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S. Masiero and M. S. Erculiani
9.4.2 Earth’s Primordial Atmophere in Comparison to Other
Exoplanets’ Atmosphere
Earth can be a model for detecting vegetation on exoplanets. Over the last 500 million
years, Earth’s surface has changed dramatically, from being ice-covered to having
huge forests spread out over land. For most of our home planet’s early history, land
plants did not exist, but around 465 million years ago, the plants colonized the land.
As plants evolved on Earth, the vegetation signal that reveals their presence became
stronger.
9.5 Conclusion
The students should be able to:
• explain, in their own words, the phenomenon observed;
• record and analyse data on their own and draw the necessary conclusions;
• understand the key conditions needed to find potential life outside Earth;
• create, imagine (and live for a while) a new planet very different from Earth;
• know Earth’s natural history as a guide to spot vegetation on exoplanets;
• understand the Earth is a finite sphere with finite resources that can be depleted by
mankind. The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin compared to its diameter. Humans
can easily alter the composition of this thin atmosphere. If too much greenhouse
gasses are put into the atmosphere, the Earth will warm because of a stronger
greenhouse effect. This has dramatic consequences for our civilization, such as
rising sea level, wider deserts, altering climates, and a runaway warming effect to
increase the global temperature even more. With no known alien life to help us,
or closeby habitable planets, we depent on the Earth;
• learn that this is the only place in the universe that is suitable for life as we know
it, which promotes respect for the environment and a sense of a global community.
References
1. C.P. McKay, Requirements and limits for life in the context of exoplanets. PNAS 111(35),
12628–12633 (2014)
2. F.J. Ballesteros, B. Luque, Walking on exoplanets: is star wars right? Astrobiology 16(5), 325
(2016)
3. K. Takemura, H. Kamachi, A. Kume, T. Fujita, I. Karahara, Y.T. Hanba, A hypergravity environment increases chloroplast size, photosynthesis, and plant growth in the moss physcomitrella
patens. J. Plant Res. 130, 181–192 (2017)
4. T. Hoson, Plant growth and morphogenesis under different gravity conditions: relevance to
plant life in space. Publ. Med. 4(2), 205–16 (2014)
S. Masiero and M. S. Erculiani
9.4.2 Earth’s Primordial Atmophere in Comparison to Other
Exoplanets’ Atmosphere
Earth can be a model for detecting vegetation on exoplanets. Over the last 500 million
years, Earth’s surface has changed dramatically, from being ice-covered to having
huge forests spread out over land. For most of our home planet’s early history, land
plants did not exist, but around 465 million years ago, the plants colonized the land.
As plants evolved on Earth, the vegetation signal that reveals their presence became
stronger.
9.5 Conclusion
The students should be able to:
• explain, in their own words, the phenomenon observed;
• record and analyse data on their own and draw the necessary conclusions;
• understand the key conditions needed to find potential life outside Earth;
• create, imagine (and live for a while) a new planet very different from Earth;
• know Earth’s natural history as a guide to spot vegetation on exoplanets;
• understand the Earth is a finite sphere with finite resources that can be depleted by
mankind. The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin compared to its diameter. Humans
can easily alter the composition of this thin atmosphere. If too much greenhouse
gasses are put into the atmosphere, the Earth will warm because of a stronger
greenhouse effect. This has dramatic consequences for our civilization, such as
rising sea level, wider deserts, altering climates, and a runaway warming effect to
increase the global temperature even more. With no known alien life to help us,
or closeby habitable planets, we depent on the Earth;
• learn that this is the only place in the universe that is suitable for life as we know
it, which promotes respect for the environment and a sense of a global community.
References
1. C.P. McKay, Requirements and limits for life in the context of exoplanets. PNAS 111(35),
12628–12633 (2014)
2. F.J. Ballesteros, B. Luque, Walking on exoplanets: is star wars right? Astrobiology 16(5), 325
(2016)
3. K. Takemura, H. Kamachi, A. Kume, T. Fujita, I. Karahara, Y.T. Hanba, A hypergravity environment increases chloroplast size, photosynthesis, and plant growth in the moss physcomitrella
patens. J. Plant Res. 130, 181–192 (2017)
4. T. Hoson, Plant growth and morphogenesis under different gravity conditions: relevance to
plant life in space. Publ. Med. 4(2), 205–16 (2014)