[University of Washington] It’s a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have cataloged more than 6,000 planets beyond our solar system and […]
Gaia – Planetary Perspectives
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Coupled Evolution Of Earth’s H2-rich Proto-atmosphere And Oxidized Magma Ocean
[astro-ph.EP] Giant impacts during Earth’s final accretion likely generated global magma oceans, where the disproportionation of Fe2+ at lower-mantle pressures and segregation of the resulting metallic iron into the core […]
![Atmospheric evolution with and without a post-disk giant impact. Panel 1: The common initial state for a rocky planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Panels 2a–4a: A giant impact deposits energy into the mantle and core, but the increase in gravitational binding energy dominates, allowing the planet to retain its hydrogen-rich atmosphere and evolve into a sub-Neptune (1.75−3.5 R⊕). Panels 2b–4b: In the absence of such an impact, the planet is less massive, loses its primordial atmosphere under sustained stellar irradiation, and becomes a super-Earth (1−1.75 R⊕). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Retention.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inImpact events
Retention Of Primordial Atmospheres Through Giant Impacts
[astro-ph.EP] Rocky planets the size of Earth or larger are expected to undergo one or more giant impacts during the final stages of their formation.
Posted inGaia - Planetary Perspectives
How Life On Earth Experiences Climate Change
[Stockholm University] Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Simulations Of The Evolving Ozone Layer: Implications For The Early Earth, Exoplanets, And The Search For Life
[astro-ph.EP] Over 4 billion years, Earth’s atmosphere has been transformed from a composition devoid of molecular oxygen (O2) to one where O2 is now 21% of our modern atmosphere by […]
![A comparison of the upwards and downwards long-wave radiative fluxes (left and middle column) after 2000 years using a tidally-locked co-ordinate system. AS, T and SS denote the antistellar point, terminator and substellar point respectively. The right-hand column shows the difference in fluxes in filled contours, which are overlain by solid black contours that indicate the percentage increase of specific humidity in the 100 m versus the 10 m simulation.-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/The-Hydrological.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
The Hydrological Cycle and Circulation of Tidally-Locked Planets with A Finite Moisture Inventory
[astro-ph.EP] Tidally-locked planets express a range of climate regimes distinct from those found in our solar system.
![Percentage of 1,000 stochastic paths that converge shown as color maps for e “ 0.1, 0.3. The two bracketed values in the title of each sub-figure are the critical deterministic values of S ˚ for convergence and bifurcation given in Table A.2. The white and black horizontal lines are the convergence and bifurcation values respectively. Additional figures are found in the Supplementary Material (Appendix C). -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Stochastic-Snowball.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology
Stochastic Snowball States in Planetary Climate
[astro-ph.EP] Motivated by the recent finding of Ji and Abbot (2025) that at moderate eccentricity (0.2–0.3) the planetary Snowball bistability vanishes, we have introduced stochasticity of the orbital eccentricity into […]
![Temperature space-time diagram for the 300 K initial condition for the fiducial Earth model planet at (a) 0.930 AU (temperate state), and (b) 0.920 AU (post-runaway). The red contour denotes the 323 K isotherm.-- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Gen-EBM.png?resize=1200%2C697&ssl=1)
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Gen-EBM: An Energy Balance Model For Terrestrial Planets. Climate Multistability From Snowball To Post-runaway Greenhouse Climates
[astro-ph.EP] Climate multistability and tipping points are fundamental properties of planetary climates that depend sensitively on climate feedbacks.
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology
Material Cycling Across Earth’s Spheres And Triggers Of Cambrian Explosion: A Tectonic Perspective
[ELSP] A comprehensive model of the Cambrian explosion featuring “multi-factors coupling and multi-sphere driving”. Supercontinent breakup and mantle plume activity served as the initial trigger of environmental change in the […]
Posted inMars
Mars’ Oddest Cloud May Be Even Odder Than We Thought
[ESA]. Scientists using the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, in combination with a state-of-the-art meteorological model of the Red Planet, have found that there may be some very exotic physics […]