New Biomarkers Honed to Help Search for Life on Earthlike Exoplanets

Expectations are running high that some time next year astronomers using NASA's Kepler spacecraft will announce the discovery that planet hunters have been waiting for: the first Earth-size exoplanet found in a region around a sunlike star where life could flourish. That exoplanet will almost certainly lie too far from Earth to be scrutinized, but it will nonetheless throw into high gear a search for the fingerprints of life--the chemical compounds that could indicate whether an exoplanet in the habitable zone, the life-friendly region where liquid water can survive, actually harbors life. [More]