Halophilic Archaea are known to tolerate multiple extreme conditions on Earth and have been proposed as models for astrobiology. In order to assess the importance of cold-adaptation of these microorganisms in surviving stratospheric conditions, we launched live, liquid cultures of two species, the mesophilic model Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 and the cold-adapted Antarctic isolate Halorubrum lacusprofundi ATCC 49239, on helium balloons. After return to Earth, the cold-adapted species showed nearly complete survival while the mesophilic species exhibited slightly reduced viability. Parallel studies found that the cold-adapted species was also better able to survive freezing and thawing in the laboratory. Genome-wide transcriptomic analysis was used to compare the two haloarchaea at optimum growth temperatures versus low temperatures supporting growth. The cold-adapted species displayed perturbation of a majority of genes upon cold temperature exposure, divided evenly between up-regulated and down-regulated genes, while the mesophile exhibited perturbation of only a fifth of its genes, with nearly two-thirds being down-regulated. These results underscore the importance of genetic responses of H. lacusprofundi to cold temperature for enhanced survival in the stratosphere.

The Aurora programme is the European Space Agency programme of planetary exploration focused primarily on Mars. Although the long-term goals of Aurora are uncertain, the early phases of the Aurora programme are based on a number of robotic explorer missions – the first of these is the ExoMars rover mission currently scheduled for launch in 2013 (originally 2011). The ExoMars rover – developed during a Phase A study – is a 240 kg Mars rover supporting a 40 kg payload (called Pasteur) of scientific instruments specifically designed for astrobiological prospecting to search for evidence of extant or extinct life. In other words, ExoMars represents a new approach to experimental astrobiology in which scientific instruments are robotically deployed at extraterrestrial environments of astrobiological interest. Presented is an outline of the design of the rover, its robotic technology, its instrument complement and aspects of the design decisions made. ExoMars represents a highly challenging mission, both programmatically and technologically. Some comparisons are made with the highly successful Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Mars landed and orbiter missions have instrumentation capable of detecting oxychlorine phases (e.g. perchlorate, chlorate) on the surface. Perchlorate (~0.6 wt%) was first detected by the Wet Chemistry Laboratory in the surface material at the Phoenix Mars Landing site. Subsequent analyses by the Thermal Evolved Gas Analyser aboard the same lander detected an oxygen release (~465°C) consistent with the thermal decomposition of perchlorate. Recent thermal analysis by the Mars Science Laboratory's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument has also indicated the presence of oxychlorine phases (up to 1.2 wt%) in Gale Crater materials. Despite being at detectable concentrations, the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) X-ray diffractometer has not detected oxychlorine phases. This suggests that Gale Crater oxychlorine may exist as poorly crystalline phases or that perchlorate/chlorate mixtures exist, so that individual oxychlorine concentrations are below CheMin detection limits (~1 wt%). Although not initially designed to detect oxychlorine phases, reinterpretation of Viking Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometer data also suggest that oxychlorine phases are present in the Viking surface materials. Remote near-infrared spectral analyses by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument indicate that at least some martian recurring slope lineae (RSL) have spectral signatures consistent with the presence of hydrated perchlorates or chlorates during the seasons when RSL are most extensive. Despite the thermal emission spectrometer, Thermal Emission Imaging System, Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité and CRISM detection of hundreds of anhydrous chloride (~10–25 vol%) deposits, expected associated oxychlorine phases (>5–10 vol%) have not been detected. Total Cl and oxychlorine data sets from the Phoenix Lander and the Mars Science Laboratory missions could be used to develop oxychlorine versus total Cl correlations, which may constrain oxychlorine concentrations at other locations on Mars by using total Cl determined by other missions (e.g. Viking, Pathfinder, MER and Odyssey). Development of microfluidic or ‘lab-on-a-chip’ instrumentation has the potential to be the next generation analytical capability used to identify and quantify individual oxychlorine species on future landed robotic missions to Mars.

