•Photochemical irradiation of CH4/N2 atmospheres fractionates C and N isotopes.•This is the first study of photochemical fractionation during aerosol formation.•Photochemical aerosol analogs of Titan ...haze were enriched in C-13 and N-14.•Isotopic fractionation and N/C ratio are dependent on methane concentration.
The ratios of the stable isotopes that comprise each chemical species in Titan’s atmosphere provide critical information towards understanding the processes taking place within its modern and ancient atmosphere. Several stable isotope pairs, including 12C/13C and 14N/15N, have been measured in situ or probed spectroscopically by Cassini-borne instruments, space telescopes, or through ground-based observations. Current attempts to model the observed isotope ratios incorporate fractionation resulting from atmospheric diffusion, hydrodynamic escape, and primary photochemical processes. However, the effect of a potentially critical pathway for isotopic fractionation – organic aerosol formation and subsequent deposition onto the surface of Titan – has not been considered due to insufficient data regarding fractionation during aerosol formation. To better understand the nature of this process, we have conducted a laboratory study to measure the isotopic fractionation associated with the formation of Titan aerosol analogs, commonly referred to as ‘tholins’, via far-UV irradiation of several methane (CH4) and dinitrogen (N2) mixtures. Analysis of the δ13C and δ15N isotopic signatures of the photochemical aerosol products using an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS) show that fractionation direction and magnitude are dependent on the initial bulk composition of the gas mixture. In general, the aerosols showed enrichment in 13C and 14N, and the observed fractionation trends can provide insight into the chemical mechanisms controlling photochemical aerosol formation.
ABSTRACT O2 and O3 have been long considered the most robust individual biosignature gases in a planetary atmosphere, yet multiple mechanisms that may produce them in the absence of life have been ...described. However, these abiotic planetary mechanisms modify the environment in potentially identifiable ways. Here we briefly discuss two of the most detectable spectral discriminants for abiotic O2/O3: CO and O4. We produce the first explicit self-consistent simulations of these spectral discriminants as they may be seen by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). If JWST-NIRISS and/or NIRSpec observe CO (2.35, 4.6 m) in conjunction with CO2 (1.6, 2.0, 4.3 m) in the transmission spectrum of a terrestrial planet it could indicate robust CO2 photolysis and suggest that a future detection of O2 or O3 might not be biogenic. Strong O4 bands seen in transmission at 1.06 and 1.27 m could be diagnostic of a post-runaway O2-dominated atmosphere from massive H-escape. We find that for these false positive scenarios, CO at 2.35 m, CO2 at 2.0 and 4.3 m, and O4 at 1.27 m are all stronger features in transmission than O2/O3 and could be detected with S/Ns 3 for an Earth-size planet orbiting a nearby M dwarf star with as few as 10 transits, assuming photon-limited noise. O4 bands could also be sought in UV/VIS/NIR reflected light (at 0.345, 0.36, 0.38, 0.445, 0.475, 0.53, 0.57, 0.63, 1.06, and 1.27 m) by a next generation direct-imaging telescope such as LUVOIR/HDST or HabEx and would indicate an oxygen atmosphere too massive to be biologically produced.
While humanity has not yet observed any extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), contact with ETI remains possible. Contact could occur through a broad range of scenarios that have varying consequences ...for humanity. However, many discussions of this question assume that contact will follow a particular scenario that derives from the hopes and fears of the author. In this paper, we analyze a broad range of contact scenarios in terms of whether contact with ETI would benefit or harm humanity. This type of broad analysis can help us prepare for actual contact with ETI even if the details of contact do not fully resemble any specific scenario.
