Solar XUV and ENA-driven water loss from early Venus' steam atmosphere

TL;DR

This study models how early Venus lost water due to solar XUV radiation and energetic hydrogen atoms, finding that ENAs minimally affect escape rates and most oxygen remained during the planet's first 100 million years.

Contribution

It introduces a Monte Carlo model to assess ENA interactions with Venus's early steam atmosphere, revealing their limited impact on water escape.

Findings

ENAs deposit energy mainly above XUV absorption layer

ENAs have negligible effect on thermal escape rates

Most oxygen from water dissociation was retained or absorbed by crust

Abstract

The influence of the hydrogen hydrodynamic upper atmosphere escape, driven by the solar soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation (XUV) flux, on an expected magma ocean outgassed steam atmosphere of early Venus is studied. By assuming that the young Sun was either a weak or moderate active young G star, we estimated the water loss from a hydrogen dominated thermosphere due to the absorption of the solar XUV flux and the precipitation of solar wind produced energetic hydrogen atoms (ENAs). The production of ENAs and their interaction with the hydrodynamic extended upper atmosphere, including collision-related feedback processes, have been calculated by means of Monte Carlo models. ENAs that collide in the upper atmosphere deposit their energy and heat the surrounding gas mainly above the main XUV energy deposition layer. It is shown that precipitating ENAs modify the thermal structure of the upper atmosphere, but the enhancement of the thermal escape rates caused by these energetic hydrogen atoms is negligible. Our results also indicate that the majority of oxygen arising from dissociated H$_2$O molecules is left behind during the first 100 Myr. It is thus suggested that the main part of the remaining oxygen has been absorbed by crustal oxidation.