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Encyclopedia of Astrobiology

  • Reference work
  • © 2015

Overview

Editors:
  1. Muriel Gargaud

    1. CNRS-Universite de Bordeaux, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Floirac, France

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  2. William M. Irvine

    1. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

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  3. Ricardo Amils

    1. Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

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  4. Henderson James (Jim) Cleaves

    1. Earth–Life Science Institute (ELSI), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro–ku, Japan

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  5. Daniele L. Pinti

    1. GEOTOP Research Center for Geochemistry and Geodynamics, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada

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  6. José Cernicharo Quintanilla

    1. Department of Astrophysics, Laboratory of Molecular Astrophysics, Iorrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain

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  7. Daniel Rouan

    1. LESIA, Observatoire Paris-Site de Meudon, Meudon, France

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  8. Tilman Spohn

    1. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Planetenforschung, Berlin, Germany

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  9. Stéphane Tirard

    1. Centre François Viéte d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques EA 1161, Faculté des Sciences et des, Techniques de Nantes, Nantes, France

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  10. Michel Viso

    1. CNES/DSP/SME, Vétérinaire/DVM, Astro/Exobiology, Paris Cedex 1, France

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  • Features new entries, updating readers on key work in astrobiology
  • Builds on success of earlier edition, offering more graphical support material
  • Presents new results in the field of astrochemistry
  • Clarifies technical terms from astronomy, biology, chemistry, geosciences & space sciences
  • Provides key citations to the literature in a high profile field
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (3039 entries)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xlv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Astrobiology by Discipline

    1. Astrobiology by Discipline

      Pages 1-23

  3. A

    1. AAN

      Pages 25-25

    2. Abiogenesis

      • Stéphane Tirard
      Pages 25-25

    3. Abiogenic Photosynthesis

      Pages 25-25

    4. Abiotic

      • David C. Fernández-Remolar
      Pages 25-26

    5. Abiotic Photosynthesis

      • Armen Y. Mulkidjanian
      Pages 26-28

    6. Ablation

      • Daniel Rouan
      Pages 28-28

    7. Absolute and Relative Ages

      • Daniele L. Pinti
      Pages 29-29

    8. Absorption Cross Section

      • Lisa Kaltenegger
      Pages 29-29

    9. Absorption Spectroscopy

      • Steven B. Charnley
      Pages 29-30

    10. Abundances of Elements

      • Nikos Prantzos
      Pages 30-31

    11. 1989 AC

      Pages 32-32

    12. Acasta Gneiss

      • Samuel A. Bowring
      Pages 32-33

    13. Accretion

      • Daniele L. Pinti
      Pages 33-33

    14. Accretion Shock

      • Steven B. Charnley
      Pages 33-33

    15. Accretion, Stellar

      • Steven W. Stahler
      Pages 34-34

    16. Acetaldehyde

      • Kensei Kobayashi
      Pages 34-34

    17. Acetic Acid

      • Kensei Kobayashi
      Pages 34-35

    18. Acetic Aldehyde

      Pages 35-35
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Keywords

About this book

The interdisciplinary field of Astrobiology constitutes a joint arena where provocative discoveries are coalescing concerning, e.g. the prevalence of exoplanets, the diversity and hardiness of life, and its increasingly likely chances for its emergence. Biologists, astrophysicists, biochemists, geoscientists and space scientists share this exciting mission of revealing the origin and commonality of life in the Universe. The members of the different disciplines are used to their own terminology and technical language. In the interdisciplinary environment many terms either have redundant meanings or are completely unfamiliar to members of other disciplines.

The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology serves as the key to a common understanding. Each new or experienced researcher and graduate student in adjacent fields of astrobiology will appreciate this reference work in the quest to understand the big picture. The carefully selected group of active researchers contributing to this work and the expert field editors intend for their contributions, from an internationally comprehensive perspective, to accelerate the interdisciplinary advance of astrobiology.

This new edition offers ~300 new entries. Many entries were expanded or supplemented by figures supporting the understanding of the text. Especially in the field of astrochemistry there is a huge body of new results that have been taken into account in this new edition. The synonyms and keywords have been carefully revisited. Many were added, redundant ones deleted.

Reviews

“Encyclopedia of Astrobiology has a good number of visual aids included. These can range from chemical equations to coloured and black-and-white figures, pictures, tables and graphs. Overall, the balance of text to images emphasizes text, but the variety and number of visual aids is quite good and better than many subject encyclopedias. … Encyclopedia of Astrobiology is an incredible scholarly achievement.” (Kevin McDonough, Reference Reviews, Vol. 31 (1), 2017)

Editors and Affiliations

  • CNRS-Universite de Bordeaux, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Floirac, France

    Muriel Gargaud

  • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

    William M. Irvine

  • Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Amils

  • Earth–Life Science Institute (ELSI), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro–ku, Japan

    Henderson James (Jim) Cleaves

  • GEOTOP Research Center for Geochemistry and Geodynamics, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Daniele L. Pinti

  • Department of Astrophysics, Laboratory of Molecular Astrophysics, Iorrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain

    José Cernicharo Quintanilla

  • LESIA, Observatoire Paris-Site de Meudon, Meudon, France

    Daniel Rouan

  • Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Planetenforschung, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Spohn

  • Centre François Viéte d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques EA 1161, Faculté des Sciences et des, Techniques de Nantes, Nantes, France

    Stéphane Tirard

  • CNES/DSP/SME, Vétérinaire/DVM, Astro/Exobiology, Paris Cedex 1, France

    Michel Viso

About the editors

The Editor in Chief, Muriel Gargaud, is an enthusiastic and experienced editor who has proven in various projects that she can manage a large number of editors and authors and deliver an excellent publication.

William Irvine was President of the Commission on Bioastronomy of the International Astronomical Union. His research activity is concentrated in two areas: the chemistry of dense interstellar clouds; and the physics and chemistry of comets. He collaborated with various NASA astrobiology working groups and is author of more than 200 scientific articles.

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