Chemical Habitability: Supply and Retention of Life's Essential Elements During Planet Formation
Krijt, S; Kama, M; McClure, M; et al.Teske, J; Bergin, EA; Shorttle, O; Walsh, KJ; Raymond, SN
Date: 1 July 2023
Book chapter
Publisher
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur (CHNOPS) play key roles in
the origin and proliferation of life on Earth. Given the universality of physics and chemistry,
not least the ubiquity of water as a solvent and carbon as a backbone of complex molecules,
CHNOPS are likely crucial to most habitable worlds. To help ...
Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur (CHNOPS) play key roles in
the origin and proliferation of life on Earth. Given the universality of physics and chemistry,
not least the ubiquity of water as a solvent and carbon as a backbone of complex molecules,
CHNOPS are likely crucial to most habitable worlds. To help guide and inform the search
for potentially habitable and ultimately inhabited environments, we begin by summarizing
the CHNOPS budget of various reservoirs on Earth, their role in shaping our biosphere, and
their origins in the Solar Nebula. We then synthesize our current understanding of how these
elements behave and are distributed in diverse astrophysical settings, tracing their journeys from
synthesis in dying stars to molecular clouds, protoplanetary settings, and ultimately temperate
rocky planets around main sequence stars. We end by identifying key branching points during
this journey, highlighting instances where a forming planets’ distribution of CHNOPS can be
altered dramatically, and speculating about the consequences for the chemical habitability of
these worlds.
Physics and Astronomy
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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