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
Atmosphere of Pluto about distance to the orbiting moon. As early as the 1940s, Gerard Kuiper searched for evidence of the atmosphere in the spectrum of Pluto, without success. In the 1970s, some astronomers forwarded the hypothesis of a thick atmosphere and even oceans of neon: according to some views of those times, all other gases that are abundant in the Solar System would either freeze or escape. However, this hypothesis was based on a heavily overestimated mass of Pluto. No observational data about its atmosphere and chemical composition existed at the time. The first strong, though indirect evidence of the atmosphere appeared