Bioverse: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Capabilities of Extremely Large Telescopes to Probe Earth-like O${}_2$ Levels in Nearby Transiting Habitable Zone Exoplanets

Abstract

Molecular oxygen is a strong indicator of life on Earth, and may indicate biological processes on exoplanets too. Recent studies proposed that Earth-like O${}_2$ levels might be detectable on nearby exoplanets using high-resolution spectrographs on future extremely large telescopes (ELTs). However, these studies did not consider constraints like relative velocities, planet occurrence rates, and target observability. We expanded on past studies by creating a homogeneous catalog of 286,391 main-sequence stars within 120 pc using Gaia DR3, and used the Bioverse framework to simulate the likelihood of finding nearby transiting Earth analogs. We also simulated a survey of M dwarfs within 20 pc accounting for ${\eta }_{\oplus }$ estimates, transit probabilities, relative velocities, and target observability to determine how long ELTs and theoretical 50-100 meter ground-based telescopes need to observe to probe for Earth-like O${}_2$ levels with an $R=100,000$ spectrograph. This would only be possible within 50 years for up to $\sim$21% of nearby M dwarf systems if a suitable transiting habitable zone Earth-analog was discovered, assuming signals from every observable partial transit from each ELT can be combined. If so, Earth-like O${}_2$ levels could be detectable on TRAPPIST-1 d-g within 16 to 55 years, respectively, and about half that time with an $R=500,000$ spectrograph. These results have important implications for whether ELTs can survey nearby habitable zone Earth analogs for O${}_2$ via transmission spectroscopy. Our work provides the most comprehensive assessment to date of the ground-based capabilities to search for life beyond the solar system.

arXiv comment30 pages, 14 figures, 8 tables. Revised and resubmitted to AJ after a favorable referee report

