Scientists are looking to detect CHNOPS in exoplanet atmospheres to understand their potential for supporting life.
A NASA graphic explaining how a telescope can measure an exoplanet atmosphere using spectroscopy. Courtesy: NASA /JPL-Caltech/Lizbeth B. De La Torre.
In anticipation of that telescope’s mission, Herbort and his co-researchers are preparing for the results and what they mean for habitability. “The detailed understanding of the planets itself becomes important for interpreting observations, especially for the detection of biosignatures,” they write. In particular, they’re scrutinizing the idea of aerial biospheres.
“This concept of aerial biospheres enlarges the possibilities of potential habitability from the presence of liquid water on the surface to all planets with liquid water clouds,” the authors explain. “Our approach does not directly aim for the understanding of biosignatures and atmospheres of planets, which are inhabited, but for the conditions in which pre-biotic chemistry can occur,” they write. In their work, the minimum atmospheric concentration for a nutrient to be available is 10,” they write. They also found that carbon is generally present in every simulated atmosphere and that sulphur availability increases with surface temperature.
But surface water plays several roles in atmospheric chemistry. It can bond with some nutrients in some circumstances, making them unavailable, and in other circumstances, it can make them available. This complicates matters on worlds covered by oceans. Pre-biotic molecules might not be available if there’s no opportunity for water and rock to interact with the atmosphere. “If indeed it can be shown that life can form in a water ocean without any exposed land, this constraint becomes weaker, and the potential for the surface habitability becomes mainly a question of water stability,” the authors write.
NASA Exoplanets Atmosphere Spectroscopy CHNOPS Liquid Water Habitability JWST Ariel
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