Összes szerző

Junier, Pilar

az alábbi absztraktok szerzői között szerepel:

Patty, C.H. Lucas
Remote detection of life through full-Stokes spectropolarimetry

Aug 30 - szerda

15:30 – 17:00

II. Poszterszekció

P50

Remote detection of life through full-Stokes spectropolarimetry

C.H. Lucas Patty1, Mathilda Fatton2, Urs A. Schroffenegger1, Saskia Bindschedler2, Pilar Junier2, Brice-Olivier Demory1

1Center for Space and Habitability (CSH), Universität Bern, Switzerland

2Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Homochirality is a generic and unique property of all biochemical life as we know it. There is a growing concensus that homochirality is a universal prerequisite of life and therefore as a biosignature free from the assumptions made by using terrestrial life as a benchmark [1]. Spectropolarimetry and, in particular, the detection of non-zero signatures in circular polarization is an indicator of the homochiral nature of molecular and supramolecular organic matter and is thus a direct and intuitive proxy for the remote detection of life using unpolarized incident light such as from the Sun [2]. We will describe the ongoing effort to characterize and quantify the nature of these chiroptical signals resulting from living organisms. While various studies have been performed to this end on eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms, in both the laboratory and in the field, including aerial observations (see e.g. [3][4]), relatively little systematic observations have been made of prokaryotic life. The results gathered so far on microbial mats and pure cultures show a remarkable variety in terms of both polarimetric spectral shape and magnitude [5]. Within the framework of the SenseLife project, we aim to further characterize and quantify the nature of these signals including the polarimetric signal response to external factors and physiology. We will further present novel results demonstrating the potential of characterization aerobiology using spectropolarimetry in the visible. Within this context we will describe the performance of FlyPol [2], a fast and sensitive spectropolarimetric instrument dedicated to the remote detection of linear and circular polarizance. In addition, we will present the results of ongoing aerial and field measurement campaigns probing the polarizance resulting from natural habitats, providing an outlook on the endeavor of measuring especially circular polarizance from space using Earth as a benchmark.

1. Glavin, D. P., Burton, A. S., Elsila, J. E., Aponte, J. C., & Dworkin, J. P. (2019). The search for chiral asymmetry as a potential biosignature in our solar system. Chemical reviews, 120(11), 4660-4689.

2. Patty, C. H. L., Ten Kate, I. L., Sparks, W. B., & Snik, F. (2018). Remote sensing of homochirality: a proxy for the detection of extraterrestrial life. In Chiral Analysis (pp. 29-69). Elsevier.

3. Patty, C. H. L., Pommerol, A., Kühn, J. G., Demory, B. O., & Thomas, N. (2022). Directional aspects of vegetation linear and circular polarization biosignatures. Astrobiology, 22(9), 1034-1046.

4. Patty, C. H. L., Kühn, J. G., Lambrev, P. H., Spadaccia, S., Hoeijmakers, H. J., Keller, C., ... & Demory, B. O. (2021). Biosignatures of the Earth-I. Airborne spectropolarimetric detection of photosynthetic life. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 651, A68.

5. Sparks, W. B., Parenteau, M. N., Blankenship, R. E., Germer, T. A., Patty, C. H. L., Bott, K. M., ... & Meadows, V. S. (2021).