This discovery of several Earth-like planets within the habitable zones of their host stars has triggered extensive research on the formation, dynamical evolution, interior dynamics, and atmospheric characteristics of extrasolar habitable planets. IAU Symposium 293 presents a collection of articles on the state-of-the-art research on these topics, including new discoveries of habitable exoplanets. The volume starts by reviewing the current state of the detection of habitable planets, and after guiding the reader through the most recent theoretical and observational achievements on the discovery and understanding of potential life-harboring bodies, concludes by presenting the reader with a review of the upcoming missions that search for Earth-like planets around other stars, and the likely signatures of extraterrestrial life. This comprehensive, up-to-date and technical volume targets those seeking to understand the origin of life and the possibility and detection of life elsewhere in the Universe.
