What are the implications of having a database of exoplanet atmospheres?

[nhnifong]

It's probably not unreasonable to expect that in a few more decades, we will have a great sample of exoplanet atmospheres!

Hypothetically, if we had a database of the absorption spectrum of every planet in a kilo parsec of Sol, along with mass, radius, and orbit, what do you think the implications would be?

What unexpected things could we learn from this database?

[vat21s]

Average Radius of a Planet?

[Tommygun]

Well if it's good enough data to tell us if the planet has water vapor, methane and other organic compounds in its atmosphere, that alone would be big.

It doesn't mean there is life there, but its a good place to start looking.

If it also has industrial like pollutants and small amount of radiation in the air that may suggest a civilization.

But that all depends at how good our sensing equipment ever gets to be and if it can ever be that good.

[Godot]

It will definitely help us refine the models of solar system generation (and make better guesses at the probability of certain types of planets in other star systems)

[magnemoe]

Well if it's good enough data to tell us if the planet has water vapor, methane and other organic compounds in its atmosphere, that alone would be big.

It doesn't mean there is life there, but its a good place to start looking.

If it also has industrial like pollutants and small amount of radiation in the air that may suggest a civilization.

But that all depends at how good our sensing equipment ever gets to be and if it can ever be that good.

Plenty O2 pretty much proves life. Yes you can have life without oxygen generation but hardly the other way.

Polution would be very hard to prove civilization, ash and co2 is natural, you have some pollution who is only man made but its not only very rare but also have short time-span, they don't get produced many years before getting phased out.

[Tommygun]

Yes, but if we could detect all those items on one planet, that would be very exciting.

[lajoswinkler]

We could learn all sorts of things. If there's more than measly traces of oxygen, we can be 100% sure there's some kind of life.

[nhnifong]

I'm sure we'll find atmospheric signatures of life a lot of planets. If we sample 1M planets and find life on only 100, that's still enough to tell us some interesting stats about life.

Is life more common on small rocky planets or big ones? Does life absolutely need a magnetic field? What range of temperatures can it tolerate? How long does it last?

I'm guessing that we would be able to figure out which planets have magnetic fields from the relative abundance of helium.

[cantab]

Diversity in general, and particularly atmospheres unlike those in our own solar system, would be the unexpected result.

[Tommygun]

Would finding a certain amount of ozone be a good indicator of a magnetic field?

[*Aqua*]

No. There are several sources where ozone can come from.

[Tommygun]

No. There are several sources where ozone can come from.

To be more specific; if there were no magnetic field, then would too much radiation destroy the ozone?

In other words do you need to have the magnetic field to get a decent stable build up of ozone and could that then be used as an indicator of a possible magnetic field?

Or does higher radiation cause higher amounts of ozone.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Tommygun