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This new method to search for life doesn't rely on oxygen | IFLScience
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Scientists have proposed a new way to search for life, by looking for an imbalance of certain gases in the atmospheres of other planets. Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences, is quoted. Read More -
Alien life: Weird 'biosignatures' help scientists hunt for extraterrestrials | Newsweek
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Scientists have found a new way to hunt for alien life on distant exoplanets. Clashing gas signatures could mark a planet as habitable from millions of miles away. Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences, and David Catling, a professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, are quoted. Read More -
How to find life on distant planets: maybe try looking for carbon dioxide and methane | The Verge
Thursday, January 25, 2018
One way to find life outside our Solar System is to peer into the atmospheres of distant planets, looking for gases that may be produced by living organisms. A team of scientists at the UW thinks we should look for two gases in particular: carbon dioxide and methane. Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences, is quoted. Read More -
NASA could detect alien life using telescope-powered 'sniff test' | Business Insider
Thursday, January 25, 2018
A new study from scientists at the University of Washington argues that telescopes could perform a new kind of "sniff test" for life, looking for gases like methane and carbon dioxide that might bring new clues about where other organisms could exist. Read More -
A new 'atmospheric disequilibrium' could help detect life on other planets
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
As NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other new giant telescopes come online they will need novel strategies to look for evidence of life on other planets. A University of Washington study has found a simple approach to look for life that might be more promising than just looking for oxygen.
Future telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (right) will observe the atmospheres of distant planets to seek evidence of life. Earth (top left) has several gases in its atmosphere that reveal the presence of life, primarily oxygen and ozone. The new study finds that for the early Earth (bottom left), the combination of abundant methane and carbon dioxide would provide an alternative sign of life.NASA/Wikimedia Commons/Joshua Krissansen-Totton
The paper, published Jan. 24 in Science Advances, offers a new recipe for providing evidence that a distant planet harbors life.
“This idea of looking for atmospheric oxygen as a biosignature has been around for a long time. And it’s a good strategy -- it’s very hard to make much oxygen without life,” said corresponding author Joshua Krissansen-Totton, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences. “But we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. Even if life is common in the cosmos, we have no idea if it will be life that makes oxygen. The biochemistry of oxygen production is very complex and could be quite rare.”
The new study looks at the history of life on Earth, the one inhabited planet we know, to find times where the planet’s atmosphere contained a mixture of gases that are out of equilibrium and could exist only in the presence of living organisms -- anything from pond scum to giant redwoods. In fact, life's ability to make large amounts of oxygen has only occurred in the past one-eighth of Earth’s history.
By taking a longer view, the researchers identified a new combination of gases that would provide evidence of life: methane plus carbon dioxide, minus carbon monoxide.
“We need to look for fairly abundant methane and carbon dioxide on a world that has liquid water at its surface, and find an absence of carbon monoxide,” said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. “Our study shows that this combination would be a compelling sign of life. What’s exciting is that our suggestion is doable, and may lead to the historic discovery of an extraterrestrial biosphere in the not-too-distant future.”
The paper looks at all the ways that a planet could produce methane -- from asteroid impacts, outgassing from the planet’s interior, reactions of rocks and water -- and finds that it would be hard to produce a lot of methane on a rocky, Earth-like planet without any living organisms.
If methane and carbon dioxide are detected together, especially without carbon monoxide, that’s a chemical imbalance that signals life. The carbon atoms in the two molecules represent opposite levels of oxidation. Carbon dioxide holds as many oxygen molecules as it can, while the carbon in methane lacks oxygen and instead has oxygen’s chemical adversary, hydrogen.
“So you’ve got these extreme levels of oxidation. And it’s hard to do that through non-biological processes without also producing carbon monoxide, which is intermediate,” Krissansen-Totton said. “For example, planets with volcanoes that belch out carbon dioxide and methane will also tend to belch out carbon monoxide.”
What’s more, carbon monoxide tends not to build up in the atmosphere of a planet that harbors life.
“Carbon monoxide is a gas that would be readily eaten by microbes,” Krissansen-Totton said. “So if carbon monoxide were abundant, that would be a clue that perhaps you’re looking at a planet that doesn’t have biology.”
The authors agree that oxygen is a good way to look for signs of life, but think that this new combination is at least as likely to pop up through the new telescopes’ sights.
“Life that makes methane uses a simple metabolism, is ubiquitous, and has been around through much of Earth’s history,” Krissansen-Totton said. “It’s an easy thing to do so it’s potentially more common than oxygen-producing life. This is definitely something we should be looking for as new telescopes come online.”
The other co-author is Stephanie Olson at the University of California, Riverside. The research was funded by NASA.
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For more information, contact Krissansen-Totton at joshkt@uw.edu or 206-402-7007 and Catling at dcatling@uw.edu.
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Washington DNR wants more time to decide about logging unstable slopes | KUOW
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
In the wake of the Oso landslide and the current situation unfolding at Rattlesnake Ridge, Washington state public lands commissioner Hilary Franz is asking the Legislature for more time to review proposals from timber companies to log potentially unstable slopes. David Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, is quoted. Read More -
Landslide watch: Can experts predict collapse at Washington's Rattlesnake Ridge? | The Seattle Times
Monday, January 22, 2018
More than 100 instruments are monitoring the Rattlesnake Ridge's every twitch and should provide some warning before the 8 million-ton mass lets loose. David Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, is quoted. Read More -
Deadly California mudslides show the need for maps and zoning that better reflect landslide risk | The Conversation
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
"Scenic hill slopes can be inspiring - or deadly, as we are seeing after the disastrous debris flows that have ravaged the community of Montecito, California in the wake of heavy rains on Tuesday, Jan. 9," writes David Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW. Read More -
Looming landslide stokes fears, may help disaster predictions | Scientific American
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Rattlesnake Ridge is collapsing near Yakima. As residents hurry to safety, scientists try to figure out which way rocks will fall. David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, is quoted. Read More -
Rattlesnake Ridge 'a different beast' when it comes to Washington landslides, professor says | Q13 FOX News
Thursday, January 11, 2018
A major landslide feared at Rattlesnake Ridge near Yakima is a "different beast" than most landslides we see in Washington, according to state geologists. David Montgomery, professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, is quoted. Read More
