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The Early Evolution of the Atmospheres of Terrestrial Planets pp 33–52Cite as

Stability of Earth-Like N2 Atmospheres: Implications for Habitability

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Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings ((ASSSP,volume 35))

Abstract

According to recent studies related to the EUV heating by the young Sun of Earth’s nitrogen atmosphere, upper atmosphere temperatures could rise up to several thousand Kelvin. For fluxes larger ≥ 7 times that of today’s Sun the thermosphere changes from a hydrostatic to a dynamically expanding non-hydrostatic regime, adiabatically cools but expands beyond the magnetopause so that the magnetosphere is not able to protect the upper atmosphere from solar wind erosion. A N2-rich terrestrial atmosphere would have been lost within a few million years during the EUV active period of the young Sun ≥ 4 Ga ago. These results indicate that a hydrogen-rich gaseous envelope, which could have remained from Earths protoatmosphere and/or higher atmospheric CO2 amounts may have protected Earth’s atmospheric nitrogen inventory against efficient escape to space. An alternative scenario would be that the nitrogen in Earth’s early atmosphere was degassed or delivered during the late heavy bombardment period, where the solar EUV flux decreased to values < 7 times of the modern value. Finally, we discuss how EUV heated and extended upper atmospheres and their interaction with the host star’s plasma environment could be observed around transiting Earth-like exoplanets at dwarf stars by space observatories such as the WSO-UV. Such future observations could be used to test the discussed atmospheric evolution scenarios and would enhance our understanding on the impact on the activity of the young Sun/star on the early atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Mars and exoplanets.

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Acknowledgements

H. Lammer, K. G. Kislyakova, M. Güdel and M. L. Khodachenko, acknowledge the support by the FWF NFN project S116 “Pathways to Habitability: From Disks to Active Stars, Planets to Life”, and the FWF NFN subprojects, S116 604-N16, S116606-N16, S116607-N16. P. Odert acknowledges the FWF project P22950-N16. N. V. Erkaev acknowledge support from the RFBR grant N 12-05-00152-a. The authors also acknowledge support from the EU FP7 project IMPEx (No.262863) and the EUROPLANET-RI projects, JRA3/EMDAF and the Na2 science WG4 and WG5. H. Lammer, K. G. Kislyakova and P. Odert thank also the Helmholtz Alliance project “Planetary Evolution and Life.” The software used for the hydrogen exosphere and stellar wind plasma interaction simulations was in part developed by the DOE-supported ASC/Alliance Center for AstrophysicalThermonuclear Flashes at the University of Chicago, USA. K. G. Kislyakova, M. Holmström and H. Lammer acknowledge also supporting HPC resources of HPC2N, Umeå University, Sweden.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Space Research Institute, Graz, Austria

    Helmut Lammer, Kristina G. Kislyakova, Petra Odert & Maxim L. Khodachenko

  2. Institute of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Manuel Güdel

  3. Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden

    Mats Holmström

  4. Institute for Computational Modelling, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation

    Nikolai V. Erkaev

  5. Institute of Physics, IGAM, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Petra Odert

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  1. Helmut Lammer
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  2. Kristina G. Kislyakova
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  3. Manuel Güdel
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  4. Mats Holmström
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  7. Maxim L. Khodachenko
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Correspondence to Helmut Lammer .

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  1. Campus UAB, Sciences Faculty, Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC-IEEC), 2nd Floor, Tower C-5 even, Bellaterra, 08193, Spain

    J.M. Trigo-Rodriguez

  2. , Université Paris Est Créteil, LISA, UMR CNRS/UPEC/UPD/IPSL, avenue du Général de Gaulle 61, Créteil CX, 94010, France

    François Raulin

  3. , Earth and Space Science Coordination, B.USOC, Avenue Circulaire 3, Brussels, 1180, Belgium

    Christian Muller

  4. , Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, Stadium Dr., Greenbelt, 20742, USA

    Conor Nixon

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Lammer, H. et al. (2013). Stability of Earth-Like N2 Atmospheres: Implications for Habitability. In: Trigo-Rodriguez, J., Raulin, F., Muller, C., Nixon, C. (eds) The Early Evolution of the Atmospheres of Terrestrial Planets. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 35. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5191-4_4

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