Sustained and comparative habitability beyond Earth
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1.
California Institute of Technology
Abstract
Although we have a reasonable understanding of the physical and chemical conditions required to support the growth and reproduction of organisms, we still have only a rudimentary grasp of the geophysical conditions required to sustain those conditions over geological timescales. We propose that a strengthening of the interface between geophysics and biology is required to quantify sustained habitability and ultimately to mature the science of comparative habitability. Comparative habitability will inform our understanding of the common principles that allow habitability to be sustained on different planetary bodies, and whether habitability is predictable or contingent for a given set of planetary body characteristics. These developments are enabled by missions in our Solar System, including those to icy bodies such as Europa, Enceladus and Titan, in combination with telescopes allowing us to study habitability on exoplanets, thus providing essential insights into processes that can enable sustained habitability. Comparative habitability will help to determine whether Earth is a rare outpost of conditions suitable for a multi-billion-year biosphere, or whether the conditions that allowed for sustained habitability here are common in the Universe.
Copyright and License
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Acknowledgement
CSC thanks the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for support under grant no. ST/V000586/1. P.M.H. acknowledges support from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant (No. 453949) awarded to B. Sherwood Lollar. A portion of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Government sponsorship acknowledged. We thank B. Insua for work on Figs. 3 and 4. We thank F. Nimmo for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Contributions
The paper was conceived by C.S.C. and M.S. All authors contributed to discussions on paper content. C.S.C. drafted the manuscript and all authors contributed to editing and development of the final paper.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional details
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
- ST/V000586/1
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
- 453949
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NM0018D0004
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Seismological Laboratory