Alien life could be growing in more places than we realised, study suggests:
Alien life could flourish in many more kinds of environment than we had previously realised, a new study has suggested.
In the new research, scientists found that microorganisms could survive and grow in an atmosphere made entirely of hydrogen. That suggests the same could be happening elsewhere in the universe, the researchers indicate, and that alien life could be growing in similar places.
Away from Earth, there are many exoplanets that are much bigger than our planet and have large amounts of hydrogen in their atmosphere. Those atmosphere tend to extend more than those that are similar to our atmosphere, meaning they are easier to see through the telescopes we use to scour the universe for alien planets.
[...] Researchers hope that if such microorganisms are growing on other planets, they may one day be detectable from Earth. They tend to produce a huge variety of gases, which could eventually become thick enough on their home planets that we would be able to spot them from across the universe, they suggest.
The discovery also shows how experiments in labs on Earth could help illuminate the search for alien life on other planets, they write in the study.
The paper, 'Laboratory studies on the viability of life in H2-dominated exoplanet atmospheres', is published in Nature Astronomy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bart9h on Sunday May 10 2020, @10:46PM
To survive and grow is one thing, but for the life to develop from where there was no life previously, that's way more difficult.
I highly recommend Nick Lane's The Vital Question: Why Is Life The Way It Is? [phys.org].
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 10 2020, @11:44PM
So now we can get hydrogen-eating fungi to make starts moldy?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @12:13AM
Homeless people can flourish in many more kinds of environment than we had previously imagined. Just last week I saw one living in a cardboard box, and he was producing a large amount of gases which I could smell from across the street.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday May 11 2020, @01:04AM
My advice: learn programming, you science illiterate.
The title of the original FA is: "Laboratory studies on the viability of life in H2-dominated exoplanet atmospheres", other oxidative species need to be there as well (hydrogen as "oxidant" is possible only with [metals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Metal_hydrides) and the resulting hydrides act more like an ionic salt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 11 2020, @01:07AM (1 child)
Alien life thrives in Washington, D.C, in an atmosphere toxic to all terrestrial life.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @01:39AM
Alien life thrives in Washington, D.C, creating an atmosphere toxic to all terrestrial life.
Greta
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday May 11 2020, @01:16AM (1 child)
Space aliens may already be here, but in a form we have not recognized.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Scientists-theorize-that-space-aliens-may-already-15061387.php#photo-19012569 [sfchronicle.com]
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 11 2020, @02:03AM
One of the species proposed in Known Space was a race of interstellar hydrogen beings, thin gas clouds that lived on very different scales of time and space from the humanoids we relate most easily to. Being made of relatively widely available material from the early universe, they were extremely evolved, advanced, and mostly bored with the pursuits of the noisy little heavy element based lifeforms.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2020, @03:58AM (1 child)
Some people really, desperately, want to believe that we Earthings are not alone in the universe. That this isn't "all there is." But so far, we have found nothing anywhere else. Now, the universe is unfathomably vast, so COULD there be life elsewhere that we can simply never find, thus establishing that just because we don't see life, it doesn't mean it's not there? Of course. But this makes the "profession" of exobiology not terribly scientific. An entire science founded on NO DATA for its object of study is not really a science.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday May 11 2020, @11:28AM
They can get data, such as exoplanet atmospheric composition, direct imaging of exoplanets, or sampling of plumes emitted from Europa and Enceladus.
It would have been helpful to have JWST up and running years ago, but at least there are more known exoplanets now to point it at. Larger telescopes [wikipedia.org] are needed to comprehensively search for visual signs of life on nearby exoplanets. The spacecraft sent to Europa and Enceladus have been limited and it could take decades before a spacecraft gets sent to drill into them and insert a submarine. There's also some speculation about Titan's hydrocarbon lakes but it seems like a long shot.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]