Abiotic oxygen-dominated atmospheres on terrestrial habitable zone planets

Abstract

Detection of life on other planets requires identification of biosignatures, i.e., observable planetary properties that robustly indicate the presence of a biosphere. One of the most widely accepted biosignatures for an Earth-like planet is an atmosphere where oxygen is a major constituent. Here we show that lifeless habitable zone terrestrial planets around any star type may develop oxygen-dominated atmospheres as a result of water photolysis, because the cold trap mechanism that protects H2O on Earth is ineffective when the atmospheric inventory of non-condensing gases (e.g., N2, Ar) is low. Hence the spectral features of O2 and O3 alone cannot be regarded as robust signs of extraterrestrial life.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Minor changes from previous version

References in corpus (15)

• Evolution of the Solar Activity over Time and Effects on Planetary Atmospheres: I. High-energy Irradiances (1-1700 A)
• Atmospheric Retrieval for Super-Earths: Uniquely Constraining the Atmospheric Composition with Transmission Spectroscopy
• High-resolution simulations of the final assembly of Earth-like planets 1: terrestrial accretion and dynamics
• Increased insolation threshold for runaway greenhouse processes on Earth like planets
• Photochemistry in Terrestrial Exoplanet Atmospheres I: Photochemistry Model and Benchmark Cases
• Finding extraterrestrial life using ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy
• The Intrinsic Extreme Ultraviolet Fluxes of F5 V to M5 V Stars
• Water loss from terrestrial planets with CO2-rich atmospheres
• High Stellar FUV/NUV Ratio and Oxygen Contents in the Atmospheres of Potentially Habitable Planets
• Abiotic formation of O2 and O3 in high-CO2 terrestrial atmospheres
• Remote Life Detection Criteria, Habitable Zone Boundaries, and the Frequency of Earthlike Planets around M and Late-K Stars
• Origin of the Ocean on the Earth: Early Evolution of Water D/H in a Hydrogen-rich Atmosphere
• Thermal phase curves of nontransiting terrestrial exoplanets 1. Characterizing atmospheres
• Evolution of the solar activity over time and effects on planetary atmospheres. II. kappa^1 Ceti, an analog of the Sun when life arose on Earth
• Volatile Transport inside Super-Earths by Entrapment in the Water Ice Matrix

Cited by in corpus (125)