We have shown using ESA's Biopan facility flown in Earth orbit that when exposed to the space environment for 2 weeks the survival rate of Synechococcus (Nägeli), a halophilic cyanobacterium isolated from the evaporitic gypsum–halite crusts that form along the marine intertidal, and Halorubrum chaoviator a member of the Halobacteriaceae isolated from an evaporitic NaCl crystal obtained from a salt evaporation pond, were higher than all other test organisms except Bacillus spores. These results led to the EXPOSE-R mission to extend and refine these experiments as part of the experimental package for the external platform space exposure facility on the ISS. The experiment was flown in February 2009 and the organisms were exposed to low-Earth orbit for nearly 2 years. Samples were either exposed to solar ultraviolet (UV)-radiation (λ > 110 nm or λ > 200 nm, cosmic radiation (dosage range 225–320 mGy), or kept in darkness shielded from solar UV-radiation. Half of each of the UV-radiation exposed samples and dark samples were exposed to space vacuum and half kept at 105 pascals in argon. Duplicate samples were kept in the laboratory to serve as unexposed controls. Ground simulation control experiments were also performed. After retrieval, organism viability was tested using Molecular Probes Live–Dead Bac-Lite stain and by their reproduction capability. Samples kept in the dark, but exposed to space vacuum had a 90 ± 5% survival rate compared to the ground controls. Samples exposed to full UV-radiation for over a year were bleached and although results from Molecular Probes Live–Dead stain suggested ~10% survival, the data indicate that no survival was detected using cell growth and division using the most probable number method. Those samples exposed to attenuated UV-radiation exhibited limited survival. Results from of this study are relevant to understanding adaptation and evolution of life, the future of life beyond earth, the potential for interplanetary transfer of viable microbes via meteorites and dust particles as well as spacecraft, and the physiology of halophiles.

The mineral schreibersite, (Fe,Ni)3P, a ubiquitous component of iron meteorites, is known to undergo anoxic hydrolytic modification to afford a range of phosphorus oxyacids. H-phosphonic acid (H3PO3) is the principal hydrolytic product under hydrothermal conditions, as confirmed here by 31P-NMR spectroscopic studies on shavings of the Seymchan pallasite (Magadan, Russia, 1967), but in the presence of photochemical irradiation a more reduced derivative, H-phosphinic (H3PO2) acid, dominates. The significance of such lower oxidation state oxyacids of phosphorus to prebiotic chemistry upon the early Earth lies with the facts that such forms of phosphorus are considerably more soluble and chemically reactive than orthophosphate, the commonly found form of phosphorus on Earth, thus allowing nature a mechanism to circumvent the so-called Phosphate Problem.

This paper describes the Galvanic corrosion of Fe3P, a hydrolytic modification pathway for schreibersite, leading again to H-phosphinic acid as the key P-containing product. We envisage this pathway to be highly significant within a meteoritic context as iron meteorites are polymetallic composites in which dissimilar metals, with different electrochemical potentials, are connected by an electrically conducting matrix. In the presence of a suitable electrolyte medium, i.e., salt water, galvanic corrosion can take place. In addition to model electrochemical studies, we also report the first application of the Kelvin technique to map surface potentials of a meteorite sample that allows the electrochemical differentiation of schreibersite inclusions within an Fe:Ni matrix. Such experiments, coupled with thermodynamic calculations, may allow us to better understand the chemical redox behaviour of meteoritic components with early Earth environments.

Several viable halophilic archaebacteria were isolated previously from rock salt of Permo-Triassic age in an Austrian salt mine; one of these strains was the first to be recognized as a novel species from subterranean halite and was designated Halococcus salifodinae. The halophilic microorganisms have apparently survived in the salt sediments over extremely long periods of time. Halobacteria could therefore be suitable model organisms for exploring the possibility of long-term survival of microbes on other planets, in particular, since extraterrestrial halite has been detected in meteorites and is assumed to be present in the subsurface ocean on Europa. Our efforts are directed at the identification of the microbial content of ancient rock salt and the development of procedures for the investigation of the halobacterial response to extreme environmental conditions. Using modified culture media, further halophilic strains were isolated from freshly blasted rock salt and bore cores; in addition, growth of several haloarchaea was substantially improved. Molecular methods indicated the presence of at least 12 different 16S rRNA gene species in a sample of Alpine rock salt, but these strains have not been cultured yet. The exploration of Mars is a target of space missions in the 21st century; therefore, testing the survival of haloarchaea under conditions comparable to present-day Mars, using a simulation chamber, was begun. Preliminary results with Halococcus and Halobacterium species suggested at least tenfold higher survival rates when cells were kept in liquid brines than under dry conditions; staining of cells with the LIVE–DEAD kit, which discriminates between damaged and intact membranes, corroborated these data.

