NAI
2003 Annual Science Report
Virtual Planetary Laboratory (JPL/CalTech)
Reporting | JUL 2002 – JUN 2003
Executive Summary
Towards Characterization of Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets
| “There are countless suns and countless earths all rotating around their suns in exactly the same way as the seven planets of our system. We see only the suns because they are the largest bodies and are luminous, but their planets remain invisible to us because they are smaller and non-luminous. The countless worlds in the universe are no worse and no less inhabited than our Earth.” -GIORDANO BRUNO (1584) |
Are we alone? The richness and enormous vastness of our universe makes our solitariness seem almost unthinkable, and so this ancient musing has remained one of the most fundamental of human questions. Yet while the medieval monk Giordano Bruno could only speculate on the prevalence of other planetary systems that could harbor life, in the last decade we have been fortunate enough to see the search for other ... Continue reading.
-
Victoria Meadows
NAI, ASTEP, ASTID, Exobiology -
TEAM Active Dates:
7/2001 - 6/2006 CAN 2 -
Team Website:
http://vpl.astro.washington.edu/ -
Members:
29 (See All) - Visit Team Page
Project Reports
-
The Virtual Planetary Laboratory – Synthesis and Architecture
Many environmental processes contribute to the reflected stellar and emitted thermal spectrum of a planet.
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 7.2 -
Characterization of Terrestrial Planets From Disk-Averaged Spectra: Spectroscopic Studies to Understand Detectability and Habitability.
n this project we focus on understanding what we can learn about an extrasolar terrestrial planet from remotely sensed, disk-averaged spectra, as a function of spectral resolution and instrument sensitivity
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2 4.1 7.2 -
Characterization of Terrestrial Planets From Disk-Averaged Spectra: Spatially and Spectrally Resolved Planetary Models
This project uses spatially resolved spectral models of planets in our own solar system to determine the instrument sensitivity and spectral resolution required to detect signs of habitability or life in disk-averaged astronomical spectra of extrasolar planets at visible and infrared wavelengths.
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2 7.2 -
Climate Model for Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 -
Chemistry Models for Extrasolar Planets
This year, we have worked on both a coupled photochemical-climate model for Earth-like planets, which is an end-to-end test case for the larger VPL atmosphere model, and chemistry models for extrasolar giant planets.
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 7.2 -
The Abiotic Planetary Model: The Upper and Lower Boundary Condition on the Atmosphere
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 4.1 7.2 -
The Virtual Planetary Laboratory – the Life Modules
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 4.1 5.3 6.1 7.2 -
Spectroscopic Databases to Support Extrasolar Planet Modeling
ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 4.1 7.2
Publications
- There are no publications for this team in the 2003 annual report.
2003 Teams
-
Arizona State University
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Harvard University
Marine Biological Laboratory
Michigan State University
NASA Ames Research Center
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
NASA Johnson Space Center
Pennsylvania State University
Scripps Research Institute
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Rhode Island
University of Washington
Virtual Planetary Laboratory (JPL/CalTech)