How does life begin and evolve, does life exist elsewhere in the universe, and what is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
These basic questions of astrobiology are addressed in the project PLACES. The project focuses on the co-evolution of
biosphere and geosphere on very long time and spatial scales and pursues two main directions. The first aim is to model and
analyse the limits of self-regulation under extreme forcing and internal variability in the past and future of planet Earth
by refining a coupled biosphere-geosphere model. The second aim is to investigate extrasolar Earth-like planets by simplifying
this model and varying planetary properties.
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