The Moons of Some Giant Alien Planets Could Host Life
Researchers have identified more than 100 giant exoplanets that may have potentially life-hosting moons. The new analysis could change the way scientists search for life in the cosmos, study team members said. That search has generally focused on places more or less like Earth — rocky planets in the "habitable zone" of their host star, that just-right range of distances where liquid water could exist on a world's surface. Jupiter-like planets don't seem like good candidates in this regard, because they have no discernible surface. But the rocky moons of such gas giants may be a different story, study team members said.
Also at University of California, Riverside.
Exploring Kepler Giant Planets in the Habitable Zone (arXiv:1805.03370)
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A newly discovered form of photosynthesis could have implications for exoplanet/exomoon habitability:
The vast majority of life on Earth uses visible red light in the process of photosynthesis, but the new type uses near-infrared light instead. It was detected in a wide range of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) when they grow in near-infrared light, found in shaded conditions like bacterial mats in Yellowstone and in beach rock in Australia. As scientists have now discovered, it also occurs in a cupboard fitted with infrared LEDs in Imperial College London.
The standard, near-universal type of photosynthesis uses the green pigment, chlorophyll-a, both to collect light and use its energy to make useful biochemicals and oxygen. The way chlorophyll-a absorbs light means only the energy from red light can be used for photosynthesis.
Since chlorophyll-a is present in all plants, algae and cyanobacteria that we know of, it was considered that the energy of red light set the 'red limit' for photosynthesis; that is, the minimum amount of energy needed to do the demanding chemistry that produces oxygen. The red limit is used in astrobiology to judge whether complex life could have evolved on planets in other solar systems.
However, when some cyanobacteria are grown under near-infrared light, the standard chlorophyll-a-containing systems shut down and different systems containing a different kind of chlorophyll, chlorophyll-f, takes over.
Also at ScienceAlert.
Photochemistry beyond the red limit in chlorophyll f–containing photosystems (DOI: 10.1126/science.aar8313) (DX)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)
I'm puzzled that anyone ever had the idea that surface water was even necessary.
Quite a while back someone demonstrated that blasting a closed container of earth's primordial chemicals with electric arc resulted in the formation of amino acids.
Surely Jupiter has a layer of water clouds. Surely Jupiter also has lightning. Given all the comets that hit Jupiter there's lots of nitrogen.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:57AM
Presumably the components of life are going to mix more effectively in liquid water than gas.
There's also the possibility of life hidden in subsurface oceans. Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Titania, Oberon, Triton, Pluto, Sedna, etc. could have life.
Given that gas giants always seem to have some moons, looking for Earth-like moons orbiting exoplanets gives you another shot at finding life in a habitable zone. The life could also be detectable if you can find certain chemicals in the atmosphere. There's probably no way for us to spot life hiding in the upper layers of an extrasolar gas giant, if that is even possible. Same with subsurface oceans in other star systems. You need to look for a terrestrial planet with an atmosphere.
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(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday June 06 2018, @05:18AM
I don't think anyone does. We just don't bother trying to find strictly subteranian life because it would be nigh impossible to find it from where we are.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:02PM
> I'm puzzled that anyone ever had the idea that surface water was even necessary.
https://www.universetoday.com/15148/is-there-water-on-jupiter/ [universetoday.com]
There is not much water on Jupiter.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:19PM
Amino acids are an important step, but *only* a step. Once you have acids raining down from above, you need an environment for them to arrange into more complex structures. Doesn't have to be water, but liquids offer a nice blend of stability and constant molecular jostling to promote the formation of more complex structures. Water vapor wouldn't cut it. And even the idea of "primordial soup" has it's detractors, with many thinking the additional density, stability, and 2-D simplification of a film on a solid surface substrate may have been necessary (i.e. life first formed as thin slime on the surface of submerged rocks)
On Jupiter in contrast that amino acid rain would fall, and fall, and fall... until it reached a depth where the temperatures and pressures were to great for amino acids to exist, or at least where they exists as a gas, without any surface tension to help molecules bind together. And that's a big one - our best guess for how cells first formed was as lipid rings around RNA-water solutions. Without surface tension such a thing would never form in the first place.
Of course, with a big enough laboratory even those difficulties might be overcome by time and the sheer size of the experiment. And Jupiter's upper atmosphere is phenomenally huge. The next problem is it's almost entirely hydrogen. Plenty of other things exist, but as diffuse gasses in a hydrogen atmosphere - almost all molecular interactions will be with hydrogen - even if two amino acids bond together in a productive manner, they will have to survive being bombarded by thousands, maybe millions of hydrogen molecules before they encounter another amino acid. And they'll probably have to collide with thousands of amino acids before they hit one at just the right angle and speed to allow a new bond to form.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 06 2018, @01:56PM (2 children)
Will life-bearing moons have evolved intelligence?
Will they be smart enough to guide their public policy based on FoxNews and bribery rather than upon science -- even if it is bad news?
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:15PM (1 child)
Jingoism could be nearly universally selected among life forms that band together and eat other life forms.
The antimatter missiles could already be en route to Earth.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:41PM
Both could be true.
On the first, whenever you have life forms that eat other life forms, you're going to get tribes. Cliques. In any tribe there will be those specialized as hunters. Others as fighters. Others as doctors. Software developers, etc.
Once the Warrior Caste dominates the Gray Council, subjugating the worker caste and religious caste, there will be problems.
It is scary to watch the extremes of policy ideas (and candidates) now that a lot of people are afraid of having non white neighbors. They simply cannot accept it as a fact of life.
If any antimatter missiles are already en route, we probably cannot detect them.
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