Estimating the Local Hubble Parameter from the Thermal Evolution of Earth and Mars

TL;DR

This study estimates the local Hubble parameter by analyzing Earth's and Mars's ancient surface temperatures, finding values consistent with cosmological data and tidal evolution estimates, despite uncertainties in Martian water salinity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of estimating the local Hubble parameter using planetary paleotemperature data, especially from Earth's Precambrian era.

Findings

Estimated local Hubble parameter: 70-90 km/s/Mpc.

Martian data provide weak constraints due to salinity uncertainties.

Earth's paleotemperature data yield consistent Hubble estimates.

Abstract

The problem of local (e.g., interplanetary) Hubble expansion is studied for a long time but remains a controversial subject till now; and of particular interest is a plausible value of the local Hubble parameter at the scale of the Solar system. Here, we tried to estimate the corresponding quantity by the analysis of surface temperatures on the Earth and Mars, which are formed by a competition between a variable luminosity of the Sun and increasing radii of the planetary orbits. Our work employs paleochemical and paleobiological data on the temperature of the ancient Earth, on the one hand, and geological data on the existence of an ocean of liquid water on the ancient Mars, on the other hand. As follows from our analysis, the martian data impose only a weak constraint on the admissible values of the Hubble parameter because of the unknown salinity - and, therefore, the freezing point - of the martian water. On the other hand, the terrestrial data turn out to be much more valuable, especially, for the Precambrian period, when temperature variation was sufficiently smooth and monotonic. For example, in the framework of standard LambdaCDM model with 70% of dark energy, contemporary value of the local Hubble parameter was found to be 70-90 km/s/Mpc under assumption that the Earth's surface temperature in the end of Precambrian equaled 45 C. This is in reasonable agreement both with the intergalactic data and with an independent estimate of the local Hubble parameter from tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon system.