Welcome to the Virtual Planetary Laboratory Scientist's Homepage

The principal goal of the VPL's work is to learn how to recognize the presence of life on extrasolar terrestrial planets by identifying the signatures of life in their spectra. To acheive this goal, we are developing a suite of innovative modeling tools to simulate the environments and spectra of extrasolar planets. These modeling tools will constitute a virtual planetary laboratory, which will be used to explore the plausible range of atmospheric compositions and globally averaged spectra for early Earth, other planets in our solar system, and for extrasolar planets both with and without life. The results of this research will provide improved understanding of the range of atmospheric compositions that are possible for planets with and without life, and will help to quantify the effect of life on the atmospheric composition and spectrum of a terrestrial planet. The models will also provide a comprehensive spectral catalog, a "menu" of biosignatures, which will be used to determine the optimum wavlength range, spectral resolution, and sensitivity required to remotely sense the signs of life in the atmosphere or on the surface of another world.