Planetary Habitability (Programme: AAS-IOP Astronomy)

Understanding planetary habitability is one of the major challenges of the current scientific era, and is a vast inter-disciplinary undertaking that combines planetary science, climate science, and stellar astrophysics. This book provides an overview of the many processes that influence the energy balance of planetary surface environments and control the sustainability of temperate conditions. These factors include such aspects as the influence of stars, the atmospheres and interiors or planets, and the orbital dynamics of planetary systems. Also described are the concepts behind the habitable zone, lessons learned from solar system data, and the vast opportunities that are provided by exoplanet discoveries, both now and into the future.

Key Features:

• Summarises current exoplanet discoveries relevant to habitability

• Aimed at graduate students and researchers with an interest in exoplanets and astrobiology

• Describes the primary factors that influence the habitability of a planet

• Emphasises the need for in situ data in our solar system

• Covers the degeneracy of geosignatures and biosignatures

Stephen R. Kane is a Professor of Planetary Astrophysics at the University of California, Riverside. His work covers a broad range of topics related to planetary astrophysics and he has discovered and co-discovered hundreds of planets orbiting other stars. He is a leading expert on the topic of planetary habitability, the habitable zone of planetary systems, and the study of why Venus and Earth underwent divergent evolutions. He is a prominent scientific leader for several NASA missions designed to search for life in the universe. He is also a prolific advocate of interdisciplinarity science through the combination of biology, climate science, geophysics, planetary science, and stellar astrophysics.