National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Issue
#6

Produced by the NASA

Astrobiology Program to
commemorate 50 years of
Exobiology and Astrobiology
at NASA.

www.nasa.gov
 Astrobiology
A History of Exobiology and Astrobiology at NASA

This is the story of life in the Universe—or at least the story as we know it so far. As
scientists, we strive to understand the environment in which we live and how life re-
lates to this environment. As astrobiologists, we study an environment that includes
not just the Earth, but the entire Universe in which we live.

The year 2010 marked 50 years of Exobiology and Astrobiology research at the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). To celebrate, the Astrobi-
ology Program commissioned this graphic history. It tells the story of some of the
most important people and events that have shaped the science of Exobiology and
Astrobiology. At only 50 years old, this field is relatively young. However, as you will
see, the questions that astrobiologists are trying to answer are as old as humankind.

Concept & Story

Mary Voytek
Linda Billings
Aaron L. Gronstal

Artwork
Aaron L. Gronstal

Script
Aaron L. Gronstal
Jordan Rizzieri

Editor
Linda Billings

Layout
Aaron L. Gronstal
Jenny Mottar

Copyright 2017, NASA Astrobiology Program

 Issue #6—Living Beyond the Solar System

The year 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Exobiology Program, estab-
lished in 1960 and expanded into a broader Astrobiology Program in the 1990s. To
commemorate the past half century of research, we are telling the story of how this
field developed and how the search for life elsewhere became a key component
of NASA’s science strategy for exploring space. This issue is the sixth in what we
intend to be a series of graphic history books. Though not comprehensive, the
series has been conceived to highlight key moments and key people in the field as
it explains how Astrobiology came to be.

-Linda Billings, Editor

1
Earth and the planets of our solar
system* are not the only locations of
interest for NASA or for astrobiology.

Astrobiology is the study of

life’s origins and potential in
the Universe...

...and the Universe

is a very big place.

Astronomers have now discovered

thousands upon thousands of
planets orbiting distant stars.

We call these worlds extrasolar

planets, or exoplanets.

But could any of these planets out

among the stars be habitable for
life as we know it?

Issue 6—Living Beyond

*Check out
Issues 1-5!
the Solar System

2
 Right now, we are *James Webb Space
at a critical point in the Telescope (JWST)
history of our search
for exoplanets.
So far, we haven’t
had telescopes powerful
enough to let us look for
planets with life.
But new telescopes
being designed and
built right now might be
able to do the job.

JWST* launches
soon, and could be our Victoria Meadows, Principal
Investigator for the Virtual
first real chance if we pick Planetary Laboratory at the
just the right planet University of Washington (UW)
to look at. (1)

Dawn Gelino, NASA

Exoplanet Science In its lifetime,
Institute, California
Institute of Technology
JWST will only be
able to examine a select
number of targets in
enough detail to answer
questions about
habitability.

Shawn Domagal
Goldman, NASA
Goddard Space
Flight Center
(GSFC)

So we must
carefully pick
the right ones.

But how do we
choose just a handful
of planets when there
are thousands of
possibilities? Mary Voytek, Director of
the NASA Astrobiology
Program, NASA HQ (2)
That’s a big
question for today’s
astrobiologists.
Studying habitability
on exoplanets requires the
expertise of scientists from
many disciplines at NASA.
It’s the perfect challenge
for astrobiology.

3
Before NASA even existed, We see only the suns
humankind dreamt of other because they are large
worlds out among the stars.* and luminous...

For centuries, scientists

and philosophers argued
I believe about the possibility of
in a ‘plurality extrasolar planets.
of worlds.’

There are
countless Earths
rotating around their
suns in exactly the same
way as the planets of
our system. ...but their planets
remain invisible to us
because they are smaller
Giordano Bruno,
and non-luminous.
*see Issue #1 1548-1600. (3)

As time went on, technology

improved and changed our
view of the Universe.

Wait, those Edwin Hubble,

clouds of light 1920s.
are galaxies!

Whoa... ...that is a
lot of stars.

In 1995, astronomers finally

found an extrasolar planet.

Mon
dieu...