References in corpus (82)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• The Gaia mission
• The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package
• Intrinsic Colors, Temperatures, and Bolometric Corrections of Pre-Main Sequence Stars
• The SIMBAD astronomical database
• A Survey of Stellar Families: Multiplicity of Solar-Type Stars
• The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE)
• Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1
• The California-Kepler Survey. III. A Gap in the Radius Distribution of Small Planets
• Accurate masses and radii of normal stars: modern results and applications
• A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri
• New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and Galactic disc(s). Improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey
• The GALAH Survey: Scientific Motivation
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: Photometric content and validation
• How to Constrain Your M Dwarf: measuring effective temperature, bolometric luminosity, mass, and radius
• Habitable Zones Around Main-Sequence Stars: Dependence on Planetary Mass
• Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
• The GALAH+ Survey: Third Data Release
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life
• Gaia Data Release 2: first stellar parameters from Apsis
• A million binaries from Gaia eDR3: sample selection and validation of Gaia parallax uncertainties
• Design Considerations for a Ground-based Transit Search for Habitable Planets Orbiting M dwarfs
• How to Constrain Your M dwarf II: the mass-luminosity-metallicity relation from 0.075 to 0.70$M_{\odot }$
• A temperate rocky super-Earth transiting a nearby cool star
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: The Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Understanding Oxygen as a Biosignature in the Context of Its Environment
• A stellar-mass-dependent drop in planet occurrence rates
• Understanding The Effects Of Stellar Multiplicity On The Derived Planet Radii From Transit Surveys: Implications for Kepler, K2, and TESS
• A Revised Exoplanet Yield from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
• Spectroscopic stellar parameters for 582 FGK stars in the HARPS volume-limited sample. Revising the metallicity-planet correlation
• Kinematics and history of the solar neighbourhood revisited
• Finding extraterrestrial life using ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy
• The Impact of Stellar Multiplicity on Planetary Systems, I.: The Ruinous Influence of Close Binary Companions
• The Kepler Follow-Up Observation Program. I. A Catalog of Companions to Kepler Stars from High-Resolution Imaging
• The Exoplanet Population Observation Simulator. I - The Inner Edges of Planetary Systems
• An Increase in the Mass of Planetary Systems around Lower-Mass Stars
• The cosmic shoreline: the evidence that escape determines which planets have atmospheres, and what this may mean for Proxima Centauri b
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Framework for Their Assessment
• A Guide to Realistic Uncertainties on Fundamental Properties of Solar-Type Exoplanet Host Stars
• Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): I. Improved exoplanet detection yield estimates for a large mid-infrared space-interferometer mission
• The Solar Neighborhood XLV. The Stellar Multiplicity Rate of M Dwarfs Within 25 pc
• The Occurrence of Rocky Habitable Zone Planets Around Solar-Like Stars from Kepler Data
• Kepler Planet Occurrence Rates for Mid-Type M Dwarfs as a Function of Spectral Type
• Disequilibrium biosignatures over Earth history and implications for detecting exoplanet life
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Observational Prospects
• Feasibility Studies for the Detection of $O_2$ in an Earth-like Exoplanet
• Influence of Stellar Multiplicity On Planet Formation. I. Evidence of Suppressed Planet Formation Due to Stellar Companions Within 20 AU and Validation of Four Planets From the Kepler Multiple Planet Candidates
• Exoplanet Biosignatures: Future Directions
• Searching the Entirety of Kepler Data. II. Occurrence Rate Estimates for FGK Stars
• Detectability of atmospheric features of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around M dwarfs
• A revision of the solar neighbourhood metallicity distribution
• Scaling K2. I. Revised Parameters for 222,088 K2 Stars and a K2 Planet Radius Valley at 1.9 $R_{\oplus }$
• A second terrestrial planet orbiting the nearby M dwarf LHS 1140
• Planetary system LHS 1140 revisited with ESPRESSO and TESS
• The atmospheric circulation and climate of terrestrial planets orbiting Sun-like and M-dwarf stars over a broad range of planetary parameters
• A Near-Infrared Spectroscopic Survey of 886 Nearby M Dwarfs
• astroplan: An Open Source Observation Planning Package in Python
• Why do M dwarfs have more transiting planets?
• Constraints on Planet Occurrence around Nearby Mid-to-Late M Dwarfs from the MEarth Project
• Two temperate super-Earths transiting a nearby late-type M dwarf
• Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): III. Spectral resolution, wavelength range and sensitivity requirements based on atmospheric retrieval analyses of an exo-Earth
• Predicted diversity in water content of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs
• A Joint Mass-Radius-Period Distribution of Exoplanets
• HADES RV Programme with HARPS-N at TNG XV. Planetary occurrence rates around early-M dwarfs
• Sensitive Probing of Exoplanetary Oxygen via Mid Infrared Collisional Absorption
• A Thousand Earths: A Very Large Aperture, Ultralight Space Telescope Array for Atmospheric Biosignature Surveys
• Calibration of the MEarth Photometric System: Optical Magnitudes and Photometric Metallicity Estimates for 1802 Nearby M-dwarfs
• Optimizing Ground-based Observations of O2 in Earth Analogs
• Characterizing K2 Candidate Planetary Systems Orbiting Low-Mass Stars IV: Updated Properties for 86 Cool Dwarfs Observed During Campaigns 1-17
• The impact of stripped cores on the frequency of Earth-size planets in the habitable zone
• The Demographics of Kepler's Earths and super-Earths into the Habitable Zone
• Testing the Detectability of Extraterrestrial ${\mathrm{O}}_2$ with the ELTs using Real Data with Real Noise
• Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): VI. Detecting rocky exoplanets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars
• Bioverse: a simulation framework to assess the statistical power of future biosignature surveys
• Assessing $TESS$'s Yield of Rocky Planets Around Nearby M Dwarfs
• The occurrence rate of exoplanets orbiting ultracool dwarfs as probed by K2
• Testing Earth-like atmospheric evolution on exo-Earths through oxygen absorption: required sample sizes and the advantage of age-based target selection
• Upper Limits on Planet Occurrence around Ultracool Dwarfs with K2
• EDEN Survey: Small Transiting Planet Detection Limits and Constraints on the Occurrence Rates for Late M Dwarfs within 15 pc

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Super-Earths and Earth-like Exoplanets
• Bioverse: The Habitable Zone Inner Edge Discontinuity as an Imprint of Runaway Greenhouse Climates on Exoplanet Demographics
• Behind the Mask: can HARMONI@ELT detect biosignatures in the reflected light of Proxima b?
• Dynamics and Clouds in Planetary Atmospheres from Telescopic Observations
• Inferring Chemical Disequilibrium Biosignatures for Proterozoic Earth-Like Exoplanets
• Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES). I. Astrometric Noise and Planetary Detection Efficiency due to Stellar Spots and Faculae
• Instrumentation prospects for rocky exoplanet atmospheres studies with high resolution spectroscopy
• Detecting Biosignatures in Nearby Rocky Exoplanets using High-Contrast Imaging and Medium-Resolution Spectroscopy with Extremely Large Telescope
• An ab initio spectroscopic model of the molecular oxygen atmospheric and infrared bands
• X-ray variability of the triplet star system LTT1445 and evaporation history of the exoplanets around its A component
• Radius valley scaling among low mass stars with TESS
• Scaling K2 VIII: Short-Period Sub-Neptune Occurrence Rates Peak Around Early-Type M Dwarfs
• Artificial Greenhouse Gases as Exoplanet Technosignatures
• Discovery of a Nearby Habitable Zone Super-Earth Candidate Amenable to Direct Imaging
• Not Earth-like Yet Temperate? More Generic Climate Feedback Configurations Still Allow Temperate Climates in Habitable Zone Exo-Earth Candidates
• Bioverse: Potentially Observable Exoplanet Biosignature Patterns Under the UV Threshold Hypothesis for the Origin of Life