Mission statement
Habitable Worlds Observatory forward model + retrieval benchmark for the O₂ A-band. Dashboard tracks photon budgets, systematics, and detectability thresholds for Earth analogs at 5–30 pc.
Theme: Detecting oxygen with HWOLine-core depth
84.2 ppm
3.23e+07 photons/sHours for SNR=5
0.04
noise floor 7.0 ppmSNR after 100 h
12.0
cloud-top 15 km1. Spectrum & key diagnostics
Static spectrum
Key wavelengths
| Feature | λ (nm) | Depth (ppm) | Photon rate | hrs@SNR=3 | hrs@SNR=5 | hrs@SNR=10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Line core | 762.7 | 84.2 | 3.232e+07 | 0.01 | 0.04 | 0.39 |
| Continuum | 748.0 | 83.9 | 3.205e+07 | 0.01 | 0.04 | 0.41 |
| 760 nm | 759.9 | 84.1 | 3.227e+07 | 0.01 | 0.04 | 0.40 |
2. SNR diagnostics
| Distance (pc) | Hours for SNR=5 | SNR (100 h) |
|---|---|---|
| 5.0 | 0.009 | 12.0 |
| 10.0 | 0.037 | 12.0 |
| 20.0 | 0.394 | 6.0 |
| 30.0 | ∞ | 4.0 |
3. Atmosphere & transit geometry
4. Interactive spectrum
5. Retrieval-style O₂ threshold
Detectability drops once O₂ falls below ≈21.00% (100 h, SNR=5)
| O₂ VMR (%) | SNR (100 h) | Hours for SNR=5 |
|---|---|---|
| 21.000 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 12.340 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 7.260 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 4.260 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 2.510 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 1.470 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.870 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.510 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.300 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.180 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.100 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.060 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.040 | <0.1 | ∞ |
| 0.020 | <0.1 | ∞ |
6. Instrument comparison
| Instrument | Hours for SNR=5 | SNR (100 h) |
|---|---|---|
| HWO | 0.037 | 12.0 |
| JWST/NIRSpec | 0.048 | 8.4 |
| Roman | 0.247 | 7.0 |