'Just as oxygen is essential for the lungs, hope is vital to giving purpose to one’s life.'
This quote comes from the book "Eternal Hope" written by Emil Brunner, who was a Swiss theologian.
The man actually intended to convey that oxygen is the key to discovering life outside of our planet.
Oxygen is considered essential for life on Earth because it is primarily generated by living organisms.
However, researchers have found a novel method for oxygen to develop in planetary atmospheres dense with carbon dioxide, eliminating the requirement for living organisms.
Researchers told Space.com How they searched for innovative methods to generate molecular oxygen by colliding CO2 with helium.
This method of producing oxygen is termed an 'abiotic' process, which means it does not entail living organisms.
The enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen, occurring approximately between 2.1 to 2.4 billion years ago, remains one of the greatest enigmas in history. Prior to this event, which geologists refer to as the Great Oxidation Event, much of our planet was enveloped in the pungent greenhouse gas CO2.
The presence of oxygen became noticeable in the atmosphere once ancient marine microorganisms developed the capability for photosynthesis. Following their exposure to sunlight, these organisms released oxygen into the environment.
Much of this oxygen did not persist for an extended period. Given the numerous volcanoes active back then, hydrogen likely consumed most of it.
However, after several hundreds of millions of years, as the Earth started to cool down, it provided an opportunity for our unusually oxygen-abundant atmosphere to develop.
Shan Xi Tian and Jie Hu from the University of Science and Technology of China chose to investigate how helium produced through interactions between solar winds and a planet's atmosphere might generate oxygen.
In this process, helium forms ions—charged particles that behave akin to wrecking balls, colliding with CO2 and causing it to smash into other molecules.
'This phenomenon can be observed in Mars' upper atmosphere as it contains numerous He+ ions (from solar winds) along with CO2,' explained Hu.
However, despite the formation of O+, O2+, and CO2+, O2 does not appear, at least not on Mars.
Tian and Hu employed three methods from their toolkit to put their concept to the test.
The initial method is time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry, where particles become ions and are accelerated to achieve equal kinetic energy. The duration taken for them to cover the same distance is utilized to determine their mass.
The duo utilized a 'crossed-beam apparatus' for colliding two molecules, along with 'ion velocity maps' to document the paths and speeds of the resulting ions.
'We discovered a significantly different mechanism for producing O2 from molecular CO2,' Tian stated. 'Specifically, via the interaction between helium ions [He+] and CO2.'
To put it simply, Tian and Hu’s research discovered that life-supporting oxygen might develop on planets with CO2-heavy atmospheres before any living organisms have appeared there.
David Benoit, who serves as a senior lecturer in Molecular Physics and Astrochemistry at the University of Hull’s EA Milne Centre for Astrophysics, now indicates that the quest is underway to locate planets where this might plausibly occur.
'This innovative mechanism is expected to be included in upcoming models designed to forecast the atmospheres of other planets,' Benoit stated to Space.com. 'It will assist us in more accurately explaining the levels of oxygen we may discover.'
Contact our news team by sending an email to webnews@aynur1015.blogspot.com.co.uk .
To find similar tales, check our news page .
Be among those who catch all the buzzworthy tales by subscribing to aynur1015.blogspot.com's News Updates newsletter.