• Extreme Water Loss and Abiotic O${}_2$ Buildup On Planets Throughout the Habitable Zones of M Dwarfs
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Understanding Oxygen as a Biosignature in the Context of Its Environment
• The Habitability of Planets Orbiting M-dwarf Stars
• Absence of a thick atmosphere on the terrestrial exoplanet LHS 3844b
• Observing the Atmospheres of Known Temperate Earth-sized Planets with JWST
• The MUSCLES Treasury Survey III: X-ray to Infrared Spectra of 11 M and K Stars Hosting Planets
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Framework for Their Assessment
• Habitable Moist Atmospheres On Terrestrial Planets Near the Inner Edge Of the Habitable Zone Around M-dwarfs
• Abiotic O${}_2$ Levels on Planets around F, G, K, and M Stars: Possible False Positives for Life?
• Effect of UV Radiation on the Spectral Fingerprints of Earth-like Planets Orbiting M dwarfs
• Atmospheric Reconnaissance of TRAPPIST-1 b with JWST/NIRISS: Evidence for Strong Stellar Contamination in the Transmission Spectra
• Predictions of the atmospheric composition of GJ 1132b
• Venusian Habitable Climate Scenarios: Modeling Venus through time and applications to slowly rotating Venus-Like Exoplanets
• Strong XUV irradiation of the Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting the ultracool dwarf TRAPPIST-1
• The Habitability of Proxima Centauri b: II: Environmental States and Observational Discriminants
• The Surface UV Environment on Planets Orbiting M-Dwarfs: Implications for Prebiotic Chemistry & Need for Experimental Follow-Up
• The MUSCLES Treasury Survey IV: Scaling Relations for Ultraviolet, Ca II K, and Energetic Particle Fluxes from M Dwarfs
• Hydrogen Cyanide in Nitrogen-Rich Atmospheres of Rocky Exoplanets
• Temporal evolution of the high-energy irradiation and water content of TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets
• Identifying Planetary Biosignature Impostors: Spectral Features of CO and O4 Resulting from Abiotic O2/O3 Production
• Early 2017 observations of TRAPPIST-1 with $\text{Spitzer}$
• Venus as a Laboratory for Exoplanetary Science
• Redox evolution via gravitational differentiation on low mass planets: implications for abiotic oxygen, water loss and habitability
• Atmospheric Regimes and Trends on Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
• Atmospheres of Rocky Exoplanets
• False negatives for remote life detection on ocean-bearing planets: Lessons from the early Earth
• A more comprehensive habitable zone for finding life on other planets
• Photochemistry of Anoxic Abiotic Habitable Planet Atmospheres: Impact of New H${}_2$O Cross-Sections
• Atmospheric nitrogen evolution on Earth and Venus
• Spectra of Earth-like Planets Through Geological Evolution Around FGKM Stars
• A Statistical Comparative Planetology Approach to the Hunt for Habitable Exoplanets and Life Beyond the Solar System
• Modeling pN2 through Geological Time: Implications for Planetary Climates and Atmospheric Biosignatures
• GJ 1252b: A Hot Terrestrial Super-Earth With No Atmosphere
• NIR-Driven Moist Upper Atmospheres of Synchronously Rotating Temperate Terrestrial Exoplanets
• The Role of N2 as a Geo-Biosignature for the Detection and Characterization of Earth-like Habitats
• Prospects for Detecting Oxygen, Water, and Chlorophyll on an Exo-Earth
• The Breakthrough Listen Search For Intelligent Life Near the Galactic Center I
• Transient Sulfate Aerosols as a Signature of Exoplanet Volcanism
• Hydrodynamic escape of water vapor atmospheres near very active stars
• Abundant atmospheric methane from volcanism on terrestrial planets is unlikely and strengthens the case for methane as a biosignature
• Telling twins apart: Exo-Earths and Venuses with transit spectroscopy
• Physical constraints for the evolution of life on exoplanets
• Predictions for Observable Atmospheres of Trappist-1 Planets from a Fully Coupled Atmosphere-Interior Evolution Model
• The future lifespan of Earth's oxygenated Atmosphere
• Sensitive Probing of Exoplanetary Oxygen via Mid Infrared Collisional Absorption
• Was Venus Ever Habitable? Constraints from a Coupled Interior-Atmosphere-Redox Evolution Model
• The Detectability of Rocky Planet Surface and Atmosphere Composition with JWST: The Case of LHS 3844b
• Growth and evolution of secondary volcanic atmospheres: I. Identifying the geological character of hot rocky planets
• Distinguishing between wet and dry atmospheres of TRAPPIST-1 e and f
• Oxygen False Positives on Habitable Zone Planets Around Sun-Like Stars
• Some inconvenient truths about biosignatures involving two chemical species on Earth-like exoplanets
• Convection in Condensible-rich Atmospheres
• Optimizing Ground-based Observations of O2 in Earth Analogs
• Super-Earths and Earth-like Exoplanets
• Is the Pale Blue Dot unique? Optimized photometric bands for identifying Earth-like exoplanets
• Dynamics of atmospheres with a non-dilute condensible component
• Circular spectropolarimetric sensing of vegetation in the field; possibilities for the remote detection of extraterrestrial life
• Understanding planetary context to enable life detection on exoplanets and test the Copernican principle
• The First Habitable Zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. III: Climate States and Characterization Prospects for TOI-700 d
• Is ozone a reliable proxy for molecular oxygen? I. The O2-O3 relationship for Earth-like atmospheres
• The Fundamental Connections Between the Solar System and Exoplanetary Science
• Sulfate Aerosol Hazes and SO2 Gas as Constraints on Rocky Exoplanets' Surface Liquid Water
• Reflected spectroscopy of small exoplanets II: characterization of terrestrial exoplanets
• Circular spectropolarimetric sensing of chiral photosystems in decaying leaves
