ABIOTIC OXYGEN-DOMINATED ATMOSPHERES ON TERRESTRIAL HABITABLE ZONE PLANETS
By R. Wordsworth, R. Pierrehumbert. 2014
172 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Detection of life on other planets requires identification of biosignatures, i.e., observable planetary properties that robustly indicate the presence of a biosphere. One of the most widely accepted biosignatures for an Earth-like planet is an atmosphere where oxygen is a major constituent. Here we show that lifeless habitable zone terrestrial planets around any star type may develop oxygen-dominated atmospheres as a result of water photolysis, because the cold trap mechanism that protects H2O on Earth is ineffective when the atmospheric inventory of non-condensing gases (e.g., N2, Ar) is low. Hence the spectral features of O2 and O3 alone cannot be regarded as robust signs of extraterrestrial life.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ccd9a1be0caf306eda8b1b165165e71d10858834
How researchers see this paper
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In Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Jon Fortney
- E. Wolf
- R. Wordsworth
- R. Kopparapu
- T. Robinson
- Laura Kreidberg
- N. Madhusudhan
- J. Johnson
Citations in the corpus
- Observing the Atmospheres of Known Temperate Earth-sized Planets with JWST (2017, background): “The atmospheres of the terrestrial exoplanets we study around cool stars will undoubtedly be even more diverse than those in the solar system (Meadows & Seager 2010; Wordsworth & Pierrehumbert 2014).”
- ABIOTIC O2 LEVELS ON PLANETS AROUND F, G, K, AND M STARS: POSSIBLE FALSE POSITIVES FOR LIFE? (2015, background): “This keeps us out of the parameter space in which the background pressure is low and water loss is rapid (Wordsworth & Pierrehumbert 2014).”
- Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life (2017, background): “…from robust photolysis of CO2 or a history of extreme hydrogen escape and O2 buildup (e.g., DomagalGoldman and Meadows, 2010; Hu et al., 2012; DomagalGoldman et al., 2014; Tian et al., 2014; Wordsworth and Pierrehumbert, 2014; Gao et al., 2015; Harman et al., 2015; Luger and Barnes, 2015).”
- The Habitability of Planets Orbiting M-dwarf Stars (2016, background): “A low inventory of non-condensing gases such as N2 in a planet’s atmosphere could prevent cold trapping of H2O in the upper atmosphere, increasing the likelihood of abiotic O2-rich worlds (Wordsworth & Pierrehumbert, 2014).”
- Habitable Moist Atmospheres on Terrestrial Planets near the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone around M Dwarfs (2017, background): “…that the variation in the noncondensable gas fraction in the atmosphere (specifically the N2 amount) can affect the OLR and consequently the habitability limits through moist and runaway greenhouse (Nakajima et al. 1992; Pierrehumbert 2010; Kopparapu et al. 2014; Wordsworth & Pierrehumbert 2014).”
- The Surface UV Environment on Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs: Implications for Prebiotic Chemistry and the Need for Experimental Follow-up (2017, background): “Wordsworth & Pierrehumbert (2014) showed that water-rich planets with low inventories of non-condensible gases like N2 may also abiotically oxygenate.”
- Origin and evolution of the atmospheres of early Venus, Earth and Mars (2018, background): “This processes can even lead to the build up of abiotic O2-dominated atmospheres (Wordsworth and Pierrehumbert 2014).”