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Fast Facts
The Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) is a team of scientists who are building
computer simulated planets from the ground up.
The VPL's objective is to understand the characteristics and environments of plausible
extrasolar planets both with and without life, and to use that understanding to
drive the design and search strategies for future planet finding and
characterizing missions.
The VPL staff consists of astronomers, atmospheric
chemists, spectroscopists, geochemists, and climatologists who are working
together to figure out how to tell if a planet harbors life or not.
VPL has been in operation since September 2001
This research program is a cooperative effort consisting of a 21 member
multidisciplinary team that leverages the resources and knowledge from 7
academic and research institutions. The majority of the computational research
will be accomplished at JPL/Caltech, although all institutions will provide
investigators' scientific expertise.
Once validated and documented, the VPL will be made available to the
Astrobiology community through a web-based interface or collaboration with our
team. This powerful and versatile tool has many potential applications beyond
the scope of this research.
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