Biology 10th Edition by Eldra Solomon,Charles Martin,Diana Martin,Linda Berg

Exercise 17

EVOLUTION LINK. Initiatives designed to discover evidence for life (biosignatures or biomarkers) in the atmospheres of distant planets have been proposed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). If implemented, both the Terrestrial Planet Finder project (NASA) and the Darwin project (ESA) will use special space tele-scopes to detect atmospheric water vapor, as well as oxygen and carbon dioxide. Which of these biosignatures would you consider the most fundamental indicator that life could have evolved on these planets? Why?