A giant planet
rapidly orbits the
star 51 Pegasi! (4)

A gas giant planet like 51 Pegasi b

Haute-Provence isn’t habitable... but it proved that
Observatory, 1995. exoplanets did indeed exist.

4
This discovery raised important
questions for astrobiologists... Could extra-
solar planets
have life? Giada Arney,
And how NASA GSFC
can we find the
planets that
might?

Right now, we
mainly use two techniques
to find planets, the radial
velocity method and the
transit method.

The radial velocity method*

measures the gravitational
affect of a planet on its sun.

As a planet
orbits its star,
it tugs ever so
slightly on it.
* aka Doppler
spectroscopy

The star isn’t

stationary. It ‘dances’
around a central point
in space.

How much the

star moves in this The more
dance can tell us things massive the planet,
about the planet, like the more it pulls
its mass. This movement on its star.
affects the light
spectrum of a star, or
its color signature.
When the
star moves
away from us, it
looks red.
And toward
us... it’s blue. Didier Queloz,
Michel Mayor, This is how Cambridge and
University of we found 51 University of
Geneva Pegasi b! Geneva

5
The transit technique works
When a planet Natalie Batalha, NASA Ames
when a planet passes in Research Center (ARC)
moves in front of its
front of its star.
star, it blocks part
of the light that
we see.

The amount of light

blocked, and how often it
happens, can tell us about the
planet’s size, its orbital period
(or “year”), and its distance
from the star.

If you know
the radius of the
star, that is.

Planets orbiting close

to a star are easier to study,
because close planets transit
more often, giving us more
observations to look at.

With both
techniques, it’s easier
to spot big planets.
Gas giants
similar to Jupiter have
more gravity to affect
their star. And they’re
big, so they block out
more light when they
transit.

Radial velocity was

the first method to find
exoplanets in large numbers, but
now it has been overtaken by
the transit method, both in the
Bill Borucki, number of planets discovered and
NASA ARC
in its ability to characterize
them. (5)

6
After the first exoplanet
discovery, astronomers got From 1995 onward,
to work hunting for more. ground- and space-based
telescopes were used to
add to the list.

New discoveries
flooded in, including
planets unlike anything
in the Solar System. Spitzer Space Tele-
scope (NASA - 2003)

The first planets

were the easiest to
spot - huge gas giants
similar to Jupiter.

But as techniques
improved, smaller and
smaller planets were
discovered.

There were stars

with multiple planets
in orbit.

Hubble Space Telescope

(NASA - 1990)

And bizarre
worlds unlike
anything we’d
seen before.
W. M. Keck
Observatory**
Gaia (ESA - 2013)
Things started to
get very interesting
for astrobiologists.

Finding small, rocky planets

raised questions about whether
European Southern Obser-
vatory (ESO), Cerro Paranal or not any could be habitable.
Convection, Rotataion and
planetary Transits (CoRoT)
(CNES/ESA - 2006)*

Anglo-Australian
Planet Search (APS)**

HARPS spectrograph at
ESO, La Silla Observatory**

And finding an inhabited planet

Exaple of facility using: *transit could answer so many questions
method, or **radial velocity method about Earth’s place in the Universe.

7
 In 2001, the Virtual Planetary Laboratory was
founded with support from NASA Astrobiology.

With so many
planets, we wanted to
figure out what their
climates might
be like...
...and answer the
big question: can Astrobiology
they support life? was ready to join
in the search for
exoplanets.

VPL is based at the University of

Washington, but includes researchers
at 20 different institutions Atmospheric
Astrobiology Biophysicists
around the world. (6) chemists
includes scientists
from many fields, and Spectroscopists
Climatologists Biologists
so does the VPL.
Virologists
Geochemists There are Molecular
Geophysicists astronomers. evolutionary Geomicrobiologists
Planetary biologists
scientists

Just to
name a few.

Our goal is to take

what we have learned about
habitability from our own We’ve developed
...and apply it to a ‘tool kit’ of computer
solar system....
extrasolar planets. models to simulate possible
environments on distant
worlds.

And we study how

observations and modeling
can help determine if a
planet is (or was) able to
support life. (6)

This work will help

us determine what to
look for with missions
like JWST.

