In the face of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss, creating a sustainable version of civilization is one of humanity\u2019s most urgent tasks. But when confronting this immense challenge, we rarely ask what may be the most pressing question of all: How do we know if sustainability is even possible? Astronomers have inventoried a sizable share of the universe\u2019s stars, galaxies, comets, and black holes. But are planets with sustainable civilizations also something the universe contains? Or does every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos last only a few centuries before it falls to the climate change it triggers?<\/p>\n
Astrophysicist Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy<\/a> at the University of Rochester, is part of a group of researchers who have taken the first steps to answer these questions. In a new study published in the journal Astrobiology<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, the group\u2014including\u00a0Frank, Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a senior computational scientist at Rochester, Marina Alberti of the University of Washington, and Axel Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry\u2014addresses these questions from an \u201castrobiological\u201d perspective.<\/p>\n \u201cAstrobiology is the study of life and its possibilities in a planetary context,\u201d says Frank, who is also author of the new book Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, which draws on this study. \u201cThat includes \u2018exo-civilizations\u2019 or what we usually call aliens.\u201d<\/p>\n