In the coming years and decades, we will obtain our first opportunity to spectrally characterize potentially habitable worlds outside our solar system. These planets will be at the right distance from their host star and possess the correct range of atmospheric compositions to have surfaces conducive to maintaining liquid ...

With the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the first light of thirty-meter class ground based telescopes in the 2020s, and plans in the works for a next-generation space-based telescope designed from the outset to probe exoplanet habitability and biosignatures, we are entering the era of terrestrial ...