8
 Analog environments But Earth, the
Understanding on Earth help us study entire planet, is like
habitable planets life’s potential in the one giant analog for
starts with Solar System*. habitable worlds.
Earth.

* See Issue 5

Earth science
helps us predict what
our telescopes might
see in other planetary
systems.

We also need to
understand the Earth ...how it formed,
through time... evolved, and became a
home for life.

We start Now, ‘terrestrial’

our search with does not mean ‘Earth-
terrestrial planets. like’ or habitable.

It means the
planet is made of
metals and rocks.
Our system has four
terrestrial planets, but
only one with life**.

Mercury Mars

Bodies like the

dwarf planet Pluto aren’t
terrestrial because they
Earth have so much ice and
Venus
**See Issues 2,3 & 5 frozen material.

9
 Earth-sized
means with a Earth-mass
similar diameter means it has a
to the Earth. similar mass.

Just because a
planet has the same
mass, that doesn’t mean
that it is the same size
as Earth... and vice
Leslie Rogers, versa. (7, 8)
University of
Chicago

Two planets
with the same Earth is the
mass could have biggest terrestrial
different planet in our system, but
diameters. it’s hard to say how big
a terrestrial planet in
another system
could be.

It just
depends on
the planet’s
density...

...in other
words, what
it is made out So far, we
of. think it has to
be less than 1.6
Earth radii. (9)

That’s where
you might hit the
boundary between rocky
‘super Earths’, and small
gaseous planets we call
‘mini-Neptunes’.

Once we find
terrestrial planets,
the next step is
figuring out what
they’re like.

We start
with determining
their orbits.

10
We want to look at small planets.
The easiest planets to find with
our techniques are ones that
orbit close to their sun. Being near the sun can make it too
hot for life... just look at Mercury.*

We need to be able to
spot terrestrial planets
further from their sun...

...but not so far

that they are too
cold for life.**

Early on, scientists came up with the simple

idea of the ‘habitable’ or ‘Goldilocks’ zone
by looking at our own system. (10)

This is the zone where

*See Issue 3 liquid water can exist on
**See Issues 4 and 5
the surface of a planet.

The habitable zone is That doesn’t

not too hot, and not sound too hard. We
too cold... ...it’s just right look for a planet
for water, which just like Earth.
is essential for
life as we know it.

Same diameter, After all, Or is

same mass, same Earth is the only it...
orbit. planet we know
with life.

11
 In some ways, Maybe Earth-like
Earth isn’t the only exoplanets don’t have
analog we have for an to look like the Earth
inhabited world. we know today.

Remember, we must
understand the Earth
through time.

Life has been on

Earth for billions of
years and, long ago, the For so much of
planet looked a lot its history, Earth didn’t
different. even have an ‘oxygen’
atmosphere.

The most ‘alien’

planet that we have
data for is actually the
ancient Earth...

The Earth, today. The Earth, 4

billion years ago.

...which we study
through geochemistry
and geology.

Maybe there’s an
inhabited planet that looks
more like the Archean ...when life first
Earth (4 billion to 2.5 bil- originated! (11)
lion years ago)...

12
 We just need to That’s a big What do When a planet
find the right planet to challenge. Exo- you mean by passes in front of a
study, and put these planets are so that? star it blocks some of
ideas to the test! far away. the star’s light.

If we are
careful, we can see
But we can still some of that light
study the planet, filtered by a planet’s
Drake Deming, University
even though we atmosphere.
of Maryland at College Park
can’t see it.

We separate
the tiny amount of light
that makes it through
the atmosphere from the
huge amount of light you
see from the star. It’s tough, but
our techniques are
getting better
and better.

Ignas Snellen, Leiden

University (12)

As light passes We see those

through the planet’s changes in the star’s
atmosphere, the gas transmission spectrum.
changes what it looks The trick is figuring out
like to us. what they mean.
Different gas
molecules absorb
light at different
wavelengths.

