By modeling how a planet without life develops its atmosphere, astronomers hope to be able to better distinguish rocky planets without life from those that are inhabited.
Two scientists have simulated 5 billion years of a lifeless Earth, to understand when a rocky planet hides alien life. The article To seek alien life they have built a lifeless Earth is taken from the Future Next.
A simulation reconstructs how lifeless Earth would have evolved, with oceans and atmosphere, to help determine whether signals detected in exoplanets can be explained by non-biological processes.