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arXiv 1801.08970astro-ph.EP
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地球科学与寻找太阳系外生命

Geoscience and the Search for Life Beyond the Solar System

Rory Barnes, Anat Shahar, Cayman Unterborn, Hilairy Hartnett, Ariel Anbar, Brad Foley, Peter Driscoll, S. -H. Dan Shim, Thomas Quinn, Kayla Iacovino, Stephen Ka… 展开作者

Rory Barnes, Anat Shahar, Cayman Unterborn, Hilairy Hartnett, Ariel Anbar, Brad Foley, Peter Driscoll, S. -H. Dan Shim, Thomas Quinn, Kayla Iacovino, Stephen Kane, Steven Desch, Norman Sleep, David Catling

摘要:

科学家们如何能够高度自信地得出结论,认为系外行星拥有生命?随着望远镜在未来20年内上线,可以直接观察来自地球系外行星的光子,这个问题将决定许多科学家在许多领域的活动。预期的数据将是稀疏和低信噪比的,这将使从非生物特征中解开生物特征具有挑战性。我们的地球不仅是独一无二的,因为它拥有生命,它也是唯一的类地行星,通过地震波直接观察其内部,并通过实地和实验室测量成分演变。这项广泛的研究揭示了一颗行星是从世界之间的碰撞中诞生的,随后是复杂的地球化学演化。另一方面,系外行星的内部只能通过以下观测来限制:1)行星大气的光度和光谱分析,2)主恒星的光谱和光度分析,以及3)伴星的性质。从这些(未来的)数据中,天体生物学家必须生成合理的成分和进化模型,以限制可能适合居住的系外行星的内部属性和历史,提供环境背景,并排除任何假定的生物特征的地球化学解释。本白皮书的目标是确定地球物理和地球化学过程在寻找太阳系以外生命方面的作用,并确定未来研究的关键但未充分研究的领域。

英文摘要:

How can scientists conclude with high confidence that an exoplanet hosts life? As telescopes come on line over the next 20 years that can directly observe photons from terrestrial exoplanets, this question will dictate the activities of many scientists across many fields. The expected data will be sparse and with low signal-to-noise, which will make disentangling biosignatures from abiotic features challenging. Our Earth is not just unique in that it hosts life, it is also the only terrestrial planet with direct observations of its interior through seismic waves, and compositional evolution through field and laboratory measurements. This extensive research reveals a planet born from collisions between worlds, followed by a complicated biogeochemical evolution. Exoplanet interiors, on the other hand, can only be constrained by the following observations: 1) photometric and spectroscopic analysis of the planet's atmosphere, 2) spectroscopic and photometric analysis of the host star, and 3) companion planet properties. From these (future) data, astrobiologists must generate plausible compositional and evolutionary models that constrain a potentially habitable exoplanet's internal properties and history, provide environmental context, and rule out geochemical explanations for any putative biosignatures. The goal of this white paper is to frame the role of geophysical and geochemical processes relevant to the search for life beyond the Solar System and to identify critical, but understudied, areas of future research.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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