CONTRIBUTIONS TO ASTROBIOLOGY

At the start of this century, I added the field of Astrobiology as a major scholarly concern. With Dirk Schulze-Makuch, I have co-authored two of the definitive texts in the field: Life in the Universe and Cosmic Biology. My other major contributions have included:

• Proposal of objective criteria for rating the plausibility of life on other worlds;
• Emphasis on the need to envision evolutionary trajectories and complete ecosystems in speculating on alien forms of life; and
• Estimating the number of planetary systems (~10 million) in our galaxy that could host complex life.

Below are my major publications in astrobiology, with notable contributions to the field indicated by asterisks.

BOOKS

*Schulze-Makuch D. and L. N. Irwin. 2004. Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. 

*Schulze-Makuch D. and L. N. Irwin. 2008. Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2nd Ed 

*Schulze-Makuch D. and L. N. Irwin. 2018. Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 3rd Ed 

*Irwin, L.N. and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2010. Cosmic Biology: How Life Could Evolve on Other Worlds. Springer-Praxis, New York.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Schulze-Makuch, D., H. Guan, L.N. Irwin, and Vega, E. 2001. Redefining life: An ecological, thermodynamic, and bioinformatic approach. In Fundamentals of Life, New York: Elsevier, pp. 41-51.

Schulze-Makuch, D., L.N. Irwin, A.G. Fairén. 2014. Extraterrestrial life: What are we looking for? In Kolb, V, Ed:Astrobiology: An Evolutionary Approach, Ch. 18, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.

Irwin, L.N. 2018. Exotic Forms of Life on Other Worlds. In Handbook of Exoplanets, edited by H. J. Deeg and J. A. Belmonte. Cham: Springer International Publishing. (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-30648-3_161-1)

RESEARCH REPORTS

*Irwin, L.N. and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2001. Rating the plausibility of life on other worlds. Astrobiology 1(2): 143-160. 

Schultze-Makuch, D. and Irwin, L.N. 2001. Alternative energy sources could support life on Europa. EOS Trans. Am. Geophys. Union82(13): 150.

*Schulze-Makuch, D. and Irwin, L.N. 2001. Energy cycling and possible life forms in Europa's ocean. Astrobiology  2(1): 105-122.

Schulze-Makuch, D., Irwin, L.N. and Guan, H. 2002. Search parameters for the remote detection of extraterrestrial life. Planetary & Space Science 50: 675-683.

Schulze-Makuch, D. and Irwin, L.N. 2002. Reassessing the possibility of life on Venus: proposal for an astrobiology mission. Astrobiology 2(2): 197-201.

*Irwin, L.N. and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2003. Strategy for modeling putative multilevel ecosystems on Europa. Astrobiology 3(4): 813-821.

Figueredo, P.H., R. Greeley, S. Neuer, L.N. Irwin, and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2003. Locating potential biosignatures on Europa from surface geology observations. Astrobiology 3(4): 879-897.

Lozano, G., G. Carballo, A. Adcox, R. Hernandez, T. Deming, E. Acosta, M. Sanchez, E. Patlan, C. Chavez, E. Frassa, S. Padilla, J. Aleman, and L.N. Irwin. 2004. Volcanism and erosion in Sabaea Terra: Implications for planetary history of a new image from the Mars Odyssey orbiter, in European Workshop on Exo-Astrobiology. Mars: The Search for Life, pp. 233-234, European Space Agency, Madrid, Spain, 2003.

Schulze-Makuch D, D.H. Grinspoon, O. Abbas, L.N. Irwin, M.A. Bullock. 2004. A sulfur-based survival strategy for putative phototrophic life in the Venusian atmosphere. Astrobiology 4(1):11-18.

*Schulze-Makuch, D., L.N. Irwin, J.H. Lipps, D. LeMone, J.M. Dohm, A.G. Fairén. 2005. Scenarios for the evolution of life on Mars. J Geophys Res - Planets 110: E12S23; http://dx.doi.10.1029/2005JE002430. 

*Schulze-Makuch, D. & L.N. Irwin. 2006. The prospect of alien life in exotic forms on other worlds. Naturwissenschaften 93(4): 155-172.

*Schulze-Makuch, D., A. Mendez, A.G. Fairen, P. von Paris, C. Turse, G. Boyer, G., A. Davila, M. Resendes de Sousa António, D. Catling, L.N. Irwin. 2011. A two-tiered approach to assessing the habitability of exoplanets. Astrobiology, 11(10), 1041-1052.

Schulze-Makuch, D., L.N. Irwin, A.G. Fairén. 2013. Drastic environmental change and its effects on a planetary biosphere. Icarus 225: 275-280.

*Irwin, L.N., A. Mendez, A.G. Fairén, and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2014.  Assessing the possibility of biological complexity on other worlds, with an estimate of the occurrence of complex life in the Milky Way galaxy. Challenges 5: 159-174; http://dx.doi.10.3390/challe5010159

*Irwin, L.N. and D. Schulze-Makuch. 2020. The astrobiology of alien worlds: Known and unknown forms of life. Universe: 130. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/universe6090130

Schulze-Makuch, D. and L.N. Irwin. 2023. Life unknown: Preliminary scheme for a magnetotrophic organism. Life (Basel)13: 1446. https://doi.org/10.3390/life13071446