English

Implications of Abiotic Oxygen Buildup for Earth-like Complex Life

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2020-03-09 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Populations and Evolution

Abstract

One of the chief paradoxes of molecular oxygen (O2_2) is that it is an essential requirement for multicellular eukaryotes on Earth while simultaneously posing a threat to their survival via the formation of reactive oxygen species. In this paper, the constraints imposed by O2_2 on Earth-like complex life are invoked to explore whether worlds with abiotic O2_2 inventories can harbor such organisms. By taking the major O2_2 sources and sinks of Earth-like planets into account using a simple model, it is suggested that worlds that receive time-averaged X-ray and extreme ultraviolet fluxes that are 10\gtrsim 10 times higher than Earth might not be capable of hosting complex lifeforms because the photolysis of molecules such as water may lead to significant O2_2 buildup. Methods for testing this hypothesis by searching for anticorrelations between biosignatures and indicators of abiotic O2_2 atmospheres are described. In the event, however, that life successfully adapts to high-oxygen environments, these worlds could permit the evolution of large and complex organisms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.03248,
  title  = {Implications of Abiotic Oxygen Buildup for Earth-like Complex Life},
  author = {Manasvi Lingam},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.03248},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Published in The Astronomical Journal; 9 pages; 2 figures