Astrowiki

General

• Preston, L.J. and Dartnell, L.R. (2014) Planetary habitability: lessons learned from terrestrial analogues. Int J Astrobiol 13: 81–98.

Access to extraterrestrial environments for scientific studies is very limited. Analogue sites on Earth, which show similarities to extraterrestrial counterparts are used for a variety of studies, including instrument testing, biological, physical and chemical processes. A few of such sites are introduced here. Suggested by Paula

• Krijt, Sebastiaan; Kama, Mihkel; McClure, Melissa; Teske, Johanna; Bergin, Edwin A.; Shorttle, Oliver; Walsh, Kevin J.; Raymond, Sean N. (2022) Chemical Habitability: Supply and Retention of Life's Essential Elements During Planet Formation. Find out more here.

Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur (CHNOPS) play key roles in the origin and proliferation of life on Earth. The authors synthesize our current understanding of how these elements behave and are distributed in diverse astrophysical settings, tracing their journeys from synthesis in dying stars to molecular clouds, protoplanetary settings, and ultimately temperate rocky planets around main sequence stars. Suggested by Ellen

• Merino, N., Aronson, H.S., Bojanova, D.P., Feyhl-Buska, J., Wong, M.L., Zhang, S. and Giovannelli, D. (2019) Living at the Extremes: Extremophiles and the Limits of Life in a Planetary Context. Front. Microbiol. 10:780. 

Life living at extreme environments (e.g. high & low temperature and pressure conditions, extreme alkaline and acidic conditions, or highly saline environments etc.) are very diverse and their biogeochemical interactions with the environment determine their adaptation skills to these harsh conditions therefore studying extreme life contains clues for search for extraterrestrial life. To learn more about this concept, click here. Suggested by Serhat

Subject specific

• Taubner, R.-S., Pappenreiter, P., Zwicker, J., Smrzka, D., Pruckner, C., Kolar, P., et al. (2018) Biological methane production under putative Enceladus-like conditions. Nat Commun 9: 1–11.

Could methane producing microorganisms be responsible for hydrogen and methane found on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Find out more here. Suggested by Paula

• Hinkel, Natalie R.; Unterborn, Cayman; Kane, Stephen R.; Somers, Garrett; Galvez, Richard (2019) A Recommendation Algorithm to Predict Giant Exoplanet Host Stars Using Stellar Elemental Abundances

Can we use elemental abundances to predict the presence of exoplanets around stars? Find out more here. Suggested by Ellen

• McCollom, T. M., Klein, F., Ramba, M. (2022). Hydrogen generation from serpentinization of iron-rich olivine on Mars, icy moons, and other planetary bodies. Icarus 372, 114754. 

Hydrogen is a basal energy source for microbial life and reactions of water with ultramafic rocks (i.e. serpentinization) are the major source of biologically available hydrogen. Dr. Tom McCollom and colleagues are exploring potentials of hydrogen generation during serpentinization in planetary scale by using thermodynamic computational modeling. Please click here to learn more. Suggested by Serhat