Related papers: Do we have enough air?
Our present-day atmosphere is often used as an analog for potentially habitable exoplanets, but Earth's atmosphere has changed dramatically throughout its 4.5 billion year history. For example, molecular oxygen is abundant in the atmosphere…
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.…
The author proposes and investigates his old idea - a living human in space without the encumbrance of a complex space suit. Only in this condition can biological humanity seriously attempt to colonize space because all planets of Solar…
In atmospheric chemistry, a parameter called residence time can be defined for each gas as T=M/F, where M represents the average mass in the atmosphere and F is the total average influx or outflux, which in time averages are equal. In this…
The presence of an atmosphere over sufficiently long timescales is widely perceived as one of the most prominent criteria associated with planetary surface habitability. We address the crucial question as to whether the seven Earth-sized…
Since the late 19th century, several investigators have estimated the mass of the atmosphere. Unlike previous studies, which focus on the average pressures on the earth's surface, this analysis uses the density of air above the earth's…
The Sun is expected to increase its radiant output by about 10% per billion years. The rate at which the radius of the Earth's orbit would need to increase in order to keep the present value of the Sun's radiant flux at the Earth constant…
Does the human lifespan have an impenetrable biological upper limit which ultimately will stop further increase in life lengths? This question is important for understanding aging, and for society, and has led to intense controversies.…
Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and, as a result, the search for habitable and inhabited planets beyond the Solar System commonly focuses on analogs to our planet. However, Earth's atmosphere and surface environment have…
Are there limits to human longevity? We suggest a new demographic model to describe human demographic trajectories. Specifically, the model mathematically defines the limits of longevity. Through the demographic analysis of trends for…
Current understanding suggests that as the Sun brightens in the far future, Earth's carbonate-silicate cycle will offset increasing temperatures by drawing CO$_2$ out of the atmosphere, ultimately leading to the extinction of all…
Global warming is a major environmental concern of our times. It has been suggested that the planting of trees could constitute a way of mitigating the adverse effects of the increasing anthropogenic carbon emissions. We developed a simple…
It is sometimes asserted that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. We critically examine the assumptions inherent in this argument. Using a lottery model for biogenesis in the Universe, we…
A transition to a fully global renewable energy infrastructure is potentially possible in no more than a few decades, even using current wind/solar technologies. We demonstrate that at its completion this transition would terminate…
The analysis of the demographic transition of the past century and a half, using both empirical data and mathematical models, has rendered a wealth of well-established facts, including the dramatic increases in life expectancy. Despite…
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…
Studies that predict species extinction have focused on a range of flora and fauna but in regard to Homo sapiens there are, with one notable exception, no predictive studies, only considerations of possible ways this may occur. The…
Current observations of the fraction of dark energy and a lower limit on its tension, coupled with an assumption of the non-convexity of the dark energy potential, are used to derive a lower limit of 26 billion years for the future age of…
The oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere 2.3 billion years ago, which on exoplanets is expected to be most detectable via the UV ozone feature at $\sim$0.25 $\mu$m, is often regarded as a sign of the emergence of photosynthetic life. On…
Mortality is an instrument of natural selection. Evolutionary motivated theories imply its irreversibility and life history dependence. This is inconsistent with mortality data for protected populations. Accurate analysis yields mortality…