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.

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

References in corpus (1)

• Atmospheric Retrieval for Super-Earths: Uniquely Constraining the Atmospheric Composition with Transmission Spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (62)

• Extreme Water Loss and Abiotic O${}_2$ Buildup On Planets Throughout the Habitable Zones of M Dwarfs
• Observing the Atmospheres of Known Temperate Earth-sized Planets with JWST
• Predictions of the atmospheric composition of GJ 1132b
• 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
• Early 2017 observations of TRAPPIST-1 with $\text{Spitzer}$
• Atmospheric Regimes and Trends on Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
• Photochemistry of Anoxic Abiotic Habitable Planet Atmospheres: Impact of New H${}_2$O Cross-Sections
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Dynamics of atmospheres with a non-dilute condensible component
• Understanding planetary context to enable life detection on exoplanets and test the Copernican principle
• Is ozone a reliable proxy for molecular oxygen? I. The O2-O3 relationship for Earth-like atmospheres
• 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
• 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
• Variability due to climate and chemistry in observations of oxygenated Earth-analogue exoplanets
• Keeping M-Earths Habitable in the Face of Atmospheric Loss by Sequestering Water in the Mantle
• Probing the capability of future direct imaging missions to spectrally constrain the frequency of Earth-like planets
• Ions in the Thermosphere of Exoplanets: Observable Constraints Revealed by Innovative Laboratory Experiments
• How does Background Air Pressure Influence the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone for Tidally Locked Planets in a 3D View?
• Effect of O3 on the atmospheric temperature structure of early Mars
• 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
• Eta-Earth Revisited II: Deriving a Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats in the Galactic Disk
• Biosignature Surveys to Exoplanet Yields and Beyond
• The high-energy radiation environment of the habitable-zone super-Earth LHS 1140b
• Constraining Background N2 Inventories on Directly Imaged Terrestrial Exoplanets to Rule Out O2 False Positives
• A Simultaneous Dual-site Technosignature Search Using International LOFAR Stations
• 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
• Effects of transient stellar emissions on planetary climates of tidally-locked exo-earths
• 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
• Carbon Cycle Imbalances on Arid Terrestrial Planets with Implications for Venus
• Evolution and Observable Properties of Rocky Planet Atmospheres
• 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
• 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