Related papers: Abiotic molecular oxygen production -- ionic pathw…
Context. The recent detection of warm H$_2$O vapor emission from the outflows of carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars challenges the current understanding of circumstellar chemistry. Two mechanisms have been invoked to explain…
Molecular oxygen has been the subject of many observational searches as chemical models predicted it to be a reservoir of oxygen. Although it has been detected in two regions of the interstellar medium, its rarity is a challenge for…
The possibility of low but nontrivial atmospheric oxygen (O2) levels during the mid-Proterozoic (between 1.8 and 0.8 billion years ago, Ga) has important ramifications for understanding Earth's O2 cycle, the evolution of complex life and…
Life has had a dramatic impact on the composition of Earth's atmosphere over time, which suggests that statistical studies of other inhabited planets' atmospheres could reveal how they co-evolve with life. While many evolutionary pathways…
We present results from a model of oxygen isotopic anomaly production through selective photodissociation of CO within the collapsing proto-Solar cloud. Our model produces a proto-Sun with a wide range of Delta_17O values depending on the…
Observations of JWST have revealed that several close-in exoplanets have sulfur-rich atmospheres through SO$_2$ detections. Atmospheric sulfur is often thought to originate from solid accretion during planet formation, whereas recent…
Planets form and obtain their compositions from the leftover material present in protoplanetary disks of dust and gas surrounding young stars. The chemical make-up of a disk influences every aspect of planetary composition including their…
From an astrobiological point of view, special attention has been paid to the probability of habitable planets in extrasolar systems. The purpose of this study is to constrain a possible range of the mass of a terrestrial planet that can…
Our interpretation of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheric spectra will always be limited by the accuracy of the data we use as input in our forward and retrieval models. Ultraviolet molecular absorption cross sections are one category of…
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…
Life in the clouds of Venus, if present in sufficiently high abundance, must be affecting the atmospheric chemistry. It has been proposed that abundant Venusian life could obtain energy from its environment using three possible sulfur…
Earth's carbon deficit has been an outstanding problem in our understanding of the formation of our Solar System. A possible solution would be the sublimation of carbon grains at the so-called soot line (~300 K) early in the…
We compute the ozone distribution for a model terrestrial paleoatmosphere in which the present oxygen abundance is largely replaced by carbon dioxide, which we argue is a reasonable working assumption. In principle, the presence of carbon…
The emergence of habitable conditions on the early Earth and on rocky exoplanets requires persistent energy sources that can drive both prebiotic chemistry and climate warming under magnetically active young G to M stars. To quantify the…
Massive steam and CO$_2$ atmospheres have been proposed for magma ocean outgassing of Earth and terrestrial planets. Yet formation of such atmospheres depends on volatile exchange with the molten interior, governed by volatile solubilities…
Understanding the thermodynamic function of life may shed light on its origin. Life, as are all irreversible processes, is contingent on entropy production. Entropy production is a measure of the rate of the tendency of Nature to explore…
The atmospheric C/O ratio of exoplanets is widely used to constrain their formation. To guarantee that the C/O ratio provides robust information, we need to accurately quantify the amount of C and O in exoplanetary atmospheres. In the case…
Molecular outflows contributing to the matter cycle of star forming galaxies are now observed in small and large systems at low and high redshift. Their physical origin is still unclear. In most theoretical studies only warm ionised/neutral…
The transformation of organic molecules into the simplest self-replicating living system,a microorganism, is accomplished from a unique event or rare events that occurred early in the Universe. The subsequent dispersal on cosmic scales and…
The path toward the emergence of life in our biosphere involved several key events allowing for the persistence, reproduction and evolution of molecular systems. All these processes took place in a given environmental context and required…