Study warns of 'oxygen false positives' in search for signs of life on other planets

Space Daily ^ | Apr 14, 2021 | Space Daily staff writers

[Salman]

In the search for life on other planets, the presence of oxygen in a planet's atmosphere is one potential sign of biological activity that might be detected by future telescopes. A new study, however, describes several scenarios in which a lifeless rocky planet around a sun-like star could evolve to have oxygen in its atmosphere.

The new findings, published April 13 in AGU Advances, highlight the need for next-generation telescopes that are capable of characterizing planetary environments and searching for multiple lines of evidence for life in addition to detecting oxygen.

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[Shadylake]

I sure hope the James Webb space telescope launches soon. They should be able to directly scan exoplanet atmospheres. Big race between ground scopes and space ones going on.

[ClearCase_guy]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. IT’S GOT COVID.

[mountainlion]

Earth has about 350 items that support life. Oxygen is just one. It is quite simple minded that finding one or two of these is enough to support life.

[JonPreston]

[Pez149]

Sorry but no one has ever seen a planet revolving around another star.
Anyone who believes that is lying or ignorant...

[circlecity]

Not only that but the amount of oxygen and other elements in the atmosphere must be narrowly calibrated to sustain life.

[rarestia]

I mean... you're not wrong, but you are.

[PIF]

Also take into consideration the the amount of 02 was far higher in the past, as was CO2, then it is today.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Salman.

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[dangus]

Oxygen is the 2nd most reactive substance in the universe. We fail to recognize how reactive it is because pretty much everything on Earth has already reacted with it. That’s literally what makes gold and platinum so unique: they’re solids that don’t react with oxygen.

Plants liberate oxygen, so the presence of an oxygen-rich atmosphere has been considered a tell-tale sign of life that can be detected from light-years away. This article says, “not so fast...”

[dangus]

See comment #11: it’s not that the element oxygen is needed for life; it’s nearly ubiquitous in any star system that isn’t first-generation. It’s that without life, all of Earth’s free oxygen would’ve reacted to form other compounds (silicate rocks, water, etc.). Life liberated oxygen.

[Getready]

As you say...the mere presence of oxygen as an indication of life is simpleminded. Announcement is more likely a teaser to get funding from government (taxpayers) coffers.

[Wuli]

Humans who in terms of space travel are somewhere, years of somewhere, earlier than a “Pre-K” stage of knowledge and too many are wasting human energy on a matter that eventually physical exploration itself will one day solve, regardless of all the current childish speculations. These efforts do not deserve a dime’s worth of taxpayers money. PRIVATE interests can waste all the money they want.

[Svartalfiar]

Earth has about 350 items that support life. Oxygen is just one. It is quite simple minded that finding one or two of these is enough to support life.

It's not that oxygen is an indication that life exists on a particular planet, it's that the lack of oxygen in an atmosphere is a pretty sure indication that there isn't life on such planet, at least not useful for humans. It's one of the few atmospheric substances that can indicate life, and therefore is a good way to narrow down exoplanets that might contain life.

There's not many ways for us to tell what a particular planet is like, but we can tell enough about how a star's light is affected by an exoplanet to guess some of what makes up the atmosphere of said planet. That, plus location in the star's comfort zone are the only big life-indicators that we can determine from this far away.