• Combing the cosmos: New color catalog ai

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Tue Mar 15 22:30:44 2022
    Combing the cosmos: New color catalog aids hunt for life on frozen
    worlds

    Date:
    March 15, 2022
    Source:
    Cornell University
    Summary:
    Aided by microbes found in the subarctic conditions of Canada's
    Hudson Bay, an international team of scientists has created the
    first color catalog of icy planet surface signatures to uncover
    the existence of life in the cosmos.



    FULL STORY ========================================================================== Aided by microbes found in the subarctic conditions of Canada's Hudson
    Bay, an international team of scientists has created the first color
    catalog of icy planet surface signatures to uncover the existence of
    life in the cosmos.


    ==========================================================================
    As ground-based and space telescopes get larger and can probe the
    atmosphere of rocky exoplanets, astronomers need a color-coded guide to
    compare them and their moons to vibrant, tinted biological microbes on
    Earth, which may dominate frozen worlds that circle different stars.

    But researchers need to know what microbes that live in frigid places
    on Earth look like before they can spot them elsewhere.

    The study, "Color Catalogue of Life in Ice: Surface Biosignatures on
    Icy Worlds," published in the journal Astrobiology, provides this toolkit.

    Researchers from Cornell University, Portugal's Instituto Superior de
    Agronomia and Te'cnico and Canada's Universite' Laval in Quebec were
    involved in the study.

    "On Earth, vibrant, biological colors in the Arctic represent signatures
    of life in small, frozen niches," said lead author Li'gia F. Coelho, an astrobiologist and doctoral student at Te'cnico. She grew and measured
    this frigid, colorful biota at the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell (CSI).

    Coelho collected 80 microorganisms from ice and water at Kuujjuarapik,
    Quebec, working across the frozen Hudson Bay, obtaining ice cores and
    drilling holes in the ice to take water samples. She acquired samples
    at the mouth of the Great Whale River in February 2019.

    "When searching for life in the cosmos, microbes in these frozen plains
    of the Arctic give us crucial insight of what to look for on cold new
    worlds," said Lisa Kaltenegger, a senior author on the paper, professor of astronomy at Cornell and director of the Carl Sagan Institute. Kaltenegger explained that this icy microbial life is well-adapted to the harsh
    radiation bombardment of space -- which can be the norm on distant
    exoplanets under a red sun.

    "We are assembling the tools to search for life in the universe, so as
    not to miss it, taking all of Earth's vibrant biosphere into account --
    even those in the breathtaking chilled places of our Pale Blue Dot," Kaltenegger said.


    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cornell_University. Original written
    by Blaine Friedlander. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Li'gia F. Coelho, Jack Madden, Lisa Kaltenegger, Stephen Zinder,
    William
    Philpot, M. Glo'ria Esqui'vel, Joa~o Cana'rio, Rodrigo Costa,
    Warwick F.

    Vincent, Zita Martins. Color Catalogue of Life in Ice: Surface
    Biosignatures on Icy Worlds. Astrobiology, 2021; DOI: 10.1089/
    ast.2021.0008 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220315141754.htm

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