Our Solar System Neighborhood: Three Diverging Tales of Planetary Habitability and Windows to Earth's Past and Future

TL;DR

This paper examines Venus, Earth, and Mars to understand planetary habitability, highlighting their evolutionary pathways and how they inform the study of exoplanets.

Contribution

It offers a detailed comparison of the terrestrial planets' properties and evolution to develop templates for assessing planetary habitability.

Findings

Venus, Earth, and Mars have diverging evolutionary histories.

Solar evolution significantly impacts planetary atmospheres.

Planetary interior and atmospheric evolution are key to habitability.

Abstract

Understanding planetary habitability is one of the major challenges of the current scientific era, particularly given the discovery of a large and diverse terrestrial exoplanet population. Discerning the primary factors that contribute to planetary habitability may be extracted through a detailed examination of the terrestrial planets within the Solar System, most particularly Venus, Earth, and Mars, and the evolution of their interiors and atmospheres through time. Here, we provide a detailed description of the fundamental properties of these three planets, the effects of solar evolution, and the potential contributions of these various aspects toward driving their evolutionary pathways. We argue that evolution of Venus, Earth, and Mars provide essential templates from which a more comprehensive approach toward the study of planetary habitability may be derived.