Habitability Models for Planetary Sciences

Post date: Jul 14, 2020 3:48:0 AM

Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, USA

Edgard G. Rivera-Valentín1, Dirk Schulze-Makuch2, Justin Filiberto1, Ramses Ramírez3, Tana E. Wood4, Alfonso Dávila5, Chris McKay5, Kevin Ortiz Ceballos6, Marcos Jusino-Maldonado6, Guillermo Nery6, René Heller7, Paul Byrne8, Michael J. Malaska9, Erica Nathan10, Marta Filipa Simões11, André Antunes11, Jesús Martínez-Frías12, Ludmila Carone13, Noam R. Izenberg14, Dimitra Atri15, Humberto Itic Carvajal Chitty16, Priscilla Nowajewski-Barra17, Frances Rivera-Hernández18, Corine Brown19, Kennda Lynch1, David Catling20, Jorge I. Zuluaga21, Juan F. Salazar22, Howard Chen23, Grizelle González4, Madhu Kashyap Jagadeesh24, Rory Barnes25, Charles S. Cockell26, Jacob Haqq-Misra27

1Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, USA; 2Technical University Berlin, Germany; 3Earth-Life Science Institute, Japan; 4International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service, Puerto Rico, USA; 5NASA Ames Research Center, USA; 6Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA; 7Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany, 8North Carolina State University, USA; 9Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology, USA; 10Brown University, USA; 11State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, China; 12Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), Spain; 13Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany; 14Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, USA; 15Center for Space Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; 16Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela; 17Fundación Ciencias Planetarias, Chile; 18Dartmouth College, USA; 19Macquarie University, Australia; 20University of Washington, USA; 21Institute of Physics / FCEN - Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia; 22GIGA, Escuela Ambiental, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia; 23Northwestern University, USA; 24Jyoti Nivas College, Bengaluru, India; 25University of Washington, USA; 26UK Centre for Astrobiology, UK; 27Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, USA

Abstract

Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global scales. Astrobiologists have been proposing different habitability models for some time, with little integration and consistency between them and different in function to those used by ecologists. In this white paper, we suggest a mass-energy habitability model as an example of how to adapt and expand the models used by ecologists to the astrobiology field. We propose to implement these models into a NASA Habitability Standard (NHS) to standardize the habitability objectives of planetary missions. These standards will help to compare and characterize potentially habitable environments, prioritize target selections, and study correlations between habitability and biosignatures. Habitability models are the foundation of planetary habitability science. The synergy between the methods used by ecologists and astrobiologists will help to integrate and expand our understanding of the habitability of Earth, the Solar System, and exoplanets.

Méndez, A., Rivera-Valentín, E. G., Schulze-Makuch, D., Filiberto, J., Ramírez, R., Wood, T. E., Dávila, A., McKay, C., Ortiz Ceballos, K., Jusino-Maldonado, M., Nery, G., Heller, R., Byrne, P., Malaska, M. J., Nathan, E., Filipa Simões, M., Antunes, A., Martínez-Frías, J., Carone, L., … Barnes, R. (2020). Habitability Models for Planetary Sciences. ArXiv E-Prints, 2007, arXiv:2007.05491. https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05491

List of Endorsers

Endorse this white paper here: https://forms.gle/iNqrMrXFpUUXKbXi8