Related papers: Solar wind origin of terrestrial water
This paper addresses the fundamental science question: "How does solar wind energy flow through the Earth's magnetosphere, how is it converted and distributed?". We need to understand how the Sun creates the heliosphere, and how the planets…
We review the state of knowledge on the origin of Earth's water. Empirical constraints come from chemical and isotopic measurements of solar system bodies and of Earth itself. Dynamical models have revealed pathways for water delivery to…
The onset and nature of the earliest geomagnetic field is important for understanding the evolution of the core, atmosphere and life on Earth. A record of the early geodynamo is preserved in ancient silicate crystals containing minute…
Our Solar system is almost entirely devoid of material interior to Mercury's orbit, in sharp contrast to the multiple Earth masses of material commonly residing within the analogous region of extrasolar planetary systems. Recent work has…
Large terrestrial planets are expected to have muted topography and deep oceans, implying that most super-Earths should be entirely covered in water, so-called waterworlds. This is important because waterworlds lack a silicate weathering…
After Earth's origin, our host star, the Sun, was shining 20 to 25 percent less brightly than today. Without greenhouse-like conditions to warm the atmosphere, our early planet would have been an ice ball and life may never have evolved.…
Solar irradiance is considered one of the main natural factors affecting terrestrial climate, and its variations are included in most numerical models estimating the effects of natural versus anthropogenic factors for climate change. Solar…
Aspects of our Solar System's formation are deduced from observations of the chemical nature of matter. Massive cores are indicative of terrestrial-planet-composition-similarity to enstatite chondrite meteorites, whose highly-reduced state…
Results from recent space missions, in particular Spitzer and Herschel, have lead to significant progress in our understanding of the formation and transport of water from clouds to disks, planetesimals, and planets. In this review, we…
The water content of magma oceans is widely accepted as a key factor that determines whether a terrestrial planet is habitable. Water ocean mass is determined as a result not only of water delivery and loss, but also of water partitioning…
Super-Earths are highly irradiated, small planets with bulk densities approximately consistent with Earth. We construct combined interior-atmosphere models of super-Earths that trace the partitioning of water throughout a planet, including…
Earth's volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms. However, identifying the sources (comets, meteorites, and trapped nebular gas) that supplied volatiles to Earth…
Studies on Sun-climate connection have been carried out for several decades, and almost all of them focused on the effects of solar total irradiation energy. As the second major terrestrial energy source from outer space, the solar wind…
Fresh water scarcity is one of the critical challenges for global sustainable development. Several novel water resources such as passive seawater solar desalination and atmospheric water harvesting have made some progress in recent years.…
One in every two atoms in the Earth, Mars, and the Moon is oxygen; it is the third most abundant element in the solar system. The oxygen isotopic compositions of the terrestrial planets are different from those of the Sun and demonstrate…
How much wind energy does the atmosphere generate, and how much of it can at best be used as renewable energy? This review aims to give first-order estimates and sensitivities to answer these questions that are consistent with those…
The magnetic field of the Sun is the underlying cause of the many diverse phenomena combined under the heading of solar activity. Here we describe the magnetic field as it threads its way from the bottom of the convection zone, where it is…
From modeling the evolution of disks of planetesimals under the influence of planets, it has been shown that the mass of water delivered to the Earth from beyond Jupiter's orbit could be comparable to the mass of terrestrial oceans. A…
Water photolysis and hydrogen loss from the upper atmospheres of terrestrial planets is of fundamental importance to climate evolution but remains poorly understood in general. Here we present a range of calculations we performed to study…
In this chapter we describe chemistry of the early atmosphere of the Earth during and shortly after its formation where there is little if any geological record. We review the arguments for a secondary origin of the terrestrial atmosphere,…