A whole-planet model of the Earth without life for terrestrial exoplanet studies

[2602.02267] A whole-planet model of the Earth without life for terrestrial exoplanet studies Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > Earth and Planetary Astrophysics arXiv:2602.02267 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 2 Feb 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 24 Aug 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: A whole-planet model of the Earth without life for terrestrial exoplanet studies Authors: Samantha Gilbert-Janizek , Rory K. Barnes , Peter E. Driscoll , Nicholas F. Wogan , Avi M. Mandell , Jessica L. Birky , Ludmila Carone , Rodolfo Garcia View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: As the only known habitable (and inhabited) planet in the universe, Earth informs our search for life elsewhere. Future telescopes like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will soon look for life on rocky worlds around Sun-like stars, so it is critical that we understand how to distinguish habitable planets from inhabited planets. However, it remains unknown if life is necessary to maintain a habitable planet, or how all of the components of an evolving planet impact habitability over time. As a first step toward answering these questions, we present a coupled interior-atmosphere evolution model of the Earth without life from 50 Myr to 5 Gyr that reproduces 19 key observations of the pre-industrial Earth after 4.5 Gyr within estimated measurement uncertainties. We also produce a reflected light spectrum covering the possible wavelength range of HWO. Our findings suggest that life may not be required to maintain long-term habitable surface conditions. The model presented here is apt for predicting the long-term habitability of Earth-like exoplanets by coupling the interior and surface evolution. By generating realistic reflected light spectra from evolved atmospheric states, this model represents significant progress towards characterizing the observability of whole-planet evolution, which may ultimately provide a robust abiotic baseline for interpreting biosignature observations with HWO. Comments: 42 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, 2 appendices, accepted at The Planetary Science Journal Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) Cite as: arXiv:2602.02267 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2602.02267v2 [astro-ph.EP] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.02267 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Samantha Gilbert-Janizek [ view email ] [v1] Mon, 2 Feb 2026 16:09:57 UTC (5,392 KB) [v2] Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:57:53 UTC (4,555 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: astro-ph.EP < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-02 Change to browse by: astro-ph References & Citations SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)

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