Signature of life on exoplanets: Can Darwin produce false positive detections?

Details Signature of life on exoplanets: Can Darwin produce false positive detections? Signature of life on exoplanets: Can Darwin produce false positive detections?

Jun 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002a%26a...388..985s&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.388, p.985-1003 (2002)

Biology

42

Astrobiology, Planets And Satellites: General, Infrared: Solar System, Stars: Planetary Systems

Scientific paper

Darwin (ESA) and Terrestrial Planet Finder-TPF (NASA) are two projects of space telescopes aiming at the detection of extra-solar terrestrial planets and some of their atmospheric components. In particular, they will be sensitive to the 9.6 mu m band of O3 which may be the signature of an O2 -rich atmosphere produced by photosynthetic life forms. In this paper, we point out that O2 , and hence O3 , can also be produced by photochemistry and we investigate the risk of ``false positive'' detection of life incurred by these missions. For this purpose, we have developed new photochemical and radiative-convective models of terrestrial planet atmospheres. By modelling the photochemistry of some realistic atmospheres, (including present and past Earth and Mars) we show that O2 -rich atmospheres (up to 5%) and IR absorbing O3 layers can build up without life from H2O and CO2 photolysis. However, Darwin can still provide a reliable way to detect, through their mid-infrared signatures, ecosystems which have developed oxygenic photosynthesis. Indeed, the two photochemical sources of O2 are shown to interfere with each other; second, when the CO2 pressure is high enough (>50 mbar) to produce appreciable amounts of O2 and O3 , it also masks the O3 feature; and third, the by-products of H2O photolysis destroy O3 . As a result, whereas the unique detection of O2 remains ambiguous, the simultaneous infrared detection of O3 , CO2 and H2O , provided by Darwin, is established to be a robust way to discriminate photochemical O2 production from biological photosynthesis: none of the atmospheres modelled exhibits this ``triple signature'', even in the most extreme ``high risk'' cases.

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