Exoplanet Habitability and Biosignatures @ AbSciCon 2017

Theme: Exoplanets

Session: Biosignatures

Topic: Connecting Habitability and Biosignature Observations

Organizers: Abel Mendez (PHL @ UPR Arecibo), abel.mendez@upr.edu; Dirk Schulze-Makuch (Washington State University), dirksm@wsu.edu; and Edgard Rivera-Valentin (Arecibo Observatory/USRA), ed@naic.edu

Summary: On Earth, habitability is generally correlated with the presence of life, but this will not necessarily be the case for all habitable planets. For instance, a biosignature on a non-habitable planet by terrestrial standards could be interpreted as a false-positive or caused by very different biological process, among other explanations. Therefore, it is necessary to include quantitative measures of habitability to properly assess the significance of any biosignature detections. This session is requesting presentations about potential correlations between habitability and biosignature observations based on theoretical or empirical models, including those for complex or exotic life forms. The models presented as part of this session might consider any spatial and temporal scale, and extend from microbial to complex life, but should address how these models might scale-up and produce together both detectable global habitable conditions and biosignatures from afar.