http://arxiv.org/abs/2010.01734
The search for life in the universe mainly uses modern Earth as a template. However, we know that Earth’s atmospheric composition changed significantly through its geological evolution. Recent discoveries show that transiting, potentially Earth-like exoplanets orbit a wide range of host stars, which strongly influence their atmospheric composition and remotely detectable spectra. Thus, a database for transiting terrestrial exoplanet around different host stars at different geological times is a crucial missing ingredient to support observational searches for signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres. Here, we present the first high-resolution transmission spectra database for Earth-like planets, orbiting a wide range of host stars, throughout four representative stages of Earth’s history. These correspond to a prebiotic high CO2-world – about 3.9 billion years ago in Earth’s history – and three epochs through the rise of oxygen from 0.2% to modern atmospheric levels of 21%. We demonstrate that the spectral biosignature pairs O2 + CH4 and O3 + CH4 in the atmosphere of a transiting Earth-like planet would show a remote observer that a biosphere exists for oxygen concentrations of about 1% modern Earth’s – corresponding to about 1 to 2 billion years ago in Earth’s history – for all host stars. The full model and high-resolution transmission spectra database, covering 0.4 to 20microns, for transiting exoplanets – from young prebiotic worlds to modern Earths-analogs – orbiting a wide range of host stars is available online. It can be used as a tool to plan and optimize our observation strategy, train retrieval methods, and interpret upcoming observations with ground- and space-based telescopes.
L. Kaltenegger, Z. Lin and S. Rugheimer
Tue, 6 Oct 2020
65/85
Comments: 9 pages, accepted in ApJ
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