相关论文: Identifying the Potential Biosphere of Mars
Warm rocky exoplanets within the habitable zone of Sun-like stars are favoured targets for current and future missions. Theory indicates these planets could be wet at formation and remain habitable long enough for life to develop. In this…
For over half a century, scientists have contemplated the potential existence of life within the clouds of Venus. Unknown chemistry leaves open the possibility that certain regions of the Venusian atmosphere are habitable. In situ…
In 2020, hydrogen chloride (HCl) in the gas phase was discovered in the atmosphere of Mars with the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) onboard the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission (Korablev et al., 2021). Its volume mixing ratio (VMR) shows a…
Recent findings suggest Mars may have been a clement environment for the emergence of life, and may even have compared favorably to Earth in this regard. These findings have revived interest in the hypothesis that prebiotically important…
Recent observations have evidenced traces of methane CH4 heterogeneously distributed in the martian atmosphere. However, because the lifetime of CH4 in the atmosphere of Mars is estimated to be around 300-600 years on the basis of…
Ancient sediments provide archives of climate and habitability on Mars. Gale Crater, the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), hosts a 5 km high sedimentary mound. Hypotheses for mound formation include evaporitic, lacustrine,…
We investigate the global seasonal variations of near-surface relative humidity and relevant attributes, like temperature and water vapor volume mixing ratio on Mars using calculations from modelled and measurement data. We focus on 2 am…
It is still unknown how much water has escaped from Mars during its history. Hydrogen escape from Mars's atmosphere probably played a major role in drying the planet, but present-day Hloss rates (about 3x10^26 atoms per second on average)…
The evidence for abundant liquid water on early Mars despite the faint young Sun is a long-standing problem in planetary research. Here we present new ab initio spectroscopic and line-by-line climate calculations of the warming potential of…
The next great leap in Martian exploration will be the return of samples to Earth. To ensure the maximum scientific return from studying these samples, the development and utilisation of nondestructive analytical techniques are essential to…
Reconciling the geology of Mars with models of atmospheric evolution remains a major challenge. Martian geology is characterized by past evidence for episodic surface liquid water, and geochemistry indicating a slow and intermittent…
In our solar system, the densely cloud-covered atmosphere of Venus stands out as an example of how polarimetry can be used to gain information on cloud composition and particle mean radius. With current interest running high on discovering…
Mars' surface bears the imprint of valley networks formed billions of years ago and their relicts can still be observed today. However, whether these networks were formed by groundwater sapping, ice melt, or fluvial runoff has been…
In the past 15 years, astronomers have revealed that a significant fraction of the stars should harbor planets and that it is likely that terrestrial planets are abundant in our galaxy. Among these planets, how many are habitable, i.e.…
An estimate is made of the thickness of the radar-bright deposits in craters near to the north pole of Mercury. To construct an objective set of craters for this measurement, an automated crater finding algorithm is developed and applied to…
Exploration of Mars has been made possible using a series of landers, rovers and orbiters. The HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured high-resolution images covering large tracts of the surface. However, orbital…
The purpose of this paper is to re-open from a practical perspective the question of the extent in altitude of the Earth's biosphere. We make a number of different suggestions for how searches for biological material could be conducted in…
Recent studies have suggested the possibility of Hycean worlds, characterised by deep liquid water oceans beneath H$_2$-rich atmospheres. These planets significantly widen the range of planetary properties over which habitable conditions…
We present improved Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer (MONS) maps of near-surface Water-Equivalent Hydrogen (WEH) on Mars that have intriguing implications for the global distribution of "excess" ice, which occurs when the mass fraction of…
The Habitable Zone (HZ) is defined by the possibility of sustaining liquid water on a planetary surface. In the Solar System, the HZ for a conservative climate model extends approximately between the orbits of Earth and Mars. We elaborate…