Life as the Only Reason for the Existence of N2–O2-Dominated Atmospheres

Sproß, Laurenz; Scherf, Manuel; Shematovich, V. I.; Bisikalo, D. V.; Lämmer, H.

doi:10.1134/s1063772921040077

Cited by 22 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 169 publications

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“…The finding that the young Sun was most likely a slow to intermediately rotating young G-star also agrees with recent studies by Lammer et al (2020aLammer et al ( , 2020bLammer et al ( , 2021 where Venus' and Earth's present atmospheric Ar, Ne isotope and bulk K/U ratios can be reproduced only if the young Sun was between a slow and a moderately rotating young G-type star.…”

Section: The Faint Young Sun Paradox and The Solar Activity Evolutionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Other suggestions involve higher N 2 surface pressures enhancing the greenhouse effect by broadening the absorption lines of greenhouse gases such as CO 2 (Goldblatt et al 2009) and the production of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide by enhanced solar activity (Airapetian et al 2016). However, N 2 -dominated atmospheres with high surface pressures and negligible amounts of CO 2 as suggested by Johnson and Goldblatt 2018 are unlikely to build up due to high thermal escape and moreover one would expect a further increase of δ 15 N, which is not observed in the present atmosphere (Lammer et al 2018Gebauer et al 2020;Sproß et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…N 2 likely has been outgassed and built up during the Archean eon (Mikhail and Sverjensky 2014;Som et al 2016;Lammer et al 2018;Lammer et al 2019;Stüeken et al 2020;Sproß et al 2021), and became the main atmospheric species besides CO 2 . The amount of N 2 present in the atmosphere when life evolved is important for understanding the production of prebiotic molecules (Airapetian et al 2016;Zerkle et al 2017;Zerkle and Mikhail 2017;Lammer et al 2018;Lammer et al 2019;Gebauer et al 2020;Sproß et al 2021). However, estimates of atmospheric molecular CO 2 and N 2 partial surface pressures during the Archean eon widely vary in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

Johnstone,

Lammer,

Kislyakova

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Despite their importance for determining the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere and surface conditions, the evolutionary histories of the Earth's atmospheric CO 2 abundance during the Archean eon and the Sun's activity are poorly constrained. In this study, we apply a state-of-the-art physical model for the upper atmosphere of the Archean Earth to study the effects of different atmospheric CO 2 /N 2 mixing ratios and solar activity levels on the escape of the atmosphere to space. We find that unless CO 2 was a major constituent of the atmosphere during the Archean eon, enhanced heating of the thermosphere by the Sun's strong X-ray and ultraviolet radiation would have caused rapid escape to space. We derive lower limits on the atmospheric CO 2 abundance of approximately 40% at 3.8 billion years ago, which is likely enough to counteract the faint young Sun and keep the Earth from being completely frozen. Furthermore, our results indicate that the Sun was most likely born as a slow to moderate rotating young G-star to prevent rapid escape, putting essential constraints on the Sun's activity evolution

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Section: The Faint Young Sun Paradox and The Solar Activity Evolutionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

Johnstone,

Lammer,

Kislyakova

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…Early Earth's atmosphere might have been susceptible to strong atmospheric escape, particularly of hydrogen from dissociated H 2 O and CH 4 (e.g., Zahnle et al 2019) and nitrogen (e.g., Tian et al 2008;Lammer et al , 2019Gebauer et al 2020;Johnstone et al 2021b;Sproß et al 2021) due to the increased XUV flux and plasma environment from the young Sun (see Sect. 2).…”

Section: Fingerprints Of Early Earth's Atmosphere On the Lunar Surfacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Exosphere as a Boundary: Origin and Evolution of Airless Bodies in the Inner Solar System and Beyond Including Planets with Silicate Atmospheres