First, we made
models to help determine
how we could study the
Dimitar Sasselov, atmospheres of transiting
Sara Seager, MIT
Harvard University planets. (13)

13
 The technique
was validated when we
observed the planet HD
209458. (14, 15)
Then we began
to characterize the
composition of gas giant
atmospheres.
(16, 17, 18, 19)

Gas giants are a good

test for our techniques, but now
we need to refine our methods and
develop technology that will let us study
the atmospheres of smaller and
smaller planets.

But what can an Turns out, it We’re looking

atmosphere tell us can tell us all kinds for chemical signs
about life? of things. of life.

Remember, Gases created by

we’re not looking biology, from microbes
for intelligent, to plants, can alter the
sci-fi ‘aliens.’ atmosphere.

The effect of
primitive organisms like
microbes might be the
most likely thing
Eddie Schwieterman,
University of California,
we’ll see.
Riverside

Although they’re Strange as it

microscopic, we know sounds, it’s microbes
that microbes impact a that could speak to us
planet globally...
across the parsecs.

... from atmospheric

composition to ocean
chemistry.

14
 It was James Lovelock* who first sug- On a planet without life, the
gested that biology could be detected atmosphere comes to a stable
by its effect on the atmosphere. balance of chemicals.
If Earth
had no life, the
atmosphere would
look different.
(20)

Biology can shift this balance in a way

that can’t happen on a lifeless planet.
*See Issue 2

Some kinds of
chemicals don’t co-exist
easily in the atmosphere
because of chemical
reactions.

For example, oxygen

and methane don’t normally
co-exist easily. But on Earth
today, they do...

...because
of biology!

It’s especially
Photosynthesis easy to see things like
We have lots makes the oxygen,
of oxygen because forests and grasslands
and it also makes cool covering the land.
microbes in the colors that can be seen
oceans... from space!

...and plants on the

land are performing
photosynthesis.
Nancy Kiang,
NASA GISS
* See Issue 5

15
 Ancient Earth’s We’re not totally
atmosphere was different sure what it looked like,
than today, but there but there might have
was also life. been a lot more methane
than today.

This means the

Earth would’ve looked
completely different
from space.

Carl Sagan
described Earth
today as a pale blue dot*. ... Titan has a
Compare that to Saturn’s methane-rich haze
moon Titan... that looks kind of
*See Issue 4 orange.

But Titan
Josh Krissansen-
doesn’t have life Totton, UW Right... if the Archean
that we know of. Earth had life and Titan
Maybe the doesn’t, how do you tell
Archean Earth the difference?
was a pale orange
dot. (21) And what if
the atmosphere was
completely different
than either modern or
ancient Earth? (22)

Rodrigo Luger, UW

Hmm... if there
was a break in the
clouds and we could Maybe colors at
see the surface. the surface could
be signs of life!

Plants have their color,

because photosynthetic Our sun is a yellow
pigments select light to use star, but there are
from the Sun. lots of other stars out
there with different
colors of light.

Plants on worlds
orbiting those stars
could be something
other than green.
(23, 24)

16
 Take salt
On Earth, there are ponds on Earth
lots of biological pigments On ancient Earth
today. Here, microbes archaea could have
that aren’t green, and many called archaea can
that aren’t used by dominated. (25)
be purple, orange,
photosynthesis. Life uses red...
pigments for
lots of things.

It might be these
pigments that we’re Tim Lyons,
more likely to spot on UC Riverside
an exoplanet. (26)

And it’s not just Earth

(or ancient Earth) that
can teach us what a Building on what they
planet’s atmosphere has know about Mars, Earth, and
to say about a planet. Venus, astrobiologists are developing
new planetary atmosphere and climate
models to try to understand what
planets might be like in other
solar systems.

Caleb Scharf,
Columbia University

The differences
among the planets in our
Gavin Schmidt,
NASA GISS
solar system can tell us a
lot about what is possible Tony Del Genio,
NASA GISS
on exoplanets.

The balance of Earth’s atmosphere Mars’ atmosphere can be

is explained by biology. explained by photochemistry*.

One thing
Jupiter’s atmosphere to note...
balances out chemically.

There’s a lot of
untapped energy in
Mars’ atmosphere in
the balance between
carbon dioxide and
*See Issue 2 oxygen.

