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Biosignature False Positives

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Abstract

In our search for life – whether within the earliest part of Earth’s geologic record, on planets within our solar system such Mars, or especially for extrasolar planets – we must infer the presence of life from its impact on the local or global environment. These “biosignatures,” often identified from the known influence of terrestrial organisms on the Earth’s atmosphere and surface, could be misdiagnosed when we apply them to alien worlds. The so-called false positives may occur when another process or suite of processes masks or mimics a biosignature. Here, we examine several leading biosignatures, then introduce potential false positives for these signals, and finally discuss methods to discriminate between the two using current and future detection technologies. We conclude that it is the astrobiology community’s responsibility to thoroughly exhaust all possibilities before we resort to “life” as an explanation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge research support from the “ROCKE-3D team” in the NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), via solicitation NNH13ZDA017C, from the Habitable Worlds program via solicitation NNH15ZDA001N-HW, and from the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory via solicitation NNH12ZDA002C. This chapter also benefited from Victoria Meadows’ helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

    Chester E. Harman

  2. Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Chester E. Harman

  3. NASA Astrobiology Institute–Virtual Planetary Laboratory, Seattle, USA

    Shawn Domagal-Goldman & Shawn Domagal-Goldman

  4. Planetary Systems Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Shawn Domagal-Goldman

  5. Sellers Exoplanets Environments Collaboration, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Chester E. Harman

Authors
  1. Chester E. Harman
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  2. Shawn Domagal-Goldman
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Correspondence to Chester E. Harman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , La Laguna, Spain

    Hans J. Deeg

  2. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Spain

    Juan Antonio Belmonte

Section Editor information

  1. Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Victoria Meadows

  2. Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Rory Barnes

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Harman, C.E., Domagal-Goldman, S. (2018). Biosignature False Positives. In: Deeg, H., Belmonte, J. (eds) Handbook of Exoplanets . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_71-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_71-1

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