Related papers: The Venusian Chronicles
Cosmic radiation backgrounds are a constraint on life, and their distribution will affect the Galactic Habitable Zone. Life on Earth has developed in the context of these backgrounds, and characterizing event rates will elaborate the…
Venus, our neighboring planet, is an open-air laboratory that can be used to study why Earth and Venus evolved in such different ways. Noble gases in planetary atmospheres are tracers of their geophysical evolution, and measuring the…
Amino acids are considered to be prime ingredients in chemistry, leading to life. Glycine is the simplest amino acid and most commonly found in animal proteins. It is a glucogenic and non-essential amino acid that is produced naturally by…
(abridged abstract) Theoretical arguments indicate that close-in terrestial exoplanets may have weak magnetic fields. As described in the companion article (Paper I), a weak magnetic field results in a high flux of galactic cosmic rays to…
Thousands of planets beyond our solar system have been discovered to date, dozens of which are rocky in composition and are orbiting within the circumstellar habitable zone of their host star. The next frontier in life detection beyond our…
At the cloud top level of Venus (65-70 km altitude) the atmosphere rotates 60 times faster than the underlying surface, a phenomenon known as superrotation. Whereas on Venus's dayside the cloud top motions are well determined and Venus…
Ozone ($\textrm{O}_3$) is important for the survival of life on Earth because it shields the surface from ionising ultraviolet (UV) radiation. However, the existence of $\textrm{O}_3$ in Earth's atmosphere is not always beneficial.…
Earth's modern atmosphere is highly oxygenated and is a remotely detectable signal of its surface biosphere. However, the lifespan of oxygen-based biosignatures in Earth's atmosphere remains uncertain, particularly for the distant future.…
Venus and Earth are similar in bulk properties yet followed dramatically different climatic trajectories. Reconstructing Venus's climate evolution requires understanding how rotation, obliquity, eccentricity, and solar luminosity shaped…
The Earth possesses many environmental extremes that mimic conditions on extraterrestrial worlds. The stratosphere at 30-40 km altitude closely resembles the surface of Mars in terms of pressure, temperature, and radiation levels (UV,…
The work considers the modelling of nearby supernova (SN) effects on Earth's biosphere via cosmic rays (CRs) accelerated by shockwaves. The rise of the radiation background on Earth resulted from the external irradiation by CR high-energy…
A major focus of the planetary science and astrobiology community is the understanding of planetary habitability, including the myriad factors that control the evolution and sustainability of temperate surface environments such as that of…
Cosmic rays can penetrate planetary atmospheres driving the formation of prebiotic molecules, which are important for the origin of life. We calculate the Galactic cosmic ray fluxes in the habitable zone of five nearby, well-studied…
Because the solar luminosity increases over geological timescales, Earth climate is expected to warm, increasing water evaporation which, in turn, enhances the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Above a certain critical insolation, this…
Context: ALMA observations of Venus at 267 GHz have been presented in the literature that show the apparent presence of phosphine (PH3) in its atmosphere. Phosphine has currently no evident production routes on the planet's surface or in…
The Venusian atmosphere is covered by clouds with super-rotating winds whose accelerating mechanism is still not well understood. The fastest winds, occurring at the cloud tops ($\sim$70 km height), have been studied for decades thanks to…
Plasma waves are observed in almost all the solar system objects. The planetary ionospheres are capable of sustaining plasma waves which are observed there and play an important role in the ionospheric dynamics. Venus does not possess a…
Uranus provides a unique laboratory to test our understanding of planetary atmospheres under extreme conditions. Multi-spectral observations from Voyager, ground-based observatories, and space telescopes have revealed a delicately banded…
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 discovery of the near infrared windows into the Venus deep atmosphere has enabled the use of remote sensing techniques to study the composition of the Venus atmosphere below the clouds. In particular, water vapor absorption lines can be…