Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.u51a..01s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #U51A-01
Other
0400 Biogeosciences, 1600 Global Change, 5400 Planetology: Solid Surface Planets
Scientific paper
The Protoearth, Mars, Venus, and the Moon-forming impactor were potentially habitable in the early solar system. The interiors of larger asteroids had habitable circulating water. To see when the inner solar system became continuously habitable, one needs to consider the most dangerous events and the safest refugia from them. Early geochemical and accretionary processes set the subsequent silicate planet reservoirs and hence hydrospheric and atmospheric masses. The moon-forming impact made the Moon and the Earth sterile bodies. Following the impact, the Earth passed through a rock-vapor atmosphere on the scale of 1000s of years and an internally heated steam greenhouse on the scale of 2 m.y. Minerals bearing the principle volatiles (water, Cl, and CO2) were stable at the Earth's surface by the time it cooled to 800K. The mass of reactable shallow material was insufficient to contain the available water and CO2. Habitable conditions were established after CO2 could be deeply subducted into the mantle. Vast quantities of H2 were vented during accretion and after the moon-forming impact and eventually lost to space. It is unknown whether significant amounts of this gas were present when the Earth's surface cooled into the habitable range. The moon remained sterile because its interior is essentially devoid of water. The mantle of the Earth, in contrast, cannot hold the available water, leaving the excess to form oceans. Nitrogen may behave similarly with the excess going into the air. Impacts of large asteroids (and comets) were an ever-present danger on otherwise habitable planets. The safest niche on planets was kilometer or deeper crustal rocks habitable by thermophiles. It is inevitable that several objects, which would have left only thermophile survivors, struck the Earth. Such events were so infrequent that the conditions of such a bottleneck should not be confused with conditions for the origin of life. An alternative refugium involves ejection of life within rock fragments and return of such fragments to the surface of the home planet or transfer to another habitable planet. Mars and the larger asteroids were habitable first and provide likely sources of seed and also testable places to look for preserved evidence. Extant terrestrial life appears to have passed through thermophile bottlenecks. There are subtle hints of space transfer. The need of extant life for Ni may be a vestige of life on a young planet covered with ultramafic rocks.
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