Earthshine observation of vegetation and implication for life detection on other planets - A review of 2001 - 2006 works
Luc Arnold (OHP)

TL;DR
This review discusses Earthshine observations from 2001-2006 that demonstrate the potential and challenges of detecting vegetation signatures, like the Vegetation Red Edge, on Earth-like exoplanets for life detection.
Contribution
It compiles and analyzes Earthshine data from 2001-2006 to evaluate the feasibility of detecting surface vegetation as a biosignature on exoplanets.
Findings
Vegetation Red Edge detected as a small spectral shift around 700 nm
Detection requires photometric accuracy of 1% or better
Vegetation signature correlates with Earth's land-ocean phase
Abstract
The detection of exolife is one of the goals of very ambitious future space missions that aim to take direct images of Earth-like planets. While associations of simple molecules present in the planet's atmosphere (, , etc.) have been identified as possible global biomarkers, we review here the detectability of a signature of life from the planet's surface, i.e. the green vegetation. The vegetation reflectance has indeed a specific spectrum, with a sharp edge around 700 nm, known as the "Vegetation Red Edge" (VRE). Moreover vegetation covers a large surface of emerged lands, from tropical evergreen forest to shrub tundra. Thus considering it as a potential global biomarker is relevant. Earthshine allows to observe the Earth as a distant planet, i.e. without spatial resolution. Since 2001, Earthshine observations have been used by several authors to test and quantify the…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSpaceflight effects on biology · Seed and Plant Biochemistry · Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
