A new viral video details NASA’s efforts to find out if we are alone in the universe.
In the video, which has had nearly 1.8 million views as of writing, NASA astrobiologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center Heather Graham explains the actions the space agency is taking to hunt for the signs of extraterrestrial life.
The video is hosted by Australian YouTuber AstroKobi, aka Kobi Brown, who explains in the video that NASA’s astrobiology program is currently working to answer three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? And how can we best search for life in the universe?
Graham says that to even consider these questions, scientists must first understand what life actually is, with Brown explaining that life is not just made up of creatures like humans, but can include a range of radically different organisms.
Related: Life on Mars: Exploration and Evidence
“We see life all over this planet, all the way to the bottom of the ocean in the deepest sediments, encased in ice, and on top of dry mountain peaks,” Graham said in the video. “We don’t actually know yet how life started on this planet, and it’s a really hard and tricky problem to solve because the Earth has looked very different throughout its history.”
This means, she added, that “turning back the clock” on Earth means we have to account for environments that are now very foreign to us, with the fossil record providing examples of organisms that were once best suited to these different environments. That means when NASA thinks about how life began, it needs to think about how any life could start.
“If we start looking at life this way and realize that life is a grand conversation that takes place with its environment, it becomes easier for us to imagine that on other planets they also have rich histories, and that there are may also have been many planets. over the course of their lives,” said Graham. “And more importantly, this means they may have been able to host many different types of life as well.”
However, as Graham pointed out, the fact that water is essential to all life as we understand it, as is energy from a star or some other source and environment that promotes chemistry unique to life somewhat limits the search.
Small life forms would be a big problem
The main type of life that NASA focuses on in the solar system are microscopic life forms or microorganisms. While a world away from little green men crashing spacecraft into backyards of rural America, as is often believed, Graham explains that the discovery of microbes on another world would be of immense significance. And given the history of our own world, the hunt for microbes as a form of alien life makes perfect sense.
“We must remember that most of our history has been microbial. Microbes ruled our planet for some three billion years before even larger organisms emerged. If you think about the great history of the Earth, it was a micro world. for 70% of its existence,” explains Brown. “If we find a microbe, it means we’ve found a planetary chemistry that has figured out how to build life. Yes, maybe we wouldn’t be able to talk to it, but at least we would know that we are not alone and that life is. It’s not a one-time event.”
Currently, one of the most intense searches for microbial life is underway Marswhere the robot robbers Curiosity And Perseverance examine areas that flooded with abundant water billions of years ago, in stark contrast to the barren and barren planet we see today. It is hoped that the rocks of these fossilized Martian waterways may contain traces of ancient microbial life.
“A great example of a mission using chemical biosignatures is the Curiosity rover on Mars,” said Graham. “On that rover is an instrument called SAM [Sample Analysis at Mars], and it’s actually a whole chemistry lab housed in something about the size of a full-sized microwave oven. Right now, on the surface of Mars, the rock is taking and pulling out organic molecules that we think could be possible chemical biosignatures.”
The astrobiologist also pointed out that scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are hard at work developing a Monster return mission to Mars which picks up tubes dropped on the surface of Mars by Perseverance and returns them to Earth for analysis.
And Mars isn’t the only place where NASA collects samples.
“We are all busy preparing for the return of Bennu, the asteroid monster that will be heading towards us from OSIRIS-REx in September this year,” said Graham.
Concept asteroid Samples are important because these space rocks are believed to have formed from the material that also formed the planets. Unlike monsters from asteroids that break loose and land on Earth meteoritesthe monsters sent back by missions like OSIRIS REx will be protected from the effects of intrusion the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds, providing a more “pristine” view of the matter that formed our planet. This could also reveal potential organic molecules essential to life, implying that these molecules may have been brought to our planet’s infancy by space rock impacts.
Some moons orbiting other planets of the solar system are also of particular interest to NASA in its ongoing search for life beyond Earth. Ocean worlds like Enceladusthe sixth largest moon of SaturnAnd Europea moon of Jupiterare particularly attractive targets.
“One mission I’m really excited about is the Europe Clippers launched next year. When we get better images [of Europa] we’ll be able to better understand if it’s a geologically active world,” Graham said. “Previous missions suggest that there could be hydrothermal vents or openings in the seafloor at the bottom of Europe’s oceans.”
She added that these vents warm water and could feed life beneath Europa’s frigid shell, an ecosystem that sunlight has a hard time reaching. “On Earth, we see those same hydrothermal vent systems on our own seafloor as an oasis for life fueled by chemical energy,” the astrobiologist continued.
Graham also highlighted the potential of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look for traces of life beyond the solar system. The large telescope can detect biosignatures around exoplanets or “exoplanetswhich indicate that something in the atmospheres of these worlds orbiting other stars is using energy in that environment.
“We may not yet know how life on this planet began, but we have learned how varied life is, and how little it takes to rise over time,” Brown concludes. “We also got a look at some instruments that allow us to detect this, and we discovered a possibility that life could have originated outside Earth and is hidden somewhere in the universe that has yet to be discovered. But my main conclusion is that today we live in a world that is extraordinary and full of possibilities.”
The Curiosity statue can be seen in its full glory here, where users can switch between a regular and annotated view of Mars.
