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The fields of extrasolar planet studies and astrobiology have come a long way in recent years. To date, astronomers have confirmed the existence of 4,935 exoplanets in 3,706 star systems, with another 8,709 candidates awaiting confirmation. With so many planets to study, next-generation instruments, and improved data analysis, the focus is transitioning from discovery to characterization. With the James Webb Space Telescope now deployed, these fields are about to advance much farther!

In particular, scientists anticipate that the characterization of planetary atmospheres may lead to the discovery of “biosignatures” – signs we associate with life and biological processes. The challenge will be how to recognize signatures that don’t conform to “life as we know it.” In a recent study, researchers from the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU) investigate possible tools for searching for life “as we don’t know it.”

For the sake of their study, the team looked to the various processes that we associate with life here on Earth and attempted to identify the universal patterns that don’t appear to depend on specific molecules. On Earth, life emerges from the interplay of hundreds of chemical compounds and reactions, some of which are shared by all organisms. This “universal biochemistry” characterizes all life on Earth but raises problems regarding astrobiology (the study of life beyond Earth).

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Artist’s rendering of Earth-like exoplanets. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In other planetary environments, the emergence and evolution of life may come down to different chemical elements altogether. Instead of carbon, the basic building block of life could be silicon or germanium. Instead of water, organisms could metabolize solvents like methane or ammonia. However, certain biological processes associated with life could be shared between life on Earth and elsewhere in the Universe.

In other words, future astrobiological surveys could find evidence of life beyond Earth by focusing on what it does rather than what it is. As co-author Sara Imari Walker, an associate professor with SESE and ASU’s School of Complex Adaptive Systems and the deputy director of ASU’s Beyond Center, said in an ASU News release:

“We want to have new tools for identifying and even predicting features of life as we don’t know it. To do so, we are aiming to identify the universal laws that should apply to any biochemical system. This includes developing quantitative theory for the origins of life, and using theory and statistics to guide our search for life on other planets.”

“We are not just the molecules that are part of our bodies; we, as living things, are an emergent property of the interactions of the many molecules we are made of. What our work is doing is aiming to develop ways of turning that philosophical insight into testable scientific hypotheses.”

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A new study identifies universal enzymatic processes to search for life beyond Earth. Credit: NASA

Dylan Gagler, an ASU graduate and current bioinformatics analyst at New York University’s (NYU) Langone Medical Center, was the study’s lead author. Along with their colleagues, Walker and Gagler decided to focus on enzymes, the functional drivers of biochemistry. Using the Integrated Microbial Genomes and Microbiomes (IMGM) database (maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Joint Genome Institute), they investigated the enzymatic makeup of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya.

Whereas the former are single-celled organisms (prokaryotes) found everywhere on Earth, eukarya are cells that have a nucleus enclosed within a nuclear envelope – which includes everything from protists and fungi to plants and animals. Through this approach, the team examined the
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Reader Appreciation Sale: Join The Big Outside for 30% Off

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Dear reader,

I love the holidays, partly because I make a point of spending a lot of time outside with family and friends. But it’s also a time when I reflect on how much I enjoy my lifestyle—and how much I appreciate readers like you who follow and support my blog. To show my appreciation, I have a special gift for you.

Right now, I’m offering you 30% off the cost of a one-year subscription to The Big Outside.

That means you get full access to all stories at my blog—including my many stories about the trips I’ve taken, with my expert tips on planning them—for $41.97 instead of the usual cost of $59.95 for a full year, or just $3.50 a month.

That’s the biggest discount I offer on a subscription all year—just in time to start researching your trips for next year. Don’t miss out!

Go to my Join page now and click on the Subscribe button under the Annual subscription option (Best Value: $4.99/Month). Enter discount code TBO30 and the price will reset to $41.97. Then just fill out the form and complete the purchase. The 30% discount applies only to a one-year subscription. You also get one free or deeply discounted e-guide, a $12.95 value; I’ll personally email you the discount code for that after you subscribe.

Go to my Join page now and subscribe for a year for just $3.50 a month!

