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The Goldilocks Problem for Detecting Water in Terrestrial Planets: Constraining Water Abundances in the Mid-infrared with LIFE

  • Authors: S. Rugheimer, E. Alei, B.S. Konrad, B. Taysum, J. L. Grenfell, T. Lichtenberg, D. Kitzmann, F. van der Tak, S.P. Quanz

S. Rugheimer et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal 1003 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 8.

The same as Figure 5, except showing results for the 10−6 bar surface H2O with diffusion and photochemistry model, only contributing to the H2O abundance above the surface layer. At these low surface H2O concentrations, stratospheric H2O is generated primarily by the methane oxidation photochemistry detailed in Equation (1). The posterior classification provides only an upper limit for the H2O abundance at this low concentration. Note that this also corresponds to a surface water concentration similar to modern Mars.

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