where he founded the University of Arizona astronomy club. He received a Masters in Physics from Louisiana State University and a PhD in Astronomy from Case Western Reserve University, where he received the Towson Memorial Scholarship. Professor Mason has been a teacher and researcher at the University of Texas at El Paso and New Mexico State University, Dona Ana Community College, and received the prestigious David Lovelock teaching award. His research includes observations of accreting white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. These observations utilized both ground-based and spaced based telescopes fromradio to gamma-rays. Most recently, he has been theoretically investigatingplanetary habitability constrained by high energy radiation, especially concerned with the potential for habitability of Earth-like planets orbiting moderately close binary stars. His wrote the seminal paper on enhanced habitability in binary star systems with J. Zuluaga, P. Cuartas and J. Clark who have an online habitability calculator http://bhmcalc.net/ and most recently, Mason Biermann introduced the Supergalactic Habitable Zone concept. Gordon, Richard Richard Gordon is a Theoretical Biologist at the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory (Panacea, FL), as well as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). Dr. Gordon was Professor at the University of Manitoba until his retirement in 2011. He holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Chemical Physics from the University of Oregon under Terrell Hill. He has edited 16 academic books and special issues plus two monographs. He was summoned twice to the Canadian Parliament to testify as an expert scientific witness on the grant system. Dr. Gordon has published over 200 peer reviewed articles in mathematics, engineering, physics and chemistry. He wrote the first paper on diatom nanotechnology, founding that field. He started the field of adaptive image processing and published on algal biofuels, computed tomography, AIDS prevention, neural tube defects, embryo physics, and research and social ethics. His interest in astrobiology dates back to work on the Orgueil meteorite as an undergraduate in Edward Anders' lab at the University of Chicago. The full list of publications by Richard Gordon is available at http://tinyurl.com/DickGordon. He may be reached at DickGordonCan@gmail.com.
Dr. Richard Gordon
Retired from the University of Manitoba
Theoretical Biologist. Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory & Aquarium
Adjunct Professor, C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth & Development
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Wayne State University
