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Biosignatures for Astrobiology

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  • © 2019

Overview

  • Provides a state-of-the-art overview of the timely topic of biosignatures
  • Serves as key book to understand biosignatures from interdisciplinary perspectives
  • Edited and authored by experienced scientists active in astrobiology
  • Includes a chapter on specific biosignatures providing a definition, describing methodology and offering an outlook to future development

Part of the book series: Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics (ASTROBIO)

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Table of contents (15 chapters)

  1. Biosignatures on Earth

  2. Biosignatures in Space

  3. Biosignatures, Instruments and Missions

  4. Biosignatures in a Philosophical Perspective

Keywords

About this book

This book aims at providing a brief but broad overview of biosignatures. The topics addressed range from prebiotic signatures in extraterrestrial materials to the signatures characterising extant life as well as fossilised life, biosignatures related to space, and space flight instrumentation to detect biosignatures either in situ or from orbit. The book ends with philosophical reflections on the implications of life elsewhere. In the 15 chapters written by an interdisciplinary team of experts, it provides both detailed explanations on the nature of biosignatures as well as useful case studies showing how they are used and identified in ancient rocks, for example. One case study addresses the controversial finding of traces of fossil life in a meteorite from Mars. 
The book will be of interest not only to astrobiologists but also to terrestrial paleontologists as well as any reader interested in the prospects of finding a second example of life on anotherplanet.

Reviews

“Biosignatures for Astrobiology provides insight into one of the most intriguing and progressive fields in science— exploration for life elsewhere in the universe. … Most chapters are accessible to undergraduate students, but this book is best suited for researchers and graduate students.” (N. W. Hinman, Choice, Vol. 56 (9), May, 2019)​

Editors and Affiliations

  • Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Barbara Cavalazzi

  • Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, CNRS, Orléans, France

    Frances Westall

About the editors

About the Editors:


Barbara Cavalazzi is Professor at the University of Bologna and appointed as Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. She is expert in high-resolution analytical technics applied to microbialpalaeontology, and in field geology and Mars analogues.

Frances Westall is Director of Research at the CNRS and Head of the Astrobiology Group in Orléans. President of the European Astrobiology Network Association, she is a specialist on microbial biosignatures, Early Earth geology and is part of the ExoMars2020 rover mission.

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