17
Free energy is an We know that from
anti-biosignature. watching life on Earth, and
If life had how it maintains the balance
access to Mars’ of things like oxygen, nitrogen,
atmosphere, it would and water on our planet.
use that energy to
survive.

Life makes the

composition of Earth’s
atmosphere possible. “The low oxygen on
Mars is what made me think
the planet was lifeless back
in the days of Viking.”
(20)*

*See Issue 2

But, of course,
we realized there
Once again, was more to it
it seemed so easy than that.
at first... ...look for
something
small...
...in the
habitable
zone...

...and an
oxygenated
atmosphere!

Ravi Kumar Kopparapu,

NASA GSFC

18
At a coffee shop
in Seattle, 2010...

Uh-oh!...

Oxygen
What, is doesn’t have
something to come from
wrong? life...

Uh... yeah.
More
coffee?

No, not
that...

Turns out,
you can get lots
of oxygen without
biology. (27)
Jen Domagal-Goldman,
American Democracy Project

Now we know multiple

For instance, energy from a
ways for making
young star can strip hydrogen
oxygen abiotically.
away from water molecules...
(27, 28, 29, 30, 31)

...leaving only the

oxygen behind.

Or, carbon dioxide

can be broken apart
by solar energy
through photolysis*.

Now scientists had to look at

what other features could act as
*Chemical decomposition a signal for life in an atmosphere.
under the influence of light.

19
 If the
...maybe
oxygen comes from
something else
photolysis, or some
happens alongside
other process...
that process that
we can detect?

Then we could
tell the difference
between oxygen
from biology, and
oxygen from some-
thing else.

We also need to The more

We realized that complicated our questions
we can’t only think about think about how we
might be fooled. got, the more scientists
how to identify life. we needed to try and
answer them.
Cecilia Bitz, UW

Exactly.

It was time to
get insights from an
even wider scientific
Rika Anderson,
Carleton College community.

In 2014, NASA Astrobiology led an It was dubbed the

effort to create a new, coordinated Nexus for Exoplanet
network of exoplanet explorers. System Science
(NExSS). (32)

NExSS encourages collaboration among

the four science communities supported
by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Heliophysics
Earth Science
Astrophysics Planetary Science.

20
 We have to look And we need
to the future and get ready better models to
for new technology that will Tools developed
understand what the
let us study small planets in the 1960s to study
telescopes see.
in detail. Venus changed our
view of Earth**.
As we build more
powerful telescopes,
we need a place to
point them.

Now we’re applying

climate simulations developed
in the 1980s to known exoplanets
in order to accelerate new
** See Issue 3 discoveries.

NExSS includes several research NExSS research

teams, each dedicated to solving covers every aspect of
a piece of the exoplanet puzzle. habitability, from planet With a growing
formation to the end of
community of astronomers,
a planet’s lifecycle.
astrophysicists, Earth scientists
and heliophysicists at NASA working
together, we’re developing an even
deeper understanding of
...how they might how planets evolve...
be like or un-like
Earth...

...how they
interact with
their stars...

...and their
past or present
habitability.
Eric Ford,
Penn State

Steve Desch,
Arizona State
University

21
 With new ideas The habitable zone
from even more scientists, concept lets us start our
let’s look again at the search where life is most likely
‘habitable zone.’ to be, but it doesn’t guarantee
habitability. (33)

The ‘habitable
zone’ makes things
sound easy. We just need The habitable zone
a small planet with an is based on an Earth-like
orbit similar to planet, with an Earth-
the Earth. like atmosphere.
If only it
were that
simple... As soon as a
planet deviates from
that composition, it can
get into trouble.
Antígona Segura Peralta,
Universidad Nacional Mars is at
Autónoma de México the outer edge
of our system’s
habitable zone.

Earth sits in
the middle.

Venus is
outside the habitable
zone, but it’s close to
the inner limit.

So far,
we haven’t found
evidence of past or
present life on either
Mars or Venus. These findings
indicate that we might
find a terrestrial planet
that theoretically sits
in the habitable zone…
yet isn’t actually
habitable.

