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Reference image / NASA
A team of MIT scientists has observed in laboratory studies that microbes can survive and thrive in atmospheres dominated by hydrogen, an environment very different from that rich in nitrogen and oxygen like ours. The details were published in Nature Astronomy.
Looking for life
When we look for life, we try to look for one similar to the one we know: one that can survive in terrestrial conditions. However, can you imagine that we are overlooking other circumstances? This scenario is the one that Sara Seager, a professor of Planetary Sciences, Physics, Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, wants to avoid.
Seager is looking beyond the “earth-centered” vision of life that we have. In this sense, it aims to launch a broader network when looking for environments beyond ours that may be habitable.
Hydrogen-rich atmosphere
Hydrogen is a much lighter gas than nitrogen and oxygen. A rich in this element could extend much further from the rocky planet. Therefore, it could be much easier to detect with powerful telescopes, compared to planets with more compact atmospheres like Earth.
With the help of next-generation telescopes, such as NASA’s James Webb, astronomers could begin searching for the first signs of life on planets with hydrogen-dominated atmospheres.
“There are a diversity of habitable worlds, and we have confirmed that Earth-based life can survive in hydrogen-rich atmospheres,” says Seager. “We should definitely add those kinds of planets to the options menu when we think about life on other worlds, and actually try to find it.”
At the laboratory
The team studied the viability of two types of microorganisms in an environment dominated 100% by hydrogen. These were Escherichia coli bacteria (a simple prokaryote) and yeast (a more complex eukaryote). Neither one had previously been studied in hydrogen environments.
In this way, the team discovered that both presented a classic growth curve in hydrogen-dominated environments. At the beginning of the test, the microbes grew rapidly in number, feeding on nutrients and populating the culture. Finally, the amount of microbes stabilized.
Seager acknowledges that biologists do not find these results surprising. This is because hydrogen is an inert gas and, as such, it is not inherently toxic to organisms. Furthermore, it makes clear that the experiment was not designed to show whether microbes can depend on hydrogen as an energy source; it was only intended to show that it would not harm certain life forms.
Adrian Diaz
This news was originally published in N + 1, science that adds.
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