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Sustained and comparative habitability beyond Earth

Nature Astronomy volume 8, pages 30–38 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Although we have a reasonable understanding of the physical and chemical conditions required to support the growth and reproduction of organisms, we still have only a rudimentary grasp of the geophysical conditions required to sustain those conditions over geological timescales. We propose that a strengthening of the interface between geophysics and biology is required to quantify sustained habitability and ultimately to mature the science of comparative habitability. Comparative habitability will inform our understanding of the common principles that allow habitability to be sustained on different planetary bodies, and whether habitability is predictable or contingent for a given set of planetary body characteristics. These developments are enabled by missions in our Solar System, including those to icy bodies such as Europa, Enceladus and Titan, in combination with telescopes allowing us to study habitability on exoplanets, thus providing essential insights into processes that can enable sustained habitability. Comparative habitability will help to determine whether Earth is a rare outpost of conditions suitable for a multi-billion-year biosphere, or whether the conditions that allowed for sustained habitability here are common in the Universe.

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Fig. 1: Instantaneously habitable conditions can be achieved with few ingredients.
Fig. 2: Sustained habitability in the ocean of Enceladus.
Fig. 3: Sustained habitability in a subsurface ocean.
Fig. 4: The science of comparative habitability.

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Acknowledgements

CSC thanks the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for support under grant no. ST/V000586/1. P.M.H. acknowledges support from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant (No. 453949) awarded to B. Sherwood Lollar. A portion of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Government sponsorship acknowledged. We thank B. Insua for work on Figs. 3 and 4. We thank F. Nimmo for helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UK Centre for Astrobiology, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Charles S. Cockell

  2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Charles S. Cockell, Julie Castillo-Rogez, James T. Keane, Erin J. Leonard, Karl L. Mitchell, Ryan S. Park, Scott M. Perl & Steven D. Vance

  3. Seismological Laboratory, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Mark Simons

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Peter M. Higgins

  5. Carl Sagan Institute & Astronomy Department, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Lisa Kaltenegger

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The paper was conceived by C.S.C. and M.S. All authors contributed to discussions on paper content. C.S.C. drafted the manuscript and all authors contributed to editing and development of the final paper.

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Correspondence to Charles S. Cockell.

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Cockell, C.S., Simons, M., Castillo-Rogez, J. et al. Sustained and comparative habitability beyond Earth. Nat Astron 8, 30–38 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02158-8

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