et al. 2022

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In this review we discuss all the relevant solar/stellar radiation and plasma parameters and processes that act together in the formation and modification of atmospheres and exospheres that consist of surface-related minerals. Magma ocean degassed silicate atmospheres or thin gaseous envelopes from planetary building blocks, airless bodies in the inner Solar System, and close-in magmatic rocky exoplanets such as CoRot-7b, HD 219134 b and 55 Cnc e are addressed. The depletion and fractionation of elements from planetary embryos, which act as the building blocks for proto-planets are also discussed. In this context the formation processes of the Moon and Mercury are briefly reviewed. The Lunar surface modification since its origin by micrometeoroids, plasma sputtering, plasma impingement as well as chemical surface alteration and the search of particles from the early Earth’s atmosphere that were collected by the Moon on its surface are also discussed. Finally, we address important questions on what can be learned from the study of Mercury’s environment and its solar wind interaction by MESSENGER and BepiColombo in comparison with the expected observations at exo-Mercurys by future space-observatories such as the JWST or ARIEL and ground-based telescopes and instruments like SPHERE and ESPRESSO on the VLT, and vice versa.

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“…The coexistence of N 2 and O 2 in an atmosphere is one possible biosignature. This possibility is due to both the high chemical disequilibrium between N 2 , O 2 , and surface liquid water (Krissansen-Totton et al 2016, 2018 and the planetary evolution that is required to accumulate large quantities of both gases, including the implausibility of the abiotic generation and atmospheric retention of these gases together given competing atmospheric and geochemical sinks (Stüeken et al 2016;Lammer et al 2019;Sproß et al 2021). However, N 2 is itself challenging to detect directly, due its status as a homonuclear molecule with no transitional dipole moment, possessing weak collisional-induced absorption bands at 4.3 and 2.15 μm (Lafferty et al 1996;Schwieterman et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Plausible Range of N₂O Biosignatures on Exo-Earths: An Integrated Biogeochemical, Photochemical, and Spectral Modeling Approach

Schwieterman

Olson

Pidhorodetska

et al. 2022

ApJ

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Nitrous oxide (N2O)—a product of microbial nitrogen metabolism—is a compelling exoplanet biosignature gas with distinctive spectral features in the near- and mid-infrared, and only minor abiotic sources on Earth. Previous investigations of N2O as a biosignature have examined scenarios using Earthlike N2O mixing ratios or surface fluxes, or those inferred from Earth’s geologic record. However, biological fluxes of N2O could be substantially higher, due to a lack of metal catalysts or if the last step of the denitrification metabolism that yields N2 from N2O had never evolved. Here, we use a global biogeochemical model coupled with photochemical and spectral models to systematically quantify the limits of plausible N2O abundances and spectral detectability for Earth analogs orbiting main-sequence (FGKM) stars. We examine N2O buildup over a range of oxygen conditions (1%–100% present atmospheric level) and N2O fluxes (0.01–100 teramole per year; Tmol = 1012 mole) that are compatible with Earth’s history. We find that N2O fluxes of 10 [100] Tmol yr−1 would lead to maximum N2O abundances of ∼5 [50] ppm for Earth–Sun analogs, 90 [1600] ppm for Earths around late K dwarfs, and 30 [300] ppm for an Earthlike TRAPPIST-1e. We simulate emission and transmission spectra for intermediate and maximum N2O concentrations that are relevant to current and future space-based telescopes. We calculate the detectability of N2O spectral features for high-flux scenarios for TRAPPIST-1e with JWST. We review potential false positives, including chemodenitrification and abiotic production via stellar activity, and identify key spectral and contextual discriminants to confirm or refute the biogenicity of the observed N2O.

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Life as the Only Reason for the Existence of N2–O2-Dominated Atmospheres

Cited by 22 publications

References 169 publications

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

The Exosphere as a Boundary: Origin and Evolution of Airless Bodies in the Inner Solar System and Beyond Including Planets with Silicate Atmospheres

Evaluating the Plausible Range of N₂O Biosignatures on Exo-Earths: An Integrated Biogeochemical, Photochemical, and Spectral Modeling Approach

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Life as the Only Reason for the Existence of N2–O2-Dominated Atmospheres

Cited by 22 publications

References 169 publications

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

The Exosphere as a Boundary: Origin and Evolution of Airless Bodies in the Inner Solar System and Beyond Including Planets with Silicate Atmospheres

Evaluating the Plausible Range of N2O Biosignatures on Exo-Earths: An Integrated Biogeochemical, Photochemical, and Spectral Modeling Approach

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Product

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Evaluating the Plausible Range of N₂O Biosignatures on Exo-Earths: An Integrated Biogeochemical, Photochemical, and Spectral Modeling Approach