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Venue: Society of Antiquaries of London, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BE
This meeting builds on the idea that we cannot expect to detect a robust “signal” of life in extraterrestrial environments unless we have properly characterised the “baseline”, i.e., the abiotic processes present in the environment of interest. Both false-positive and false-negative results in the search for life may result from a failure to discriminate correctly between the signal and the baseline. However, astrobiologists have focused almost all their research efforts on anticipating the signal and almost no effort on anticipating the baseline, which significantly hampers progress in the field.
In most contexts in astrobiology, the abiotic baseline is not just noise; it may well contain signals of rather complex disequilibrium processes that are difficult to disentangle from life. This applies equally whether we are searching for evidence of life in exoplanet atmospheres, on Mars, Venus, and the icy moons, or in the oldest rocks on Earth. This interdisciplinary meeting will bring together astronomers, astrobiologists to discuss how abiotic processes can be distinguished from evidence of life in these challenging environments.
Organisers: Sean McMahon
Charles Cockell
Venue: Society of Antiquaries of London, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BE
Book a Fellows January SDM In Person or Online ticket