2021/08/18 by Oliver Shorttle, Shorttle, Oliver, Natalie Hinkel +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #astro-ph.EP #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.08382
To be published as article 1 in the "Geoscience Beyond the Solar System" issue of Elements magazine, v17 No4
arxiv created 2021/08/18 · arxiv updated 2021/08/20
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying geoscience's wealth of Earth observations to fill in the blanks left by the necessarily minimalist exoplanetary observations. In turn, Earth's many one-offs, e.g., plate tectonics, surface liquid water, a large moon, and life - which have long presented chicken and egg type conundrums for geoscientists - may find resolution in the study of exoplanets possessing only a subset of these phenomena.