22
 Even a planet with
exactly the same size
and orbit as Earth might
look very different.

One thing the

habitable zone concept Mark Kuchner,
doesn’t take into account is NASA GSFC
Tony Del Genio,
clouds, which can have an
NASA GISS
effect on surface
temperature.

Venus might have been

habitable long ago, if it had clouds
like Earth’s that kept a lot of sunlight Whew!
out. But today, carbon dioxide in Venus’
atmosphere causes a greenhouse Maybe ancient
effect that makes the planet Venus was habitable...
way too hot for life*. but now it might be
an example of what
the future holds
for Earth*.

* See Issue 3

Venus could be an example of At some point in its history,

the end state of habitable maybe life could have survived...
planet evolution. but not anymore.

New code is being developed to show

if clouds have a cooling or a warming
effect on different types of planets.

23
 If a planet has
clouds, or haze, light Hazy or cloudy
For the
only penetrates the planets with flat spectra
wavelengths of light
top part of the we look at, the planet’s are difficult to characterize.
atmosphere. spectrum ends up flat A hazy mini-Neptune might
and featureless. look the same as a hazy
terrestrial planet.

Astronomers
have found one such
With planet, named GJ
today’s instru- 1214 b. (34)
ments, we just can’t get a
spectra
It’s difficult to that tell us what the
get information atmosphere is made of.
from a hazy planet,
but spotting one
isn’t a total loss.
Russell
There are other Deitrick, UW
things to consider
about the habitable
zone.

Hazy planet
spectra might not be
flat at all wavelengths,
and we can still charac- Yeah, there
terize basic properties is a lot more to
like planet colors.* habitability than
Rory Barnes, a planet’s distance
*See page 16
UW
from its star.

A planet could
Things like a planet’s appear to be in
orbit, tidal locking, the coziest spot
or tidal heating* can also of the habitable
mess up observations. zone…
(35, 36, 37)

…but be heated so
much that it’s covered in
magma and all liquid water
* See Issue 4 evaporates away to be
blown into space! (38)

24
 Planets in other
Planets in our systems might not,
solar system orbit making their habitable
in a similar plane, zones completely
like a plate around different.
the Sun.

A planet on a
crazy orbit might
transit its star…

… so we can
spot it...

...but we might not

realize that it swings both so
far away from and so close to
its star during its orbit that it
is uninhabitable for life as
we know it. (39)

Whoa!

The gravity of
a planet pulls on its
star (and vice versa),
and planets also pull
on each other.

This is where
orbital dynamics can
affect the climate
and habitability
of a planet. If the orbit isn’t
circular, a planet could
cook part of the time…
and freeze for the Eric Agol, UW
other part! (40, 41)

25
 If we’re going to But how? How do we
believe that we found know what goes on inside
a biosignature, we need to a planet when all we see is
understand the entire a tiny pixel of light from
context of a planet. billions of miles away?

Right. Can
we tell if it has Or a magnetic
things like plate field to protect
tectonics? life from things
like radiation?
Are interior
properties somehow
reflected in the exterior
of the planet?
It could be
important to
find out.
And there are
so many different
types of planets, with
so many unanswered
questions.

Like... can a
planet without an
atmosphere still
have an ocean?

Aomawa Shields,
University of And what
California, Irvine happens if a planet
like Earth orbits a
different type of
star? (42) We need to
know everything we
can about a planet... its
Or a star
Like a red atmosphere... interior...
with a lot of
dwarf? (43) orbit... its
flares?
host star...

And what
about the planet’s
rotation? (44, 45)

26
 Life might also Or deep
inhabit areas outside underground on
of the traditional rocky planets.**
habitable zone.

Like in sub-ice But if life is hidden

oceans of liquid somewhere, like the
water on worlds subsurface, we can’t
like Europa* detect it from trillions
of miles away.

John Baross, UW

At least not with the

technology we have right
now... or anytime soon.

*See Issue 4
**See Issue 5

So, a planet with life

at the surface is our best
chance for spotting a
habitable planet.
It’s not the only place
we could find one… but with
limited resources, it’s the
best place to start our
hunting.

And remember, we’ll

only get a few chances
with JWST.