The number N of detectable (i.e. communicating) extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy is usually calculated by using the Drake equation. This equation was established in 1961 by Frank Drake and was the first step to quantifying the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) field. Practically, this equation is rather a simple algebraic expression and its simplistic nature leaves it open to frequent re-expression. An additional problem of the Drake equation is the time-independence of its terms, which for example excludes the effects of the physico-chemical history of the galaxy. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the main shortcoming of the Drake equation is its lack of temporal structure, i.e., it fails to take into account various evolutionary processes. In particular, the Drake equation does not provides any error estimation about the measured quantity. Here, we propose a first treatment of these evolutionary aspects by constructing a simple stochastic process that will be able to provide both a temporal structure to the Drake equation (i.e. introduce time in the Drake formula in order to obtain something like N(t)) and a first standard error measure.

We review the latest findings on extra-solar planets and their potential of having environmental conditions that could support Earth-like life. Focusing on planets orbiting red dwarf (RD) stars, the most abundant stellar type in the Milky Way, we show that including RDs as potential life supporting host stars could increase the probability of finding biotic planets by a factor of up to a thousand, and reduce the estimate of the distance to our nearest biotic neighbour by up to 10. We argue that binary and multiple star systems need to be taken into account when discussing habitability and the abundance of biotic exoplanets, in particular RDs in such systems. Early considerations indicated that conditions on RD planets would be inimical to life, as their habitable zones would be so close to the host star as to make planets tidally locked. This was thought to cause an erratic climate and expose life forms to flares of ionizing radiation. Recent calculations show that these negative factors are less severe than originally thought. It has also been argued that the lesser photon energy of the radiation of the relatively cool RDs would not suffice for oxygenic photosynthesis (OP) and other related energy expending reactions. Numerous authors suggest that OP on RD planets may evolve to utilize photons in the infrared. We however argue, by analogy to the evolution of OP and the environmental physiology and distribution of land-based vegetation on Earth, that the evolutionary pressure to utilize infrared radiation would be small. This is because vegetation on RD planets could enjoy continuous illumination of moderate intensity, containing a significant component of photosynthetic 400–700 nm radiation. We conclude that conditions for OP could exist on RD planets and consequently the evolution of complex life might be possible. Furthermore, the huge number and the long lifetime of RDs make it more likely to find planets with photosynthesis and life around RDs than around Solar type stars.

Thermodynamics teaches that pure liquid bulk water cannot stably exist on the surface of Mars. However, it is shown by thermodynamic arguments that liquid water can exist, at least temporarily, in the upper surface of Mars, in form of: (a) undercooled liquid interfacial water (ULI water); (b) undercooled liquid water in cryo-brines; and (c) liquid bulk water (due to solid-state greenhouse subsurface melting) in the subsurface of ice areas, which are covered by a lid of solid ice only. The presence of these forms of liquid water on present Mars is discussed in detail and in view of the possible consequences for physical, chemical and eventual biological processes.

With the rapid developments in the exoplanet field, more and more terrestrial exoplanets are being detected. Characterizing their atmospheres using transit observations will become a key datum in the quest for detecting an Earth-like exoplanet. The atmospheric transmission spectrum of our Earth will be an ideal template for comparison with future exo-Earth candidates. By observing a lunar eclipse, which offers a similar configuration to that of an exoplanet transit, we have obtained a high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) transmission spectrum of the Earth's atmosphere. This observation was performed with the High Resolution Spectrograph at Xinglong Station, China during the total lunar eclipse in December 2011. We compare the observed transmission spectrum with our atmospheric model, and determine the characteristics of the various atmospheric species in detail. In the transmission spectrum, O2, O3, O2 · O2, NO2 and H2O are detected, and their column densities are measured and compared with the satellites data. The visible Chappuis band of ozone produces the most prominent absorption feature, which suggests that ozone is a promising molecule for the future exo-Earth characterization. Due to the high resolution and high SNR of our spectrum, several novel details of the Earth atmosphere's transmission spectrum are presented. The individual O2 lines are resolved and O2 isotopes are clearly detected. Our new observations do not confirm the absorption features of Ca II or Na I which have been reported in previous lunar eclipse observations. However, features in these and some other strong Fraunhofer line positions do occur in the observed spectrum. We propose that these are due to a Raman-scattered component in the forward-scattered sunlight appearing in the lunar umbral spectrum. Water vapour absorption is found to be rather weak in our spectrum because the atmosphere we probed is relatively dry, which prompts us to discuss the detectability of water vapour in Earth-like exoplanet atmospheres.

