Simulating the Earth as an Extrasolar Planet

Details Simulating the Earth as an Extrasolar Planet Simulating the Earth as an Extrasolar Planet

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.0104r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #1.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.386

Biology

Scientific paper

The EPOXI Discovery Mission of Opportunity re-used the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft to obtain spatially- and temporally-resolved photometric and near-infrared spectroscopic observations of Earth. The photometric data span 340-1000nm and the spectra span 1.05-4.8um at a resolution of 216 (1um) to 1000 (4.8um). Data were taken on 3 separate days (3/19/08, 5/29/08 and 6/5/08) for a period of 24 hrs as Earth rotated under the spacecraft sub-observer point. These remote observations were taken at distances between 0.18 to 0.34AU, and serve as an analog for observations that may one day be taken by extrasolar planet characterization missions. We have used the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory 3-D spectral Earth model to generate simulated lightcurves and spectra for Earth on the dates of observation. These models are being used to better understand sensitivity to global signatures of habitability and life in the disk-averaged spectra of Earth. As part of our data/model comparisons, hemispherically-averaged spectra obtained for the northern and southern hemispheres are being analyzed to determine sensitivity to hemispheric and seasonal variations in atmospheric trace gas concentrations due to a larger biomass in the northern hemisphere. We are also analyzing the observed time-dependent behavior of Earth's "glint spot", generated by specular reflection of sunlight on Earth's oceans.

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