Venus: The Making of an Uninhabitable World

The goals of the astrobiology community are focussed on developing a framework for the detection of biosignatures, or evidence thereof, on objects inside and outside of our solar system.

A fundamental aspect of understanding the limits of habitable environments and detectable signatures is the study of where the boundaries of such environments can occur.

Thus, the need to study the creation, evolution, and frequency of hostile environments for habitability is an integral part of the astrobiology story. These provide the opportunity to understand the bifurcation, between habitable and uninhabitable. The archetype of such a planet is the Earth’s sister planet, Venus, and provides a unique opportunity to explore the processes that created a completely uninhabitable environment and thus define the conditions that can rule out bio-related signatures.

We advocate a continued comprehensive study of our sister planet, including models of early atmospheres, compositional abundances, and Venus-analog frequency analysis from current and future exoplanet data. Moreover, new missions to Venus to provide in-situ data are necessary.

Stephen R. Kane, Giada Arney, David Crisp, Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Lori S. Glaze, Colin Goldblatt, Adrian Lenardic, Cayman Unterborn, Michael J. Way
(Submitted on 9 Jan 2018)

Comments: 6 pages, 1 figure, white paper submitted in response to the solicitation of feedback for the “Astrobiology Science Strategy for the Search for Life in the Universe” by the National Academy of Sciences
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1801.03146 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1801.03146v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Stephen Kane
[v1] Tue, 9 Jan 2018 21:35:11 GMT (290kb)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.03146
Astrobiology