Could We Detect O2 in the Atmosphere of a Transiting Extra-solar Earth-like Planet?

Abstract

Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O₂ in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar planet would be a potential indicator of life. In this paper we address the specific issue of whether we would be able to detect the O₂ A-band absorption feature in the atmosphere of a planet similar to the Earth, if it were in orbit around a nearby star. Our method is empirical, in that we use observations of the Earth’s O₂ A-band, with a simple geometric modification for a transiting extra-solar planet, allowing for limb-darkening of the host star. We simulate the spectrum of the host star with the superposed O₂ A-band absorption of the transiting planet, assuming a spectral resolution of 8 kms^-1(typical of current echelle spectrographs), for a range of spectral signal-to-noise ratios. The main result is that in principle we may be able to detect the O₂ A-band of the transiting planet for host stars with radii R≤ 0.3R. However, using existing instrumentation and 8m telescopes, this requires target M-stars with m(V) ≈ 10 or brighter for integration times of 10 hours or less. The number of such stars over the sky is small. Larger aperture telescopes and/or improved instrumentation efficiency would enable surveys of M-stars down to m(V) ≈ 13 and greatly improve the chances of discovering life elsewhere.

Keyword: planetary systems