Starting Life and Searching for Life on Rocky Planets

TL;DR

This paper discusses how understanding the origins of life on Earth and exploring other planets are interconnected, emphasizing laboratory work, spectral signatures, and the iterative relationship between solar system exploration and exoplanet research.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of prebiotic chemistry, spectral analysis, and integrated research approaches in advancing the search for extraterrestrial life.

Findings

Prebiotic scenarios predict spectral signatures of life.

Laboratory work guides planetary exploration.

Exoplanet studies provide statistical context.

Abstract

The study of origins of life on Earth and the search for life on other planets are closely linked. Prebiotic chemical scenarios can help prioritize planets as targets for the search for life as we know it and can provide informative priors to help us assess the likelihood that particular spectroscopic features are evidence of life. The prerequisites for origins scenarios themselves predict spectral signatures. The interplay between origins research and the search for extraterrestrial life must start with lab work guiding exploratory ventures in the solar system, and the discoveries in the solar system informing future exoplanet observations and laboratory research. Subsequent exoplanet research will in turn provide statistical context to conclusions about the nature and origins of life.