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Jun 30, 2020 · The hypothesis of a universe laced by biology can’t be falsified. So, by the conventions of science, you could say that our experiments to find other life – whether microbes in the Solar System or extraterrestrials on a planet hundreds of light-years away – are not really experiments: they’re searches. They’re exploration.
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Why We Search. Whether life exists beyond Earth is one of the most profound questions of all time. The answer will change us forever — whether it reveals a universe rich with life, one in which life is rare and fragile, or even a universe in which we can find no other life at all. The hunt for an answer also is revealing important details ...
- Overview
- Universal criteria
extraterrestrial life, life that may exist or may have existed in the universe outside of Earth. The search for extraterrestrial life encompasses many fundamental scientific questions. What are the basic requirements for life? Could life have arisen elsewhere in the solar system? Are there other planets like Earth? How likely is the evolution of intelligent life?
(Read Britannica’s biography of Carl Sagan, co-author of this entry.)
No one knows which aspects of living systems are necessary, in the sense that living systems everywhere must have them, and which are contingent, in the sense that they are the result of evolutionary accidents such that elsewhere a different sequence of events might have led to different properties of life. In this respect the discovery of even a single example of extraterrestrial life, no matter how elementary in form or substance, would represent a fundamental revolution in science. Do a vast array of biological themes and counterpoints exist in the universe, or are there places with living fugues, compared with which Earth’s one tune is a bit thin and reedy? Or is Earth’s the only tune around?
Life on Earth, structurally based on carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other elements, uses water as its interaction medium. Phosphorus, as phosphate bound to an organic residue, is required for energy storage and transport; sulfur is involved in the three-dimensional configuration of protein molecules; and other elements are present in smaller concentrations. Must these particular atoms be the atoms of life everywhere, or might there be a wide range of atomic possibilities in extraterrestrial organisms? What are the general physical constraints on extraterrestrial life?
In approaching these questions, several criteria can be used. The major atoms should tend to have a high cosmic abundance. Structural molecules of organisms at the temperature of the planet in question should not be so extremely stable that chemical reactions are impossible, but neither should they be extremely unstable, or else the organism would fall to pieces. A medium for molecular interaction must be present. Solids are inappropriate because of their inertness. The medium, most likely a liquid but possibly a very dense gas, must be stable in a number of respects. It should have a large temperature range (for a liquid, the temperature difference between freezing point and boiling point should be large). The liquid should be difficult to vaporize and to freeze; in general, it should be difficult to change its temperature. The interaction medium needs to be an excellent solvent. A fluid phase must be present on the planet in question, for material must cycle to the organism as food and away from the organism as waste.
The planet should therefore have an atmosphere and some liquid near the surface, although not necessarily a water ocean. If the intensity of ultraviolet light or charged particles from its sun is intense at the planetary surface, then some area, perhaps below the surface, should be shielded from this radiation (although some forms or intensity of radiation might permit useful chemical reactions to occur). Finally, it is imperative that conditions allow the existence of autotrophy (the ability of an organism to synthesize at least some of its own nutrients) or other means of net production of necessary compounds.
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This article is part of a week of special coverage about extraterrestrial life ... We would need to have "a billion times what we have now, which sounds like a lot," he says. "But we went from one ...
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Sep 29, 2023 · Many are optimistic of detecting life signs on a faraway world within our lifetimes - possibly in the next few years. And one scientist, leading a mission to Jupiter, goes as far as saying it ...
Dec 10, 2021 · At first glance, it seems immediately obvious that we should not be alone in the universe, and so if we look hard enough, we should see evidence for intelligence. Perhaps aliens are blasting radio ...
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Feb 1, 2023 · The search for weird life isn’t actually a search for life, Bartlett argues. It’s a search for “lyfe,” a term proposed in a 2020 article he co-authored in, ironically, the journal Life ...
