The impacts of atmospheric radiation on studies of planetary habitability

McDonald, George D.

Title:

The impacts of atmospheric radiation on studies of planetary habitability

dc.contributor.advisor	Wray, James J.
dc.contributor.author	McDonald, George D.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Simon, Sven
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Sokolik, Irina
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Steffes, Paul
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Lopez, Eric D.
dc.contributor.department	Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
dc.date.accessioned	2018-08-20T15:38:37Z
dc.date.available	2018-08-20T15:38:37Z
dc.date.created	2018-08
dc.date.issued	2018-07-26
dc.date.submitted	August 2018
dc.date.updated	2018-08-20T15:38:38Z
dc.description.abstract	The conditions required for Earth-like life to emerge on a planet are thought to include the presence of liquid water, the availability of energy, the existence of organic material, and shielding from high energy charged particles. There are situations when determining whether these conditions exist on a planetary body is not possible without a detailed understanding of the radiative processes occurring in a planet’s atmosphere. In this work, studies of the radiative flux and transfer within planetary atmospheres are carried out in order to elucidate whether certain planetary bodies may be habitable. The first section of this work quantifies the impinging X-ray flux on sub-Neptune sized planets in the Kepler spacecraft dataset. This study determines the conditions for such planets to be stripped of their primordial atmospheres, with implications for the stability of liquid water on their surfaces. In the second part, the absorption of light in the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon Titan is modeled in order to understand how close to the surface one has to be to detect organic molecules of prebiotic relevance, including amino acids and nucleobases.
dc.description.degree	Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/60297
dc.language.iso	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject	Planetary science
dc.subject	Atmospheric science
dc.subject	Radiative transfer
dc.subject	Astronomy
dc.subject	Exoplanets
dc.subject	Titan
dc.title	The impacts of atmospheric radiation on studies of planetary habitability
dc.type	Text
dc.type.genre	Dissertation
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.advisor	Wray, James J.
local.contributor.corporatename	School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Sciences
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication	8a29d7ec-0d6a-4d24-bb9c-e8d36c5f199d
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	b3e45057-a6e8-4c24-aaaa-fb00c911603e
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	85042be6-2d68-4e07-b384-e1f908fae48a
thesis.degree.level	Doctoral