Reduction spots are common within continental red beds in the geological record. The method of formation of reduction spots is a subject of debate, but they are thought to be the result of the reducing nature of microbial life present in the sediment during burial, which caused localized reduction in sediment that was otherwise oxidized during diagenesis. Reduction spots often have dark concretionary cores commonly enriched in elements such as vanadium and uranium. This enrichment is also believed to be associated with the microbial reduction of the sediment. Isotopic data from sulphides present in the cores of analogue Triassic reduction spots are consistent with a potential microbial formation mechanism.

Here we report the presence of reduction spots with vanadium-rich mica (roscoelite) – enriched cores within a terrestrial red bed sequence of the Mesoproterozoic age. These findings may be a possible indicator of life within the terrestrial geological record during the Mesoproterozoic age, a time when such evidence is otherwise very rare. These findings suggest that life had not only colonized terrestrial environments during the Mesoproterozoic age, but had established a deep biosphere in the sediment.

It can be difficult to develop an effective and balanced search strategy in SETI, especially from a funding perspective, given the diverse methodologies and myriad orthogonal proposals for the best technosignatures. Here I propose a framework to compare the relative advantages and disadvantages of various proposed technosignatures based on nine ‘axes of merit’. This framework was first developed at the NASA Technosignatures Workshop in Houston in 2018 and published in that report. I give the definition and rationale behind the nine axes as well as the history of each axis in the SETI and technosignature literature. These axes are then applied to three classes of technosignature searches as an illustration of their use. An open-source software tool is available to allow technosignature researchers to make their own version of the figure.

Carbonate rocks in the Mojave Desert are presented as potential analogues for the carbonates on Mars. Rocks collected from the Little Red Hill site contain iron oxide-bearing coatings that greatly suppress the spectral features due to carbonate of the underlying material and impart a spectral slope. The Mojave Desert was formerly a lush pedogenic soil environment that, over time, transformed into the current arid climate with abundant rock varnish. One niche for microbes in the current desolate environment is inside and underneath the rocks where the microbes profit from solar protection by the iron oxide rock coatings. Carbonates were long predicted to be present on Mars and have recently been detected by instruments on Phoenix and MER and using hyperspectral orbiters such as the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) and the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). We describe here the results of a study of carbonate rocks from the Little Red Hill site of the Mojave Desert that includes X-ray diffraction (XRD), chemistry and visible-infrared reflectance spectroscopy. Coatings on the carbonate rocks greatly reduced the strength of the carbonate bands and caused changes in the shape of some bands. We compare these data with a carbonate outcrop at Nili Fossae, Mars. If microbes once inhabited Mars, similar carbonate rocks with iron oxide coatings could have provided a UV-protected niche there as well. Thus, analysis of carbonate-bearing regions on Mars by future landers would be useful sites to search for biosignatures.

