Finding planets that already have, or have the ingredients for intelligent life is a real challenge. It is exciting that new telescopes and spacecraft are in development that will start to identify candidate planets

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. They have been identified in the thousands since the first discovery in 1992, totalling currently 5,288. They vary widely in size, composition, and orbit, ranging from gas giants like Jupiter to rocky, potentially habitable planets similar to Earth. Advanced telescopes and detection methods like the transit and radial velocity techniques have enabled the discovery of Earth-sized exoplanets. Their study not only enhances our understanding of planetary formation and evolution but also the search for extraterrestrial life

Life on Earth can gain energy from a wide range of different thermodynamic disequilibria, a great example is life that thrives at the bottom of the ocean, taking energy and indeed nutrients from thermal vents. More widely it relies upon chemical reactions where the an electron is lost or gained changing its oxidation state. This is known as redox disequilibrium. Each reaction requires special proteins called oxidoreductases. The process requires metals as catalysts and without them, the process is unable to progress

What is the study of planets and stars?

Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere. That includes objects we can see with our naked eyes, like the Sun , the Moon , the planets, and the stars . It also includes objects we can only see with telescopes or other instruments, like faraway galaxies and tiny particles

How do exoplanets form?

How Do Exoplanets Form? Direct visual evidence shows that planets form from circumstellar disks of gas and dust around young stars. These disks, also known as protoplanetary disks, are difficult to observe, as they surround a star that is typically 100,000 times brighter than the disk

While life on Earth is relatively new, geologically speaking, the ingredients that combined to form it might be much older than once thought. – ACS 

While life on Earth is relatively new, geologically speaking, the ingredients that combined to form it might be much older than once thought.

According to research published in ACS Central Science, the simplest amino acid, carbamic acid, could have formed alongside stars or planets within interstellar ices. The findings could be used to train deep space instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope to search for prebiotic molecules in distant, star-forming regions of the universe.

It has long been hypothesized that one of the building blocks for life, amino acids, could have formed during reactions in the “primordial soup” of the early, prebiotic Earth. However, another theory suggests that amino acids could have been carried to the Earth’s surface by meteorites. These space rocks might have picked up the molecules from dust or interstellar ices — water and other gases frozen solid by the cold temperatures of outer space.

But because meteorites came from far away in the universe, scientists are left wondering, where did these molecules form, and when? To help answer these questions, Ralf Kaiser, Agnes Chang and colleagues wanted to investigate the chemical reactions that might have taken place in interstellar ices that once existed near newly forming stars and planets

Searching for life beyond Earth is a fundamental part of space exploration and one of the most profound questions humans have ever asked. The answer to this question could change everything, whether it reveals a universe full of life, a rare and fragile universe, or no life at all. 

Scientists and engineers look for other potential habitats and intelligent life by examining the atmospheres of exoplanets and identifying celestial bodies that could support life. For example, they use a method called transit spectroscopy to split up light from exoplanet atmospheres into a rainbow spectrum that can be read like a bar code. This method can reveal the presence of gases and chemicals in the skies of other worlds, including those that are linked to life. 

Scientists are also investigating the conditions that made life’s emergence on Earth possible, such as the magnetic field that protects our planet from the Sun’s solar wind. They’re also learning that there can be hidden habitats, such as icy moons with subsurface oceans, that are further out from the sun and may be better places to search for life.

Whether life exists beyond Earth is one of the most profound questions of all time. The answer will change us forever, whether it reveals a universe rich with life, one in which life is rare and fragile, or even a universe in which we can find no other life at all

We have found many Earth-sized rocky exoplanets, some of which are in the habitable zones of their stars. The next step in studying them is to analyze their atmospheres for “biosignature” molecules, which may be a sign of life

In astronomy, stellar metallicity is a measure of the abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in a star or nebula. It’s usually defined as the ratio of iron to hydrogen, and can be used to measure when a star or nebula formed. Stars with low metallicity formed a long time ago, while stars with high metallicity are more recent

Stellar metallicity is also a key parameter in the search for life in the universe. Heavy elements are the building blocks of planetary systems, and are important for habitability

The stellar metallicity is a direct measure of the amount of metals present in a galaxy, since a large part of the metals lie in its stars

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