Astrobiology

Have you ever thought about life beyond Earth - on planets far away? Long ago, ancient Greeks used to believe that Earth was the only place with living organisms, but what scientists are currently finding is proving them wrong. The place where we all have seen that the limits can exceed what we ever thought was possible, space. There are so many interesting topics to look at when we look at the great unknown that is space, but one of the most interesting and recent discoveries is about living things. Astrobiology is about exactly what it sounds like, the study of living things in space. It combines many different fields of science such as astronomy, biology, geology, aeronautical engineering, and chemistry. Combining all these different fields provides us with a new view of what is possible on the places beyond Earth. 

A planet becomes habitable when it is able to preserve life for an extended period of time yet it is much more complicated than just that. All of the planet's systems must work together to provide an environment that is suitable for life and it must also work with its surroundings such as the star it orbits and the system that includes it. However, throughout the years researchers have found that there must be water to sustain life on a planet, therefore if there is running water on a planet’s surface, it is a possible candidate for containing life. Nonetheless, like most science this definition is subject to change and will vary over time as new discoveries are made. 

To begin, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been focusing on many space missions in our own solar system such as places like Mars and Titan. Recently, it has been found that there is a flow of water on Mars during its warmer seasons. Also, back in 2014, methane levels on Mars had suddenly increased and this led scientists to suspect that there could be life on Mars that made this possible. This is achievable because Mars has very similar conditions to Earth, making it a suitable environment for living organisms to grow and form in. Even one year before these discoveries in 2013, through using Kepler’s Space Telescope, NASA discovered three new exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets that are found outside our solar system. However, these three planets have a mass greater than Earth and the fact that they could contain life is still being investigated to this day. These discoveries are amazing to watch unfold and it seems that as we discover more planets there will be a greater chance of finding one with living organisms!

To take a deeper dive into NASA’s efforts to learn more about astrobiology, we can look at the TRAPPIST-1 system that discovered a collection of Earth-like planets. These 7 planets were discovered not too long ago on Feb. 27, 2017 using powerful telescopes in space and on the ground. However, the question of whether or not these planets are habitable still remains. An extremely powerful telescope called the James Webb Space Telescope will remain as crucial technology in figuring out signs of atmospheres on these TRAPPIST-1 planets that we haven’t been able to see earlier. Even though all these discoveries seem years away, there is one planet, TRAPPIST-1e that is on lookout because it is in the zone in its solar system where it could possibly be inhabitable. This zone can also be called the Goldilocks zone because the amount of heat received on the planet is just the right amount to form liquid water. Along with this, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to recognize that this planet's atmosphere could also be suitable for life, which is a crucial element to this equation of variables for living organisms. Overall, these planets can be compared to Earth in mass and size which makes the possibility of life even greater as we continue to learn more and more about these new planets. 

Overall, astrobiology is a field in which we are making exceedingly fast innovations in. There is new technology being built everyday for these amazing discoveries for what is beyond us. These systems really have a life of their own and what is to come next is in our grasp!

Works Cited 

University of Washington. (2022). What Is Astrobiology? – uwastrobiology. Depts.Washington.Edu. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://depts.washington.edu/astrobio/wordpress/about-us/what-is-astrobiology/

 Ashish. (2022, January 17). What all does it take for a planet to be habitable? Science ABC. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/what-makes-a-planet-habitable.html 

 NASA. (2022). Sellers Exoplanet Environments Collaboration (SEEC). SEEC. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://seec.gsfc.nasa.gov/what_makes_a_planet_habitable.html#:%7E:text=The%20standard%20definition%20for%20a,be%20on%20the%20planet’s%20surface.

 Fox, E. (2020, September 3). 5 Incredible Breakthroughs in Astrobiology (And Why They Matter). Florida Tech News. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://news.fit.edu/academics-research/5-incredible-breakthroughs-astrobiology/

Greicius, T. (2022, February 22). Day of Discovery: 7 Earth-Size Planets. NASA. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/day-of-discovery-7-earth-size-planets/