04-19-2024, 11:57 PM
https://www.livescience.com/space/extrat...-spot-them
If life is capable of spreading from planet to planet — a concept known as "panspermia" — then we might be able to detect it, even if we don't know what we're looking for, new research suggests.
Astronomers are on the hunt for life beyond Earth. While there are several promising locations within the solar system, the sheer abundance of exoplanets means that we are most likely to find life on a planet orbiting another star. There are more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets to date, according to NASA — and that number is always rising.
But these searches for extraterrestrial life currently face one major roadblock: we don't know exactly what we're looking for. We only know of one kind of planet that is definitely capable of hosting life, and we only know of one kind of life — that is, Earth, and the carbon-based life that is found here. But life may, say astronomers, take an astonishing number of forms throughout the galaxy. While we might get extremely lucky and find an exact replica of Earth with the exact same kind of life, we are more likely to face fuzzy, unclear, nuanced situations that will take many years to unravel.
Okay, so there's currently no evidence that aliens are actually doing this: it's all speculative . And it's outside the mainstream of scientific thought . But it's also not entirely implausible.
So, if aliens are out there and doing this, how might we find them? And might we be able to do something similar ourselves one day?
If life is capable of spreading from planet to planet — a concept known as "panspermia" — then we might be able to detect it, even if we don't know what we're looking for, new research suggests.
Astronomers are on the hunt for life beyond Earth. While there are several promising locations within the solar system, the sheer abundance of exoplanets means that we are most likely to find life on a planet orbiting another star. There are more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets to date, according to NASA — and that number is always rising.
But these searches for extraterrestrial life currently face one major roadblock: we don't know exactly what we're looking for. We only know of one kind of planet that is definitely capable of hosting life, and we only know of one kind of life — that is, Earth, and the carbon-based life that is found here. But life may, say astronomers, take an astonishing number of forms throughout the galaxy. While we might get extremely lucky and find an exact replica of Earth with the exact same kind of life, we are more likely to face fuzzy, unclear, nuanced situations that will take many years to unravel.
Okay, so there's currently no evidence that aliens are actually doing this: it's all speculative . And it's outside the mainstream of scientific thought . But it's also not entirely implausible.
So, if aliens are out there and doing this, how might we find them? And might we be able to do something similar ourselves one day?
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