Related papers: A massive primordial atmosphere on early Mars
Terrestrial exoplanets likely form initial atmospheres through outgassing during and after accretion, although there is currently no first-principles understanding of how to connect a planet's bulk composition to its early atmospheric…
Recently, gas disks have been discovered around main sequence stars well beyond the usual protoplanetary disk lifetimes (i.e., > 10 Myrs), when planets have already formed. These gas disks, mainly composed of CO, carbon, and oxygen seem to…
The presence of the ancient valley networks on Mars indicates that the climate at 3.8 Ga was warm enough to allow substantial liquid water to flow on the martian surface for extended periods of time. However, the mechanism for producing…
We present the first calculation of saltation transport and dune formation on Mars and compare it to real dunes. We find that the rate at which grains are entrained into saltation on Mars is one order of magnitude higher than on Earth. With…
Deep elemental composition is a challenging measurement to achieve in the giant planets of the solar system. Yet, knowledge of the deep composition offers important insights in the internal structure of these planets, their evolutionary…
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…
Earth is expected to have acquired a reduced proto-atmosphere enriched in H2 and CH4 through the accretion of building blocks that contain metallic Fe and/or the gravitational trapping of surrounding nebula gas. Such an early, wet, reduced…
The hypothesis of quantization of masses of the solar system planets is considered. It is supposed that the solar system was bearing during the Protosun squeezing from the red giant to a yellow dwarf. According to mass and orbit…
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
The precipitation of energetic neutral atoms, produced through charge exchange collisions between solar wind ions and thermal atmospheric gases, is investigated for the Martian atmosphere. Connections between parameters of precipitating…
The atmospheres of the terrestrial planets are known to have been modified as a consequence of the impact degassing and atmospheric erosion during the late accretion. Despite the commonality of these processes, there are distinct gaps --…
The origin, distribution, depth and volume of lunar volatiles remain open questions. One of the possible sources of Moon's volatiles is their volcanic outgassing during the peak of lunar volcanic activity ~3.5 Ga. This same outgassing would…
Carbon is an essential element for life but its behavior during Earth's accretion is not well understood. Carbonaceous grains in meteoritic and cometary materials suggest that irreversible sublimation, and not condensation, governs carbon…
The composition the atmosphere of Venus results from the integration of many processes entering into play over the entire geological history of the planet. Determining the elemental abundances and isotopic ratios of noble gases (He, Ne, Ar,…
Chloride-bearing deposits on Mars record high-elevation lakes during the waning stages of Mars' wet era (mid-Noachian to late Hesperian). The water source pathways, seasonality, salinity, depth, lifetime, and paleoclimatic drivers of these…
It has been proposed that the enrichment in noble gases found by Galileo in Jupiter's atmosphere can be explained by their delivery inside cold planetesimals. We propose instead that this is a sign that the planet formed in a chemically…
Some recently discovered short-period Earth to Neptune sized exoplanets (super Earths) have low observed mean densities which can only be explained by voluminous gaseous atmospheres. Here, we study the conditions allowing the accretion and…
Reducing atmospheres have recently emerged as a promising scenario to warm the surface of early Mars enough to drive the formation of valley networks and other ancient aqueous features that have been detected so far on the surface of Mars.…
N2 is abundant in Pluto's atmosphere and on its surface, but the supply is depleted by prodigious atmospheric escape. We demonstrate that cometary impacts could not have delivered enough N mass to resupply Pluto's N2 atmospheric escape over…
The connection between the atmospheric composition of giant planets and their origin remains elusive. In this study, we explore how convective mixing can link the primordial planetary state to its atmospheric composition. We simulate the…