High-Resolution Transmission Spectra of Earth through Geological Time

Abstract

The next generation of ground- and space-based telescopes will be able to observe rocky Earth-like planets in the near future, transiting their host star. We explore how the transmission spectrum of Earth changed through its geological history. These transmission spectra provide a template for how to characterize an Earth-like exoplanet - from a young prebiotic world to a modern Earth. They also allow us to explore at what point in its evolution a distant observer could identify life on our Pale Blue Dot and other worlds like it. We chose atmosphere models representative of five geological epochs of Earth's history, corresponding to a prebiotic high CO2-world 3.9 billion years ago (Ga), an anoxic world around 3.5 Ga, and 3 epochs through the rise of oxygen from 0.2 percent to present atmospheric levels of 21 percent. Our transmission spectra show atmospheric spectral features, which would show a remote observer that Earth had a biosphere since about 2 billion years ago. These high-resolution transmission spectral database of Earth through geological time from the VIS to the IR is available online and can be used as a tool to optimize our observation strategy, train retrieval methods, and interpret upcoming observations with JWST, the Extremely Large Telescopes and future mission concepts like Origins, HabEx, and LUOVIR.