![\"Searching](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Searching-For-Life-As-We-Don.png\")
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\n Potentially habitable worlds \u2013 Grok via Astrobiology.com <\/p>\n
This white paper introduces a framework for applying Assembly Theory (AT) to planetary atmospheres as a biosignature framework suitable for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO).<\/p>\n
AT quantifies the minimum combinatorial complexity required to co-construct an observed ensemble of molecular species, providing a measure of how much selection and evolution is encoded in a planetary atmosphere\u2019s chemical space, without assuming any specific biochemistry, kinetics nor metabolism.<\/p>\n
We outline some forthcoming results applying this framework and how it can be extended to population-level exoplanet studies, validated against existing spectroscopic data, and used to directly inform HWO instrumental requirements.<\/p>\n
Rather than imposing a binary alive\/dead classification, AT-based atmospheric analysis would provide a continuous measure of planetary complexity, opening a path toward detecting life-as-we-don\u2019t-know-it.<\/p>\n
Sara Walker, Estelle Janin, Evgenya Shkolnik, Louie Slocombe<\/p>\n
Comments: Habitable Worlds Observatory RFI Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager\/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na\u2019Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he\/him) \ud83d\udd96\ud83c\udffb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Potentially habitable worlds \u2013 Grok via Astrobiology.com This white paper introduces a framework for applying Assembly Theory (AT)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[176789,176790,28195,144156,5964,57302,133118,20697,176791,111,139,69,147,176792],"class_list":["post-328598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-assembly-theory","tag-astro-ph-im","tag-atmosphere","tag-biosignature","tag-exoplanet","tag-habitability","tag-habitable-worlds-observatory","tag-habitable-zone","tag-https-astrobiology-com-2026-03-astronomy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-spectoscopy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2603.11086 [astro-ph.IM](or arXiv:2603.11086v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https:\/\/doi.org\/10.48550\/arXiv.2603.11086<\/a>
Focus to learn more
Submission history
From: Sara Walker
[v1] Wed, 11 Mar 2026 04:26:47 UTC (237 KB)
https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2603.11086<\/a>
Astrobiology,<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/keith_cowing.jpg\")
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