Terraforming & Geoengineering Archives

A complex web of interactions between geological features including volcanoes, subsurface mantle, oceans and the atmosphere created the chemical mixture necessary for early life to oxygenate our atmosphere. -- Credit ©2025 Watanabe et al. CC-BY-ND

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Microbiology & Virology, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Are Volcanoes Behind The Oxygen We Breathe?

by Keith CowingMarch 12, 2025March 12, 2025

It is widely believed that Earth’s atmosphere has been rich in oxygen for about 2.5 billion years due to a relatively rapid increase in microorganisms capable of performing photosynthesis. Researchers, […]

Comparison of Venus and Earth atmospheric profiles (left) and depth-equivalent Earth altitude versus Venus altitude (right). Data of Venus atmosphere taken from [21]; Earth atmosphere represented with Linsley’s model [17, 22]. The vertical green dashed lines at the left panel indicate the extremes of the “Habitable Zone” (HZ) of reference [23] (venusian altitudes in the range 42.8 km to 62.2 km). -- astro-ph.EP

Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Microbiology & Virology, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Venus

The Venusian Chronicles

by Keith CowingFebruary 23, 2025February 23, 2025

Venus’ atmosphere — specifically its clouds buoyed up 40 to 60 km above the surface — has long been suspected to encompass a biosphere where Earth-like living organisms could grow […]

SO2 mixing ratio at 70 km in the atmosphere of Venus as a function of latitude (Marcq et al. 2020). The red line represents a median value; the red bars show one statistical dispersion. The color pattern depicts % of observations. The data were obtained from the Venus Express SPICAV-UV observations (Table 16.1) -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Venus

Sulfur on Venus: Atmospheric, Surface, and Interior Processes

by Keith CowingFebruary 5, 2025February 5, 2025

Sulfur-bearing species play critical roles in atmospheric physical-chemical processes, atmosphere-surface interactions, and the geological evolution of Venus. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of(1) Instrumental data on the abundance and […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Eta-Earth Revisited I: A Formula for Estimating the Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats

by Keith CowingFebruary 3, 2025February 2, 2025

In this hypothesis article, we discuss the basic requirements of planetary environments where aerobe organisms can grow and survive, including atmospheric limitations of millimeter-to-meter-sized biological animal life based on physical […]

Stability landscape of the ES in terms of ψ and H. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering

Chaotic Behaviour of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

by Keith CowingJanuary 18, 2025January 18, 2025

It is shown that the Earth System (ES) can, due to the impact of human activities, exhibit chaotic behaviour.

No words, no numbers—just a powerful visual capturing our planet’s warming. The latest update adds a new dark red stripe for 2024—a color first introduced last year when 2023 shattered all previous records. -- World Meteorological Organization

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Heating Our Home World: NASA Confirms 2024 Was The Warmest Year on Record

by Keith CowingJanuary 10, 2025January 10, 2025

Earth’s average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis led by NASA scientists.

Composite age model constructed from the NKT section and comparison to other estimates for the age and duration of OAE1a. Two youngest dated tuffs SAB-046 and SAB-054 correlated from the nearby SAB section. Shaded distributions in color denote the summed probability distribution of 206Pb/238U dates for each tuff, as likelihood inputs into Bayesian modeling. Posterior distributions are superimposed in black on original likelihoods. The black solid line indicates the median, and the 95% HDI indicated by light gray shading represents the model uncertainty for all interpolated points between tuffs. The right panel illustrates estimates for the age of onset and termination of OAE1a at other sites compared to our results from Hokkaido. Note that, as described in the text, OAE1a is not consistently defined. Hk, Hokkaido; Cs, Cismon; Pb, Piobbico; Pg, Poggio le Guaine; Sb, Svalbard; Sd, Shandong. Only symbols with an error bar represent dates with an uncertainty value; otherwise, no uncertainty is provided. -- Science Advances

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Prehistoric Rock In Japan Reveals Clues To A Major Ocean Anoxic Event

by Keith CowingDecember 18, 2024December 19, 2024

By studying prehistoric rocks and fossils emerging from the side of Mount Ashibetsu in Japan, researchers have precisely refined the timing and duration of Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a), […]

Intensity raster map with averaged spectral intensity represented in log-scale. Gray dashed lines delimit the region containing the planetary limb. These represent two concentric ellipses centered at (X, Y) = (57″, 39.75″), marked with a red cross. Two vertical dashed lines were included to outline the region of the limb where the atmospheric aureole is observed. Two solid gray lines delimit the location of the solar limb. -- MDPI

Ariel Mission, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Stellar Cartography, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Venus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Rare Venus Solar Transit Helps Unravel Exoplanet Atmospheres

by Keith CowingDecember 6, 2024December 6, 2024

In the next decade, researchers will start probing the atmosphere of planets as small as Earth and Venus orbiting nearby stars. But although these two Solar System planets are similar […]