Abstract
The TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI) is a community project that aims to quantify how differences in general circulation models (GCMs) could impact the climate ...prediction for TRAPPIST-1e and, subsequently, its atmospheric characterization in transit. Four GCMs have participated in THAI: ExoCAM, LMD-Generic, ROCKE-3D, and the UM. This paper, focused on the simulated observations, is the third part of a trilogy, following the analysis of two land planet scenarios (Part I) and two aquaplanet scenarios (Part II). Here we show a robust agreement between the simulated spectra and the number of transits estimated to detect the land planet atmospheres. For the cloudy aquaplanet ones, a 5
σ
detection of CO
2
could be achieved in about 10 transits if the atmosphere contains at least 1 bar of CO
2
. That number can vary by 41%–56% depending on the GCM used to predict the terminator profiles, principally due to differences in the cloud deck altitude, with ExoCAM and LMD-G producing higher clouds than ROCKE-3D and UM. Therefore, for the first time, this work provides “GCM uncertainty error bars” of ∼50% that need to be considered in future analyses of transmission spectra. We also analyzed the intertransit spectral variability. Its magnitude differs significantly between the GCMs, but its impact on the transmission spectra is within the measurement uncertainties. THAI has demonstrated the importance of model intercomparison for exoplanets and also paved the way for a larger project to develop an intercomparison meta-framework, namely, the Climates Using Interactive Suites of Intercomparisons Nested for Exoplanet Studies.
Transit spectroscopy of terrestrial planets around nearby M dwarfs is a primary goal of space missions in coming decades. 3-D climate modeling has shown that slow-synchronous rotating terrestrial ...planets may develop thick clouds at the substellar point, increasing the albedo. For M dwarfs with T(eff) > 3000 K, such planets at the inner habitable zone (IHZ) have been shown to retain moist greenhouse conditions, with enhanced stratospheric water vapor (fH2O > 10(exp -3)) and low Earth-like surface temperatures. However, M dwarfs also possess strong UV activity, which may effectively photolyze stratospheric H2O. Prior modeling efforts have not included the impact of high stellar UV activity on the H2O. Here, we employ a 1-D photochemical model with varied stellar UV, to assess whether H2O destruction driven by high stellar UV would affect its detectability in transmission spectroscopy. Temperature and water vapor profiles are taken from published 3-D climate model simulations for an IHZ Earth-sized planet around a 3300 K M dwarf with an N2-H2O atmosphere; they serve as self-consistent input profiles for the 1-D model. We explore additional chemical complexity within the 1-D model by introducing other species into the atmosphere. We find that as long as the atmosphere is well-mixed up to 1 mbar, UV activity appears to not impact detectability of H2O in the transmission spectrum. The strongest H2O features occur in the JWST MIRI instrument wavelength range and are comparable to the estimated systematic noise floor of ~50 ppm.
Abstract
Atmospheric retrieval determines the properties of an atmosphere based on its measured spectrum. The low signal-to-noise ratios of exoplanet observations require a Bayesian approach to ...determine posterior probability distributions of each model parameter, given observed spectra. This inference is computationally expensive, as it requires many executions of a costly radiative transfer (RT) simulation for each set of sampled model parameters. Machine learning (ML) has recently been shown to provide a significant reduction in runtime for retrievals, mainly by training inverse ML models that predict parameter distributions, given observed spectra, albeit with reduced posterior accuracy. Here we present a novel approach to retrieval by training a forward ML surrogate model that predicts spectra given model parameters, providing a fast approximate RT simulation that can be used in a conventional Bayesian retrieval framework without significant loss of accuracy. We demonstrate our method on the emission spectrum of HD 189733 b and find good agreement with a traditional retrieval from the Bayesian Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (BART) code (Bhattacharyya coefficients of 0.9843–0.9972, with a mean of 0.9925, between 1D marginalized posteriors). This accuracy comes while still offering significant speed enhancements over traditional RT, albeit not as much as ML methods with lower posterior accuracy. Our method is ∼9× faster per parallel chain than BART when run on an AMD EPYC 7402P central processing unit (CPU). Neural-network computation using an NVIDIA Titan Xp graphics processing unit is 90×–180× faster per chain than BART on that CPU.
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