While oxygen is often considered a key component for a habitable planet like Earth, recent research suggests that the presence of oxygen alone might not be a definitive sign of life, and a planet could potentially have a habitable atmosphere without large amounts of oxygen due to other atmospheric components and conditions, making it possible for an exoplanet to be Earth-like even without a high oxygen level; scientists are exploring other potential biosignatures to identify life on other planets. 

Key points about oxygen and exoplanet habitability: 

• Abiotic Oxygen Production:Certain minerals like titanium oxide can produce oxygen through photocatalytic reactions, meaning oxygen could exist in an exoplanet’s atmosphere without the presence of life. 
• Early Earth and Methane:Early Earth had a very different atmosphere with much less oxygen and more methane, which could be a better indicator of early life on a planet. 
• Importance of Other Gases:The balance of other gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor is crucial for a planet’s climate and potential habitability, even if oxygen is not abundan

Do any exoplanets have oxygen?

Oxygen is one of the most abundant elements on Earth and probably on rocky exoplanets too

Earth the only planet with oxygen in its atmosphere?

This makes Europa the first satellite ever found to have an oxygen atmosphere, and only the third such solar system object beyond Earth (the planets Mars and

Are there any exoplanets we can breathe on?

If an exoplanet passes in front of its parent star, astronomers can study the fingerprint that the exoplanet’s atmosphere leaves on the light from the star. This tells them about the atmosphere of the planet. So far, no Earth-like atmospheres have been found

Does Kepler-452b have water?

Furthermore, extremely high H2O-content of the exoplanets Kepler-62 f, Kepler-1652 b, Kepler-452 b, and Kepler-442 b suggests that these planets may maintain a water vapour atmosphere and may in fact be examples of larger ocean worlds

Does titan have oxygen?

Titan’s atmosphere lacks oxygen; however it contains ice water below its surface that can be used as a source of oxygen. An exciting activity you could do on Titan is fly! All you would need is wings similar to those worn by some skydivers on Earth

Can humans live on exoplanets?

The orbit must lie in the “habitable zone” where the exoplanet’s surface is just the right temperature for liquid water to exist. Every form of life we know requires liquid water, so an exoplanet too close or too far from its host star is less likely to contain life

Japanese researchers find that a planet rich with oxygen doesn’t mean it has life.

From Japanese National Institutes of Natural Sciences

The Earth’s atmosphere contains oxygen because plants continuously produce it through photosynthesis. This abundant supply of oxygen allows life forms like animals to flourish. Therefore, oxygen had been thought to be an essential biomarker for life on extrasolar planets.

But now, a research assistant professor Norio Narita of the Astrobiology Center of National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), which was founded in April 2015, and an associate professor Shigeyuki Masaoka, of the Institute of Molecular Science of NINS, have presented a novel hypothesis that it could be possible for planets to have large quantities of abiotic (non-biologically produced) oxygen. This study is a good example of interdisciplinary studies that combine knowledge from different fields of science to promote astrobiology in the search for life on extrasolar planets. The study is published in Scientific Reports on Sept. 10, 2015.

Until now, it had been thought that if a planet has oxygen, that must mean that some form of plants are producing it through photosynthesis. Therefore, it had been assumed that when searching for signs of life on habitable extrasolar planets, the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere could be considered a definitive biomarker.

However, non-biological chemical reactions can also affect atmospheric compositions of extrasolar planets. Now, the research team led by Dr. Narita has shown that abiotic oxygen produced by the photocatalytic reaction of titanium oxide, which is known to be abundant on the surfaces of terrestrial planets, meteorolites, and the Moon in the solar system, cannot be discounted.

For a planet with an environment similar to the Sun-Earth system, continuous photocatalytic reaction of titanium oxide on about 0.05 % of the planetary surface could produce the amount of oxygen found in the current Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the team estimated the amount of possible oxygen production for habitable planets around other types of host stars with various masses and temperatures.

They found that even in the least efficient production case of a low-temperature star, the photocatalytic reaction of the titanium oxide on about 3 percent of the planetary surface could maintain this level of atmospheric oxygen through abiotic processes. In other words, it is possible that a habitable extrasolar planet could maintain an atmosphere with Earth-like oxygen, even without organisms to perform photosynthesis.

Dr. Narita said, “To search for life on extrasolar planets through astronomical observation, we need to combine the knowledge from various scientific fields and to promote astrobiology researches to establish the decisive signs of life. Although oxygen is still one of possible biomarkers, it becomes necessary to look for new biomarkers besides oxygen from the present result.”

The search for life across interstellar distances is a scientific challenge that pushes the boundaries of observational astronomy and requires careful consideration of the signs of life that we will best be able to detect. These signs are known as “biosignatures”—life’s global impacts on the atmosphere and/or surface of a planetary environment

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