Life at the surface

brings us back to looking
for planets that could
have liquid water at the
Tyler Robinson, University
surface. of California, Santa Cruz

We also have
Hints about what a planet with surface liquid images of Titan and
might look like have come from missions that its hydrocarbon
turned their cameras back to Earth. lakes.*

Viking
EPOXI

And one picture

from the EPOXI
Cassini
mission was really
LCROSS
interesting.
*See Issue 4

27
While orbiting Saturn,
the Cassini spacecraft EPOXI caught a bright
caught a glint of light... glint of sunlight reflecting
off of bodies of water on
Earth’s surface.

47

...reflecting off of the surface

46 of a hydrocarbon lake on Titan. * Extrasolar Planet Observation and
Deep Impact Extended Investigation

Could we detect It wouldn’t It would

a similar glint prove there’s certainly help Particularly
of light with our life, but liquid us narrow our if the liquid is
telescopes? (48) is a big step. search. water.
Maybe... ... such a tiny
amount of light
added to the light
of the star...

Surface water Where we might

could mean life stand a chance of
Ralf Jaumann, Deutsches
Zentrum für Luft- und
at the surface. detecting it!
Raumfahrt (DLR)

Our best hope right

now is to find a planet
with surface water...

...and focus on
looking for life that ... light from
uses the dominant its star!
energy source at
the surface...
That’s a scenario
that could produce a
biosignature in a planet’s
atmosphere that we could
detect with upcoming
missions.

28
What we know so far about exoplanets One such mission is Kepler, which
is built on the work of some amazing has made a huge contribution to
missions and technology. exoplanet science. (49)

For its primary mission, Kepler

was fixed at observing a single
spot in the sky. One tiny percent
of the entire Universe.
In this one spot, Kepler found
a HUGE number of planets. For
years to come, scientists will
be combing through data to
find even more.

The diversity of worlds

in our solar system is
puny compared to what Kepler has shown us
we’ve seen beyond it. that rocky planets
are not rare, and that
there are a lot of
potentially habitable
planets out there.

But Kepler’s planets are so far away,

and it’s extremely hard to get any
information about their atmospheres.

We need spectroscopy measurements

to study the atmosphere of planets,
and we don’t have any instruments
that can see things as far as Kepler.
Determining their mass is difficult as
well… limiting what else we can learn
about these numerous worlds for now.

Kepler taught us what we

need to look for next.

We need to find Kepler-like planets

closer to Earth. Within 10 parsecs
(more like 32 light years). And because
Kepler found so many planets, we now
know that we have a good chance of
finding similar planets closer to home.

29
New telescopes could do just Unlike Kepler,
that, like TESS*. (50) a mission like TESS would
be able to move around and
observe the entire sky.

And TESS could

search for nearby * Transiting Exoplanet
planets. Survey Satellite

Most nearby stars are

dim M-dwarfs, which Because these stars are dim,
could be a good thing. habitable zones for M-dwarfs
are close to them.

That means potentially habitable

planets would transit more often,
and might be easier to spot.

Then comes the But JWST has limitations in

James Webb Space terms of studying planets.
Telescope (JWST).

JWST will give

us a really good
look at nearby
M-dwarfs.
If JWST is able to get a
transmission spectrum from an
exoplanet, we’ll still only be able
Catarina Alves de
Oliveira, European
to learn about the uppermost
Space Agency (ESA) part of the atmosphere.

30
 Starlight won’t penetrate deep
For JWST, all
enough to reveal any information
of our eggs are in the
about lower levels of the atmosphere,
‘transit basket.’ It’s high
where biosignature gases might be.
stakes... but with potentially
high rewards.

Looking at a single
planet with JWST is going
to take a HUGE amount of
observation time.
This is why, in its
lifetime, JWST will let us
look at a few planets at
the MOST.

A handful out How do we

of thousands of chose?
Right now, we’re
possibilities. building a habitability
index to rank our
targets.

All we’ve learned from

planets in our solar system
will help us determine
targets for JWST.

JWST is a In the long term, We’re still a

major stepping we want a mission that long way from
stone toward can directly image and that goal...
even better characterize habitable
technology. planets!

