DailyDirt: Detecting Signs Of Life

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Sep 6th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Looking for extraterrestrial life has been a largely fruitless task for many decades. There have been a few times when people thought they might have found evidence of life that wasn't from Earth, but upon further analysis, those discoveries weren't so clear cut. Still, the search for ETs is on-going, and here are just a few links on some ways to find alien friends.

Spectroscopic biosignatures could be detected in light reflections off of alien planets. Reflected sunlight is polarized when it bounces off the Earth, and plant life on Earth absorb specific bands of light -- so alien worlds may exhibit similar phenomena (if only we could detect it). [url]
In the 1970s, there was some speculation that cellulose could be detected in interstellar space. However, it's not so easy to figure out how to detect biopolymers in the vast vacuum of space. [url]
The Drake Equation estimates how many alien civilizations might exist in our galaxy. It's just an estimate, and there are a lot of unknown variables... [url]
Moqui marbles are unusual spherical rocks that have a rusty iron oxide exterior and a sandy interior -- and were formed with the help of microorganisms. So if we find similar rocks on other worlds, we might be able to infer that extra-terrestrial microbial life also exists. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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Filed Under: aliens, biosignature, cellulose, et, extraterrestrial, interstellar space, life, moqui marbles, seti, spectroscopy

5 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

“

Universe

Since life exists on Earth, and the universe contains 100s of billions of galaxies each holding 100s of billions of stars, and the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, it's highly unlikely that life doesn't exist or hasn't existed elsewhere. As it's impossible, as far as our understanding of physics, to travel faster than light, we'll probably never meet them; but these efforts to try and find it are totally worth it, if only to dispel the notion that people are the only greatest thing since the big bang. Maybe that would encourage humans in the future to work together to accomplish great things instead of perpetuating the greed and counter-productive indiviualism that is the basis of our society.

—Trish

”

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2012 @ 5:52pm

perfect job security...
Since you can't really ever PROVE the existence of life from other planets... as long as you can find some circumstantial evidence, you'll be looking and looking and looking...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mudlock (profile), 6 Sep 2012 @ 6:25pm

MARSbles
Those marble thingies wouldn't happen to look anything like this:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/09061416-mystery-photo-spherules.html

Would they?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Sep 2012 @ 6:33pm

And I'm looking to the sky to save me, I'm looking for a sign of life.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Ho (profile), 6 Sep 2012 @ 10:54pm

Re: MARSbles
Those "blueberries" on Mars were actually predicted to exist by some geologists.. but there may be abiotic processes that form similar spherical stones.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040617082028.htm
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Trish, 7 Sep 2012 @ 6:21am

Universe
Since life exists on Earth, and the universe contains 100s of billions of galaxies each holding 100s of billions of stars, and the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, it's highly unlikely that life doesn't exist or hasn't existed elsewhere. As it's impossible, as far as our understanding of physics, to travel faster than light, we'll probably never meet them; but these efforts to try and find it are totally worth it, if only to dispel the notion that people are the only greatest thing since the big bang. Maybe that would encourage humans in the future to work together to accomplish great things instead of perpetuating the greed and counter-productive indiviualism that is the basis of our society.
[ link to this | view in thread ]