Oxygen not evidence for exoplanet life?
Further to: There are millions of habitable planets… no and Rob Sheldon reflects on the hunt for water on Mars, we now hear from Space.com: Oxygen on Exoplanets May Not Mean Alien Life On Earth, plants release oxygen into the air through photosynthesis. If a planet beyond the solar system was found to contain oxygen in its atmosphere, scientists reasoned, that oxygen would have formed as a byproduct of life. Narita and his team decided to study the role of stellar radiation around stars similar to the sun. They found that, if enough of the mineral titania lay on the surface of a planet, it could dissolve in liquid water, producing oxygen in the atmosphere. Titania is a naturally occurring Read More ›