Detecting Land with Reflected Light Spectroscopy to Rule Out Waterworld O$_2$ Biosignature False Positives

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that detecting land on exo-Earths via reflected light spectroscopy can help rule out false positives of abiotic oxygen biosignatures, informing telescope design for future life detection missions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect land on exoplanets using reflected light spectra, aiding in distinguishing true biosignatures from abiotic oxygen false positives.

Findings

Land detection is feasible with 0.3-1.1 μm spectral coverage at SNR 20.

UV spectroscopy down to 0.3 μm is essential to resolve degeneracies.

An 8 m telescope aperture is recommended for practical land detection times.

Abstract

The search for life outside our solar system is at the forefront of modern astronomy, and telescopes such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) are being designed to identify biosignatures. Molecular oxygen, O$_2$, is considered a promising indication of life, yet substantial abiotic O$_2$ may accumulate from H$_2$O photolysis and hydrogen escape on a lifeless, fully (100%) ocean-covered terrestrial planet when surface O$_2$ sinks are suppressed. This so-called waterworld false positive scenario could be ruled out with land detection because exposed land precludes extremely deep oceans (~50 Earth oceans) given topographic limits set by the crushing strength of rocks. Land detection is possible because plausible geologic surfaces exhibit increasing reflectance with wavelength in the visible, whereas liquid water and ice/snow have flat or decreasing reflectance, respectively. Here, we present reflected light retrievals to demonstrate that HWO could detect land on an exo-Earth in the disk-averaged spectrum. Given a signal-to-noise ratio of 20 spectrum, Earth-like land fractions can be confidently detected with 0.3-1.1 $\mu$m spectral coverage (resolution R~140 in the visible, R~7 in the UV, with Earth-like atmosphere and clouds). We emphasize the need for UV spectroscopy down to at least 0.3 $\mu$m to break an O$_3$-land degeneracy. We find that the SNR and resolution requirements in the visible/UV imply that a larger aperture (~8 m) will be necessary to ensure the observing times required for land detection are feasible for most HWO terrestrial habitable zone targets. These results strongly inform the HWO minimum requirements to corroborate possible oxygen biosignatures.