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**sbgctsa** · 08-15-2012, 04:04 AM

Unlikely, as the majority of Earth's oxygen was made by Stromatolites (have a read of that page, it's very interesting) that took a couple of billion years to change the atmosphere to something like where it is now.
I don't claim to know a lot about how an otherwise dead planet could get an oxygen atmosphere but the only thing I could think of is if it was hit by quite a lot of comets.
AFAIK comets are more popular towards the middle of the galaxy so you'd stand a better chance of finding such a planet there.

But, after watching several documentaries on the universe & so on, the latest view is that it's infinite and so there is a small but non-zero chance of such a planet existing.

08-15-2012, 04:04 AM	#3
sbgctsa Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 554 Senior Member	Unlikely, as the majority of Earth's oxygen was made by Stromatolites (have a read of that page, it's very interesting) that took a couple of billion years to change the atmosphere to something like where it is now. I don't claim to know a lot about how an otherwise dead planet could get an oxygen atmosphere but the only thing I could think of is if it was hit by quite a lot of comets. AFAIK comets are more popular towards the middle of the galaxy so you'd stand a better chance of finding such a planet there. But, after watching several documentaries on the universe & so on, the latest view is that it's infinite and so there is a small but non-zero chance of such a planet existing.
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