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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