The Kepler space telescope has proven capable of detecting transits of objects almost as small as the Earth's Moon. Some studies suggest that moons as small as 0.2 Earth masses can be detected in the Kepler data by transit timing variations and transit duration variations of their host planets. If such massive moons exist around giant planets in the stellar habitable zone (HZ), then they could serve as habitats for extraterrestrial life. While earlier studies on exomoon habitability assumed the host planet to be in thermal equilibrium with the absorbed stellar flux, we here extend this concept by including the planetary luminosity from evolutionary shrinking. Our aim is to assess the danger of exomoons to be in a runaway greenhouse state due to extensive heating from the planet. We apply pre-computed evolution tracks for giant planets to calculate the incident planetary radiation on the moon as a function of time. Added to the stellar flux, the total illumination yields constraints on a moon's habitability. Ultimately, we include tidal heating to evaluate a moon's energy budget. We use a semi-analytical formula to parameterize the critical flux for the moon to experience a runaway greenhouse effect. Planetary illumination from a 13-Jupiter-mass planet onto an Earth-sized moon at a distance of ten Jupiter radii can drive a runaway greenhouse state on the moon for about 200 million years (Myr). When stellar illumination equivalent to that received by Earth from the Sun is added, then the runaway greenhouse holds for about 500 Myr. After 1000 Myr, the planet's habitable edge has moved inward to about six Jupiter radii. Exomoons in orbits with eccentricities of 0.1 experience strong tidal heating; they must orbit a 13-Jupiter-mass host beyond 29 or 18 Jupiter radii after 100 Myr (at the inner and outer boundaries of the stellar HZ, respectively), and beyond 13 Jupiter radii (in both cases) after 1000 Myr to be habitable. If a roughly Earth-sized, Earth-mass moon would be detected in orbit around a giant planet, and if the planet–moon duet would orbit in the stellar HZ, then it will be crucial to recover the orbital history of the moon. If, for example, such a moon around a 13-Jupiter-mass planet has been closer than 20 Jupiter radii to its host during the first few hundred million years at least, then it might have lost substantial amounts of its initial water reservoir and be uninhabitable today.

The RNA world hypothesis and the hydrothermal origin of life hypothesis are contradictory to each other. Although it is considered that RNA molecules are too labile to maintain life-like systems at high temperatures and there is extensive literature on nucleic acid hydrolysis, the stability and the chemical evolution of RNA have not been sufficiently analysed from the viewpoint of hydrothermal reactions. Based on our experimental data concerning the stability and the prebiotic formation of RNA at high temperatures, two different aspects seem to be important for evaluating whether RNA molecules are too labile. First, the stability of RNA molecules should be evaluated from the comparison of the rate of formation and the rate of degradation of RNA in open systems. Our prebiotic reaction models of phosphodiester bond formation suggest that at high temperatures the accumulation of RNA may be possible. However, an RNA world entirely consisting of RNA molecules is unlikely to occur because the biologically important interactions are not effective for the bare RNA molecules at high temperatures. Second, since enzymes presently mediate most biological reactions, evaluation of the accumulation of RNA should be based on the comparison between the enzymatic and non-enzymatic reaction rates. Hence, the evaluation of the primitive enzymatic reaction rates at high temperatures has been attempted. There is a large difference between the present enzymatic reaction rates at 25–90 °C and the non-enzymatic reaction rates at high temperatures of 200–300 °C. It is thus possible that prebiotic enzyme-like assemblies could have facilitated the accumulation of RNA molecules at hydrothermal vent temperatures.

Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here, we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural history of Mars, habitability, robotic and human exploration, planetary protection, and the impacts on human society. Key observations and findings include:

1. – high escape rates of early Mars' atmosphere, including loss of water, impact present-day habitability;

2. – putative fossils on Mars will likely be ambiguous biomarkers for life;

3. – microbial contamination resulting from human habitation is unavoidable; and

4. – based on Mars' current planetary protection category, robotic payload(s) should characterize the local martian environment for any life-forms prior to human habitation.

Some of the outstanding questions are:

1. – which interpretation of the hemispheric dichotomy of the planet is correct;

2. – to what degree did deep-penetrating faults transport subsurface liquids to Mars' surface;

3. – in what abundance are carbonates formed by atmospheric processes;

4. – what properties of martian meteorites could be used to constrain their source locations;

5. – the origin(s) of organic macromolecules;

6. – was/is Mars inhabited;

7. – how can missions designed to uncover microbial activity in the subsurface eliminate potential false positives caused by microbial contaminants from Earth;

8. – how can we ensure that humans and microbes form a stable and benign biosphere; and

9. – should humans relate to putative extraterrestrial life from a biocentric viewpoint (preservation of all biology), or anthropocentric viewpoint of expanding habitation of space?

Studies of Mars' evolution can shed light on the habitability of extrasolar planets. In addition, Mars exploration can drive future policy developments and confirm (or put into question) the feasibility and/or extent of human habitability of space.

The Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field protects local life by shielding us against Solar particle flows, just like the sun's magnetic field deflects cosmic particle radiation. Generally, magnetic fields can affect terrestrial life such as migrating animals. Thus, terrestrial life is connected to astronomical interrelations between different magnetic fields, particle flows and radiation. Mass strandings of whales have often been documented, but their causes and underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We investigated the possible reasons for this phenomenon based on a series of strandings of 29 male, mostly bachelor, sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in the southern North Sea in early 2016. Whales’ magnetic sense may play an important role in orientation and migration, and strandings may thus be triggered by geomagnetic storms. This approach is supported by the following: (1) disruptions of the Earth's magnetic field by Solar storms can last about 1 day and lead to short-term magnetic latitude changes corresponding to shifts of up to 460 km; (2) many of these disruptions are of a similar magnitude to more permanent geomagnetic anomalies; (3) geomagnetic anomalies in the area north of the North Sea are 50–150 km in diameter; and (4) sperm whales swim about 100 km day−1, and may thus be unable to distinguish between these phenomena. Sperm whales spend their early, non-breeding years in lower latitudes, where magnetic disruptions by the sun are weak and thus lack experience of this phenomenon. ‘Naïve’ whales may therefore become disoriented in the southern Norwegian Sea as a result of failing to adopt alternative navigation systems in time and becoming stranded in the shallow North Sea.

The experiment SPORES ‘Spores in artificial meteorites’ was part of European Space Agency's EXPOSE-R mission, which exposed chemical and biological samples for nearly 2 years (March 10, 2009 to February 21, 2011) to outer space, when attached to the outside of the Russian Zvezda module of the International Space Station. The overall objective of the SPORES experiment was to address the question whether the meteorite material offers enough protection against the harsh environment of space for spores to survive a long-term journey in space by experimentally mimicking the hypothetical scenario of Lithopanspermia, which assumes interplanetary transfer of life via impact-ejected rocks. For this purpose, spores of Bacillus subtilis 168 were exposed to selected parameters of outer space (solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation at λ>110 or >200 nm, space vacuum, galactic cosmic radiation and temperature fluctuations) either as a pure spore monolayer or mixed with different concentrations of artificial meteorite powder. Total fluence of solar UV radiation (100–400 nm) during the mission was 859 MJ m−2. After retrieval the viability of the samples was analysed. A Mission Ground Reference program was performed in parallel to the flight experiment. The results of SPORES demonstrate the high inactivating potential of extraterrestrial UV radiation as one of the most harmful factors of space, especially UV at λ>110 nm. The UV-induced inactivation is mainly caused by photodamaging of the DNA, as documented by the identification of the spore photoproduct 5,6-dihydro-5(α-thyminyl)thymine. The data disclose the limits of Lithopanspermia for spores located in the upper layers of impact-ejected rocks due to access of harmful extraterrestrial solar UV radiation.

A novel cryogenic electrostatic storage device consisting of two ion-beam storage rings with a common straight section for studies of interactions between oppositely charged ions at low and well-defined relative velocities is under construction at Stockholm University. Here we consider the prospect of using this new tool to measure cross-sections and rate coefficients for mutual neutralization reactions of importance in interstellar ion chemistry in general and specifically in cosmic pre-biotic ion chemistry.

The so-called vegetation red-edge (VRE), a sharp increase in the reflectance around 700 nm, is a characteristic of vegetation spectra, and can therefore be used as a biomarker if it can be detected in an unresolved extrasolar Earth-like planet integrated reflectance spectrum. Here, we investigate the potential for the detection of vegetation spectra during the last Quaternary climatic extrema, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Holocene optimum, for which past climatic simulations have been made. By testing the VRE detectability during these extrema, when Earth's climate and biomes maps were different from today, we are able to test the vegetation detectability on a terrestrial planet different from our modern Earth. Data from the Biome3.5 model have been associated to visible Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) spectra for each biome and cloud cover to derive Earth's integrated spectra for given Earth phases and observer positions. The VRE is then measured. Results show that the vegetation remains detectable during the last climatic extrema. Compared to the current Earth, the Holocene optimum, with a greener Sahara, slightly increases the mean VRE on one hand, while on the other hand, the large ice cap over the northern hemisphere during the LGM decreases vegetation detectability. We finally discuss the detectability of the VRE in the context of recently proposed space missions.