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Habitability: a review
UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh.
UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh.
UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh.
UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh.
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2016 (English)In: Astrobiology, ISSN 1531-1074, E-ISSN 1557-8070, Vol. 16, no 1, p. 89-117Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Habitability is a widely used word in the geoscience, planetary science, and astrobiology literature, but what does it mean? In this review on habitability, we define it as the ability of an environment to support the activity of at least one known organism. We adopt a binary definition of “habitability” and a “habitable environment.” An environment either can or cannot sustain a given organism. However, environments such as entire planets might be capable of supporting more or less species diversity or biomass compared with that of Earth. A clarity in understanding habitability can be obtained by defining instantaneous habitability as the conditions at any given time in a given environment required to sustain the activity of at least one known organism, and continuous planetary habitability as the capacity of a planetary body to sustain habitable conditions on some areas of its surface or within its interior over geological timescales. We also distinguish between surface liquid water worlds (such as Earth) that can sustain liquid water on their surfaces and interior liquid water worlds, such as icy moons and terrestrial-type rocky planets with liquid water only in their interiors. This distinction is important since, while the former can potentially sustain habitable conditions for oxygenic photosynthesis that leads to the rise of atmospheric oxygen and potentially complex multicellularity and intelligence over geological timescales, the latter are unlikely to. Habitable environments do not need to contain life. Although the decoupling of habitability and the presence of life may be rare on Earth, it may be important for understanding the habitability of other planetary bodies

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2016. Vol. 16, no 1, p. 89-117
National Category
Aerospace Engineering
Research subject
Atmospheric science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-3072DOI: 10.1089/ast.2015.1295ISI: 000368709500006PubMedID: 26741054Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84956467335Local ID: 0d6e7ca0-4b89-4afb-9ad9-7b243506f6d8OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-3072DiVA, id: diva2:975928
Note

Validerad; 2016; Nivå 2; 20160112 (andbra)

Available from: 2016-09-29 Created: 2016-09-29 Last updated: 2018-07-10Bibliographically approved

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Martin-Torres, JavierMier, Maria-Paz Zorzano

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