Perspectives

Serpentinization — the metamorphism of rocks involving large amounts of water — includes many different aspects linked to habitability and offers a more reliable indicator of habitable conditions in the Solar System than a single diagnostic, such as water.

This Perspective presents the evidence in favour of and against the existence of an ancient ocean covering the Martian northern plains (Vastitas Borealis), discussing in particular the contribution of the Chinese Zhurong rover observations in supporting the presence of an ocean and the key role of the upcoming sample return.

The JWST has the potential to increase our understanding of terrestrial exoplanets and their atmospheres, but the various signal contaminations need to be isolated and quantified. Using JWST Cycle 1 observations of TRAPPIST-1 as a benchmark, this Perspective proposes a series of steps to use future JWST data efficiently for this purpose.

Anxiety, depression and stress are significantly more present in the planetary science community than in the general US population. More marginalized demographics, such as sexual and gender minorities, early career researchers, and people of colour or multiracial people, are especially affected.

Although both are rocky planets in the habitable zone, Venus and Earth followed different climate evolutionary paths. This Perspective argues for the importance of Venus for understanding planetary habitability and terrestrial planet evolution.

If advanced technological extraterrestrial lifeforms are out there, where are they? Thus goes the Fermi paradox. This Perspective reviews various solutions and proposes that they are either not there or are deliberately hiding from us.

On Earth, technological advances required open-air combustion, which needs an oxygen partial pressure of about 18%. This threshold can help guide searches for detectable technospheres on other planets.

The habitability of a planet is defined at a fixed time. A bigger challenge is to understand how that habitability is sustained over geological timescales, and how the underlying processes compare across different planetary bodies.

A low atmospheric carbon abundance can be a ‘habiosignature’ and indicate the presence of substantial surficial liquid water, tectonic activity and/or a biomass in temperate rocky exoplanets. It can potentially be detected by JWST at 4.3 μm in a few tens of transits.

Measurements of the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen could be a powerful tool for precision cosmology, constraining fundamental parameters and probing the cosmological dark ages. However, practical challenges must first be addressed.

An ethical approach to research in extreme environments can lay the foundations for future space exploration that respects ecologies, is founded on authentic partnerships and supports co-learning from diverse communities of non-scientists.

The exploration of small planetary bodies depends crucially on the success of anchoring robots. This Perspective takes us through the diverse challenges and technological innovations involved when making contact with unknown surfaces.

Each space launch is assessed for various risks, but not its wider impacts. This Perspective shows how the aggregate effects of space launches, plus the attendant rise of space debris, affect the darkness of our night sky now and in the future.

The sound community has developed many methods for listening to the Universe and not just looking at it. With their help, astronomers can increase the diversity of sonification tools, uses and users.

Writing a good scientific paper is a challenging task that benefits from training and practice. In this second Perspective in a short series, the authors share their wisdom on the process of writing a manuscript, from the most appropriate content for each section to the language to use.

Writing a good scientific paper is a challenging task that becomes easier with training and practice. Here the authors share their wisdom on useful preparations to make before starting to write, and a companion Perspective provides advice on the actual writing process.

The use of sound to represent astronomical data complements visual analysis tools and makes astronomy more accessible. This Perspective presents a growing number of projects with increasing applications in research, education and outreach across astronomy.

This Perspective summarizes the latest observational evidence for star formation feedback and the important role of external ionizing radiation for the smallest galaxies, showing how this feedback directly impacts their properties, including their dark matter distribution.

There is a growing need for data cleaning and source identification for gravitational-wave detectors in real time. A deep learning inference-as-a-service framework using off-the-shelf software and hardware can address these challenges in a scalable and reliable way.