DIX Planetary Science Seminar

Approaches to the enigma of biosignatures rely on strong assumptions about alien biochemistry and hence may miss many examples of life that are different from that of our own planet. In this work we developed the most agnostic approach to biosignatures presented thus far in the literature: planetary complexity. Under the hypothesis that there is a correlation between the presence of life and the complexity of the life-environment system, a measure of planetary complexity is one approach to searching for life. I will present the rationale for seeking complexity in planetary signals as a sign of life and discuss our recently published results illustrating that planetary complexity can be computed from non-spatial time series observations of light reflectance.