...but each new

mission gets
us closer.

Doug Hudgins, Program Karl Stapelfeldt, Exoplanet

Scientist, NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program Office
Exploration Program Chief Scientist at JPL

31
 To take a picture Starshades are
of a planet, we have to separate structures
block the huge amount that can block
of light coming from light...
the star it orbits. We get
10,000,000,000
photons from a
star for every
ONE photon from
an Earth-like
planet!
...and coronagraphs
are built into the
telescope.

Early versions
Technology of this technology could
like starshades be included on upcoming
and coronagraphs missions, like the planned
could help. WFIRST*.

WFIRST could make observations A coronagraph on

in the near-infrared (NIR) part WFIRST wouldn’t be used with
of the spectrum. Its main camera the main camera, but it could still be
would take images that are 100 powerful enough for us to image gas
times larger than those of the giant planets in visible light.
Hubble Space Telecscope. (51)

As always, viewing
gas giants is where we’ll
start, because they’re
easier to see.

Over time, we’ll

perfect the technique
and study smaller and
smaller planets.
With its main
camera, a mission like
WFIRST could also use new
planet-hunting techniques,
* Wide Field Infrared
Survey Telescope
like gravitational
microlensing. (51)

32
 Gravitational It’s explained by my
microlensing is a General Theory of
phenomenon caused Relativity!
by the bending of
light in space.

Isaac Newton

Johann Georg
Scott Gaudi, Ohio
von Soldner Albert Einstein
State University

It’s a bit like

having a magnifying
glass in the sky.

When we observe light from

a distant star, and another
star passes in front...

...gravity from the foreground

star can actually bend the light
from the star behind it.

If the fore- Microlensing has

ground star has been used to study black
planets, they can holes, and it could be good
also act as smaller for studying planets that
lenses. (52) orbit far from their star.

Maybe with a
mission like WFIRST, we
can use this technique to
learn even more about
exoplanets.

33
 While we’re working on In 2017, we made a
new missions and getting close huge discovery using data
to choosing targets for JWST, from Spitzer and ground-
exoplanet scientists keep based telescopes...
making new discoveries....

...a group of rocky

planets orbiting the
star TRAPPIST-1.
(53)

TRAPPIST-1 is an ultra-cool
Because TRAPPIST-1 is so small
star that is only slightly larger
and cool, the system’s habitable
than the planet Jupiter.
zone is very close to the star.

Three of the seven Earth-

sized planets orbit well
within this habitable zone.
By studying the interactions of
the planets, scientists were able
to determine their masses.

It’s the first time

that we’ve been able to
infer masses for planets
this small.

So we have
three planets in the
habitable zone, with sizes
AND masses similar to But that’s
Earth’s... not all...

...all orbiting close to

their star, where it is
easier for us to see
them.

34
 Another amazing Right! We might
thing is that they are actually be able to study
close, only 40 light their atmospheres with
years away! (54) telescopes we have
TODAY.

Aki Roberge, And, of

NASA GSFC
course, they could be
great candidates for the Michaël Gillon,
technology we’re building Université de Liège
right now.

We could be so
close to characterizing
some truly habitable
planets...

... or maybe
even finding an
inhabited one.

The bad news is

that we’ll just be looking
at tiny dots of light in
the sky.

The good news is

that we’re starting to
figure out how we could spot
any pale blue (or orange)
dots like Earth.

35
 The Earth through But right now,
time provides many examples Although, life could we have only a handful
of different biospheres and exist in forms we don’t of chances to spot an
habitable planets that we know or understand. exoplanet with life.
can look for.

Biospheres, much We should start our

like planets, might be search by looking for life
more diverse than we as we know it.
ever imagined.

If we want to think
about life as we don’t know it...
we need to understand life at
its most basic level...

... and at a scale

much smaller than
entire planets.

To do that,
we have to trade our
telescopes for powerful
microscopes, and turn our
eyes back to life’s very
beginnings.

Next issue:
Prebiotic Chemistry
and the
Origins of Life

36
 Astrobiology
A History of Exobiology and Astrobiology at NASA

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NP-2017-03-2376-HQ
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