Extraterrestrial atmosphere star undergoing runaway greenhouse effect. For planets in the habitable zone, it was thought that water photolysis would be strongly limited by cold-trapping of water vapour in the lower atmosphere. However, the extent of HO cold-trapping depends strongly on the amount of non-condensible gases in the atmosphere such as nitrogen N and argon. In the absence of such gases, the likelihood of build-up of oxygen also depends in complex ways on the planet's accretion history, internal chemistry, atmospheric dynamics, and orbital state. Therefore, oxygen, on its own, cannot be considered a robust biosignature. The ratio of nitrogen and argon to
Noble gas or neon are known. The noble gases—including helium—can form stable molecular ions in the gas phase. The simplest is the helium hydride molecular ion, HeH, discovered in 1925. Because it is composed of the two most abundant elements in the universe, hydrogen and helium, it is believed to occur naturally in the interstellar medium, although it has not been detected yet. In addition to these ions, there are many known neutral excimers of the noble gases. These are compounds such as ArF and KrF that are stable only when in an excited electronic state; some of them find application in