Evidence map›Paper›PMID 24778224›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014

Some inconvenient truths about biosignatures involving two chemical species on Earth-like exoplanets.

Hanno Rein, Yuka Fujii, David S Spiegel

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Hanno ReinDepartment of Environmental and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M1C 1A4; hanno.rein@utoronto.ca.
Yuka FujiiEarth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan; and.
David S SpiegelAstrophysics Department, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The detection of strong thermochemical disequilibrium in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet is thought to be a potential biosignature. In this article we present a previously unidentified kind of false positive that can mimic a disequilibrium or any other biosignature that involves two chemical species. We consider a scenario where the exoplanet hosts a moon that has its own atmosphere and neither of the atmospheres is in chemical disequilibrium. Our results show that the integrated spectrum of the planet and the moon closely resembles that of a single object in strong chemical disequilibrium. We derive a firm limit on the maximum spectral resolution that can be obtained for both directly imaged and transiting planets. The spectral resolution of even idealized space-based spectrographs that might be achievable in the next several decades is in general insufficient to break the degeneracy. Both chemical species can only be definitively confirmed in the same object if absorption features of both chemicals can be unambiguously identified and their combined depth exceeds 100%.

Indexed as

Earth, PlanetEvolution, PlanetaryModels, TheoreticalMoonAstronomyAtmosphereExobiologyExtraterrestrial EnvironmentPlanetsSpectrum AnalysisWaterWaterastrobiologybiomarkerdetection of lifeexomoonhabitability

Identifiers

PMID24778224
PMCPMC4024890

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.