14 DAY TRIAL // Biologists and other scientists have been studying the origins of life as we know it for a very long time, and, for good or for worse, they have an idea about the chain of events that led to the development of the first organisms, and eventually to the emergence of the more complex species. But now, experts at an Austrian research institute are engaged in a more peculiar line of research, as they attempt to create new forms of life, based on entirely different sets of chemicals, AlphaGalileo reports.
A summary of the team's past efforts will be presented today, Friday, September 19th, at the European Planetary Science Congress, held in Potsdam, Germany. Making the presentation will be Dr. Johannes Leitner, an expert from the University of Vienna. The research group on Alternative Solvents as a Basis for Life Supporting Zones in (Exo-)Planetary Systems was founded by the University in May 2009, and is led by researcher Maria Firneis.
“It is time to make a radical change in our present geocentric mindset for life as we know it on Earth. Even though this is the only kind of life we know, it cannot be ruled out that life forms have evolved somewhere that neither rely on water nor on a carbon and oxygen based metabolism,” Leitner said. At this point in time, astronomers are making use of a few predefined requirements in selecting an exoplanet or moon that may potentially harbor life. They look especially for traces of carbon dioxide, atmospheric nitrogen and water vapors, as well as for the correct temperatures.
The group highlights the fact that the search for extraterrestrial life should not be limited to exoplanets and habitable zones, but to every object large enough to allow for it to develop. Experts argue that ammonia oceans, for example, can exist well outside a star's habitable zone, as defined by the requirements of life on Earth. A host of other chemicals could exist in a liquid form under a wide array of temperature ranges, and all of them could be the basis for a particular form of life. “Even though most exoplanets we have discovered so far around stars are probably gas planets, it is a matter of time until smaller, Earth-size exoplanets are discovered,” Leitner added.