Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies (eBook) von Arnold Hanslmeier

This volume covers aspects of life on Earth with all its diversity and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. It presents contributions by experts from 20 countries who discuss astrobiology emphasizing life “as we know it” to extraterrestrial places.

List of Contributors.- Pathways to Life on Earth and Other Planetary Bodies.- Terestrial Halophylies, Evaporite Environments and The Search for Life on Mars.- Vescicular Basalts as a Niche for Microbial Life.- Molecules Between the Stars.- Prokaryotic Communities Below Planetary Surfaces and Their Involvement In The Nitrogen Cycle.- Life Without Water: The Sleeping Chironomid and Other Anhydrobiotic Invertebrates and their Utilization in Astrobiology.- Habitability and Cosmic Catastrophes.- Glaciopanspermia: Seeding the Terrestrial Planets with Life?.- Chemical Evolution In Primeval Seas.- Terrestiral Analogues for Early Planetary Oceans: NiuafoOu Caldera Lakes (Tonga) and their Geology, Water Chemistry and Stromatolites;.- Comparison of Environment Types with Liquid Water on Mars.- Criteria of Possible Habitability of Earth-Like Exoplanets.- Origin of the Genetic Code and Abiotic Synthesis of Organic Compounds.- Dynamical Aspects for the Earths Habitability.- A Dynamic Scheme to Assess Habitability of Exoplanets.- The Likelihood of Halophilic Life in the Universe.- Production of Dormant Stages and Stress Resistance of Polar Cyanobacteria.- Can the Evolution of Multicellularity be Anticipated in the Exoploration of the Solar System?.- Antarctica as Model for the Possible Emergence of Life on Europa.- The Likelihood of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life.- The Astrobiological Potential of Polar Dunes on Mars.- Life in Earths Lava Caves: Implications for Life Detection on Other Planets.- Life in the Saturnian Neighborhood.

A trio of editors [Professors from Austria, Germany and Israel] present Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. The contributors are from twenty various countries and present their research on life here as well as the possibility for extraterrestrial life. This volume covers concepts such as lifes origin, hypothesis of Panspermia and of life possibility in the Cosmos. The topic of extraterrestrial life is currently hot and the object of several congresses and conferences. While the diversity of normal biota is well known, life on the edge of the extremophiles is more limited and less distributed. Other subjects discussed are Astrobiology with the frozen worlds of Mars, Europa and Titan where extant or extinct microbial life may exist in subsurface oceans; conditions on icy Mars with its saline, alkaline, and liquid water which has been recently discovered; chances of habitable Earth-like [or the terrestrial analogues] exoplanets; and SETIs search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.