Related papers: Abiotic molecular oxygen production -- ionic pathw…
Oxygen ($O_2$) is one of the most important elements required to sustain life. The concentration of $O_2$ on Earth has been accumulated over millions of years and has a direct connection with that of $CO_2$. Further, $CO_2$ plays an…
One of the chief paradoxes of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) 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…
Previous research has indicated that high amounts of ozone (O3) and oxygen (O2) may be produced abiotically in atmospheres with high concentrations of CO2. The abiotic production of these two gases, which are also characteristic of…
In the search for life on Earth-like planets around other stars, the first (and likely only) information will come from the spectroscopic characterization of the planet's atmosphere. Of the countless number of chemical species terrestrial…
The emergence of life on the Earth has required a prior organic chemistry leading to the formation of prebiotic molecules. The origin and the evolution of the organic matter on the early Earth is not yet firmly understood. Several…
Molecular oxygen (O2) will be an important molecule in the search for biosignatures in terrestrial planetary atmospheres in the coming decades. In particular, O2 combined with a reducing gas is thought to be strong evidence for…
The Earth's N2-dominated atmosphere is a very special feature. Firstly, N2 as main gas is unique on the terrestrial planets in the inner solar system and gives a hint for tectonic activity. Studying the origins of atmospheric nitrogen and…
We investigate the abiotic production of oxygen and its photochemical byproduct ozone through water vapor photolysis in moist atmospheres of temperate terrestrial exoplanets. The amount of water vapor available for photolysis in the middle…
Understanding the evolution of Earth and potentially habitable Earth-like worlds is essential to fathom our origin in the Universe. The search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone and investigation of their atmospheres with climate…
As oxygen is essential for respiration and metabolism for multicellular organisms on Earth, its presence may be crucial for the development of a complex biosphere on other planets. And because life itself, through photosynthesis,…
The search for life on planets outside our solar system will use spectroscopic identification of atmospheric biosignatures. The most robust remotely-detectable potential biosignature is considered to be the detection of oxygen (O_2) or…
Context. Photochemistry is a key process driving planetary atmospheres away from local thermodynamic equilibrium. Recent observations of the H$_2$ dominated atmospheres of hot gas giants have detected SO$_2$ as one of the major products of…
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…
Molecular oxygen has been confirmed as the fourth most abundant molecule in cometary material O$_2$/H$_2$O $\sim 4$ %) and is thought to have a primordial nature, i.e., coming from the interstellar cloud from which our solar system was…
Earth's water, intrinsic oxidation state, and metal core density are fundamental chemical features of our planet. Studies of exoplanets provide a useful context for elucidating the source of these chemical traits. Planet formation and…
Carbon dioxide is a chemically active molecule that plays a vital role in Earth's ecosphere. CO$_2$ affects the acidity of seawater and has multiple negative effects on marine organisms. It is also a fundamental component of the…
Oxygen is a well-studied biosignature. Studying potential abiotic pathways for O2 build-up in exoplanet atmospheres is essential for evaluating whether the detection of O2 would constitute a biosignature detection on other worlds. Previous…
Molecular oxygen (O2) paired with a reducing gas is regarded as a promising biosignature pair for the atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets. In circumstances when O2 may not be detectable in a planetary atmosphere (e.g., at…
The search for habitable exoplanets in the Universe is actively ongoing in the field of astronomy. The biggest future milestone is to determine whether life exists on such habitable exoplanets. In that context, oxygen in the atmosphere has…
Atmospheric chemistry models have shown molecular oxygen can build up in CO2-dominated atmospheres on potentially habitable exoplanets without an input of life. Existing models typically assume a surface pressure of 1 bar. Here we present…