• Implications of atmospheric nondetections for Trappist-1 inner planets on atmospheric retention prospects for outer planets
• Habitability and Water Loss Limits on Eccentric Planets Orbiting Main Sequence Stars
• Estimating the Ultraviolet Emission of M dwarfs with Exoplanets from Ca II and H$\alpha$
• Is Life Most Likely Around Sun-like Stars?
• Keeping M-Earths Habitable in the Face of Atmospheric Loss by Sequestering Water in the Mantle
• Theoretical Reflectance Spectra of Earth-Like Planets through Their Evolutions: Impact of Clouds on the Detectability of Oxygen, Water, and Methane with Future Direct Imaging Missions
• Red-edge position of habitable exoplanets around M-dwarfs
• Titania may produce abiotic oxygen atmospheres on habitable exoplanets
• Variability due to climate and chemistry in observations of oxygenated Earth-analogue exoplanets
• Exploring the Atmosphere of Neoproterozoic Earth: The Effect of O${}_2$ on Haze Formation and Composition
• Probing the capability of future direct imaging missions to spectrally constrain the frequency of Earth-like planets
• The O2 A-band in fluxes and polarization of starlight reflected by Earth-like exoplanets
• ExoPlaSim: Extending the Planet Simulator for Exoplanets
• Bioverse: The Habitable Zone Inner Edge Discontinuity as an Imprint of Runaway Greenhouse Climates on Exoplanet Demographics
• Buildup of Abiotic Oxygen and Ozone in Moist Atmospheres of Temperate Terrestrial Exoplanets and its Impact on the Spectral Fingerprint in Transit Observations
• On the bio-habitability of M-dwarf planets
• Ions in the Thermosphere of Exoplanets: Observable Constraints Revealed by Innovative Laboratory Experiments
• From climate models to planetary habitability: temperature constraints for complex life
• How does Background Air Pressure Influence the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone for Tidally Locked Planets in a 3D View?
• Growth and Evolution of Secondary Volcanic Atmospheres: II. The Importance of Kinetics
• Effect of O3 on the atmospheric temperature structure of early Mars
• A Catalog of Stellar Evolution Profiles and the Effects of Variable Composition on Habitable Systems
• GCM Constraints on the Detectability of the CO${}_2$-CH${}_4$ Biosignature Pair on TRAPPIST-1e with JWST
• Climate Diversity in the Solar-Like Habitable Zone due to Varying Background Gas Pressure
• The effect of high nitrogen pressures on the habitable zone and an appraisal of greenhouse states
• A New Line-By-Line General Circulation Model for Simulations of Diverse Planetary Atmospheres: Initial Validation and Application to the Exoplanet GJ 1132b
• Testing Earth-like atmospheric evolution on exo-Earths through oxygen absorption: required sample sizes and the advantage of age-based target selection
• Global or Local Pure-Condensible Atmospheres: Importance of Horizontal Latent Heat Transport
• Finding Signs of Life on Earth-like Planets: High-resolution Transmission Spectra of Earth through time around FGKM stars
• Eta-Earth Revisited II: Deriving a Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats in the Galactic Disk
• Inferring Chemical Disequilibrium Biosignatures for Proterozoic Earth-Like Exoplanets
• Limitation of atmospheric composition by combustion-explosion in exoplanetary atmospheres
• Biosignature Surveys to Exoplanet Yields and Beyond
• Constraining Background N2 Inventories on Directly Imaged Terrestrial Exoplanets to Rule Out O2 False Positives
• The high-energy radiation environment of the habitable-zone super-Earth LHS 1140b
• Photochemical Oxygen in Non-1 Bar CO2 Atmospheres of Terrestrial Exoplanets
• A Simultaneous Dual-site Technosignature Search Using International LOFAR Stations
• Earth: Atmospheric Evolution of a Habitable Planet
• Retrievals Applied To A Decision Tree Framework Can Characterize Earth-like Exoplanet Analogs
• Effects of a Binary Companion Star on Habitability of Tidally Locked Planets around an M-type Host Star
• The origin of Earth's mantle nitrogen: primordial or early biogeochemical cycling?
• Tracing the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone with Sulfur Chemistry
• The Drake Equation as a Function of Spectral Type and Time
• Characteristics of aquatic biospheres on temperate planets around Sun-like stars and M-dwarfs
• Implications of Abiotic Oxygen Buildup for Earth-like Complex Life
• Late Delivery of Nitrogen to Earth
• Effects of transient stellar emissions on planetary climates of tidally-locked exo-earths
• The Habitability of GJ 357 d : Possible Climates and Observability
• Collapse of the general circulation in shortwave-absorbing atmospheres: an idealized model study
• Variations in climate habitability parameters and their effect on Earth's biosphere during the Phanerozoic Eon
• Influence of Biomass Emissions upon Habitability, Biosignatures and Detectability in Earth-like Atmospheres
• The Diversity of Exoplanetary Environments and the Search for Signs of Life Beyond Earth
• First on-sky results of a FIOS prototype, a Fabry Perot Based Instrument for Oxygen Searches
• A Large-scale Approach to Modelling Molecular Biosignatures: The Diatomics
• Evolution and Observable Properties of Rocky Planet Atmospheres
• Carbon Cycle Imbalances on Arid Terrestrial Planets with Implications for Venus
• Is ozone a reliable proxy for molecular oxygen? III. The impact of CH${}_4$ on the O${}_2$-O${}_3$ relationship for Earth-like atmospheres
• Simulated Effects of Radioactive Elements on Magnetic Evolution and Atmospheric Mass Loss of Earth-like Planets
• An Evolving Cosmic Shoreline and Sandbar Bounding the Rocky Airless Valley
• Possible favored Great Oxidation Event scenario on exoplanets around M-Stars with the example of TRAPPIST-1e