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Resources for Life Detection Missions

Below are resources developed by NASA in response to recommendations through decadal surveys, community workshop findings, and community strategy documents. These resources incorporate false positive and negative assessments for life detection and highlight the importance of establishing frameworks to inform science and measurement priorities for life detection missions well before a discovery of life occurs.

An earthlike planet with oceans and clouds is seen in space, with its host star in the background.

Organizing knowledge on biosignatures

A screenshot of the website for the Life Detection Forum with text above an image of the Earth from the International Space Station.

NASA’s Life Detection Knowledge Base

The Life Detection Forum (LDF), rolled out to the community in 2021 and still active, is designed to organize knowledge about life detection science and technology, link life detection objectives to instrument requirements, and highlight priorities for life detection technology development. The core of the LDF is the Life Detection Knowledge Base, which synthesizes and standardizes information on potential biosignatures. The community is invited to explore the webtool and help it become a go-to resource for life detection mission formulation.

The icon is a white circle outlined in black. Inside of the circle, the bottom half is filled by five wavy lines representing water.

Ladder of Life Detection

The Ladder of Life Detection was released in 2018 to stimulate and support discussions among scientists and engineers about how one would detect extant life beyond Earth within the practical constraints of robotic space missions.

Interpreting life detection measurements

Enceladus

Exploring the Abiotic Background for Life Detection

This workshop in 2025 was organized and sponsored by a partnership between three NASA Research Coordination Networks (RCNs): Network for Ocean Worlds (NOW), the Network for Life Detection (NfoLD), and Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3). The aim was to assess current understanding of the ‘abiotic background’ in ocean worlds, such as Europa and Enceladus, by engaging experts from various fields including prebiotic chemistry, origin of life, and astrochemistry.

A cartoon shows a line of scientists building a staircase out of green and red bricks. The green bricks represent positive results and the red bricks represent null results. As the bricks are stacked, the scientists can climb to higher levels of the scale, representing them getting closer to a definitive detection of life. The scientist at the top of the scale is thinking about different types of life/non-life that their green brick could be (a leaf, a meteorite, a microbial cell, a volcano erupting, and a question mark).

Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) Scale

The CoLD Scale was released in 2021 as a proof-of-concept-level framework example of a progressive scale that could guide communication around scientific results relevant to the search for life. The intent of the CoLD scale is to open a community dialogue about how to convey information on life-detection, a diverse and complicated subject with a high potential to be sensationalized.

This highly stylized view of Jupiter's icy moon Europa was created by reprocessing an image captured by JunoCam during the mission's close flyby on Sept. 29, 2022.

Standards of Evidence for Life Detection Community Workshop

The Network For Life Detection (NFoLD) and Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination networks hosted a joint virtual workshop on biosignature standards of evidence and reporting protocols from July 19-22, 2021.

This cropped image shows a comic drawing of bands of green microbial cells (bottom left), geological microbial fossils (center running top left to bottom right), and DNA top right. Dividing the bands are molecules formed from red balls connected by single bonds.

Independent Review of the Community Report from the Biosignature Standards of Evidence Workshop

At the request of NASA, the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, in its role as an independent forum, conducted a review of the NASA report “Community Report from the Biosignatures Standards of Evidence Workshop”. The review addresses the accuracy, assumptions, and conclusions of the NASA report. This publication details the findings of the committee.

Repositories for life detection data

The logo is a white circle enclosing a dark blue/black circle. At the bottom of the circle is a white crescent representing the horizon of a planetary surface. In the dark space above are stars. The letters AHED are against the dark background in white.

Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED)

The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED) is a data system being developed as a long-term, open-access repository for astrobiology data. AHED is intended to store user-contributed results from NASA or externally-funded research in astrobiology, and to encourage sharing and synergy within the astrobiology community.

Exoplanet HD 209458b

Planetary Data Ecosystem

NASA’s Planetary Data Ecosystem (PDE) helps make planetary data, software tools, standards, and resources available to the general public, and supports planetary researchers in discovering more about our solar system and beyond.

Artist's Illustration of Kepler-1625 System

Habitable Worlds Catalog

The Habitable Worlds Catalog (HWC) is an online database for scientists and educators that includes discoveries of potentially habitable worlds. The catalog uses habitability metrics and classifications to compare exoplanets.

Workshops and Events related to Life Detection

  • The Life Detection Forum Workshop Series

    The ongoing LDF virtual workshop series engages the community in developing an evaluative framework for biosignatures. 

    Visit NFoLD Research Coordination Network for more information

  • 2025 - Exploring the Abiotic Background for Life Detection

    This workshop was organized and sponsored by a partnership between three NASA Research Coordination Networks (RCNs): Network for Ocean Worlds (NOW), the Network for Life Detection (NfoLD), and Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3). The aim was to assess current understanding of the ‘abiotic background’ in ocean worlds, such as Europa and Enceladus, by engaging experts from various fields including prebiotic chemistry, origin of life, and astrochemistry.

    More information

  • 2022 - Future of Life Detection Workshop

    In the spring of 2022, over 100 scientists and technologists took part in a NASA-supported workshop that focused on the interconnections between science and technology involved in the search for signs of life in the Solar System.

    “Future of the Search for Life: Workshop Report,” published in the journal Astrobiology

  • 2021 - Standards of Evidence for Life Detection Community Workshop

    The Network For Life Detection (NFoLD) and Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research coordination networks hosted a joint virtual workshop on biosignature standards of evidence and reporting protocols from July 19-22, 2021.

    Community Report from the Biosignatures Standards of Evidence Workshop

  • 2020 - Criteria for Biosignature Evaluation

    The goal of this virtual workshop in 2020 was to engage the community in solidifying criteria against which to evaluate the utility of specific measurements in achieving specific life detection objectives.

    Criteria for Biosignature Evaluation: Workshop Resources

Publication Resources:

  • Lenardic et al. (2023) Communicating astrobiology in words not numbers and with facts not fiction. Nature Astronomy, 7(1009). doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02031-8
  • Green et al. (2023) Moving toward a framework for communicating the confidence of life detection. Nature Astronomy, 8(2–3). doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02135-1
  • Vickers, et al. (2023) Confidence of Life Detection: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Astrobiology, 23(11). doi: 10.1089/ast.2022.0084
  • Noack et al. (2025) Why do we need (another) universal tracers portal in Astrobiology? Intl. Journal of Astrobiology 24, e11. doi: 10.1017/S1473550425100086