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Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Michael Lanza of The Big Outside above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.
” data-image-caption=”Me above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming; and in Death Hollow in southern Utah (lead photo, above).
” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=900%2C600&ssl=1″ alt=”Michael Lanza of The Big Outside above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.” class=”wp-image-61100″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?resize=150%2C100&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wind9-53-Me-above-Macon-Lake-and-Washakie-Lake-on-the-Washakie-Pass-Trail-in-the-Wind-River-Range-WY.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w” sizes=”(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ />Me above Macon Lake and Washakie Lake on the Washakie Pass Trail in the Wind River Range, Wyoming; and in Death Hollow in southern Utah (lead photo, above).

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The Early Universe Had No Problem Making Barred Spiral Galaxies

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Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are like cosmic snowflakes—no two are exactly alike. For many years, astronomers thought spirals couldn’t exist until the universe was about half its present age. Now, a newly discovered galaxy in the early Universe is challenging that idea.

CEERS-2112 is an early “cosmic snowflake” with spiral arms and a bar across its middle. The amazing thing is that it’s showing this structure when the Universe was only 2 billion years old. That’s about five billion years earlier than astronomers expected something like that to exist. The fact that a perfectly formed spiral exists so early tells us that our ideas about galaxy formation in early cosmic history need some re-tuning.

Surveying the Early Universe

This galaxy showed up in a survey done by the JWST called “Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science” (CEERS). It uses JWST imaging and spectroscopy to do a survey of the early Universe to find the earliest galaxy. The analysis of the CEERS-2112 galaxy was done by an international team led by astronomer Luca Constantin of the Centro de Astrobiología in Spain.

CEERS results should show astronomers the early populations of galaxies at high redshifts (distances). They will also help them estimate related star-formation conditions and black hole growth. Finally, the work should give some insight into the formation of galaxy disks and bulges. Essentially, CEERS data should add to our store of knowledge about first light and reionization (which occurred after the Big Bang) and explain the formation and evolution of early galaxies.

Early deep-field images of very distant galaxies show shreds of galaxies and irregular clumps of stars in the early Universe. That was evident in some of the first Hubble Deep-Field images. The most distant ones in the images looked more blobby and indistinct. And, some of them appeared to be colliding, which fits into the collisional model of galaxy formation.

This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It shows some galaxies in the early Universe, (which appear as red blobs). Credit: NASA/ESA/HUDF
This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It shows some galaxies in the early Universe, (which appear as red blobs). Credit: NASA/ESA/HUDF

Forming Galaxies in the Early Universe

Prior to the Hubble and JWST eras, astronomers really felt that it would take a long time to form spiral galaxies. They often describe a hierarchical model of galaxy formation. That’s where smaller clumpy galaxies collide to form larger ones. Over time, those objects begin to develop structures like spiral arms and bars.

“In such galaxies, bars can form spontaneously due to instabilities in the spiral structure or gravitational effects from a neighboring galaxy,” according to astronomer and team member Alexander de la Vega. He is a post-doctoral researcher currently at the University of California Riverside. “In the past, when the Universe was very young, galaxies were unstable and chaotic. It was thought that bars could not form or last long in galaxies in the early universe.”

The spiral arms are likely the result of density waves moving through the galaxy. The bars also form from density waves radiating out from the center. That compresses material in the arms and bars, leading to bursts of star formation. That could explain why these regions in galaxies seem brighter, with their populations of hot young stars. All of this takes time to accomplish. That’s why astronomers suggested that it would take about half the age of the Universe to form spiral galaxies.

CEERS-2112 is Part of the Early Universe

CEERS-2112 upends the discussion about spiral formation, according to de la Vega. “Finding CEERS-2112 shows that galaxies in the early Universe could be as ordered as the Milky Way,” he said. “This is surprising because galaxies were much more chaotic in the early Universe and very few had similar structures to the Milky Way.”

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Apollo Samples Contain Hydrogen Hurled from the Sun

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According to the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, men should drink 3.7litres of water a day and women 2.7litres. Now imagine a crew of three heading to the Moon for a 3 week trip, that’s something of the order of 189 litres of water, that’s about 189 kilograms! Assuming you have to carry all the water rather than recycle some of it longer trips into space with more people are going to be logistically challenging for water carriage alone. Researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have discovered lunar rocks with hydrogen in them which, when combined with lunar oxygen provide a possibly supply for future explorers.

A total of 382 kilograms of rock was brought back from the Moon by the Apollo program (I weigh about 80kg so that’s almost five of me in weight – and its all muscle I promise!) Some of the samples were immediately studied while others were sealed for future research hoping that future instrumentation would be more sensitive.

A research team from NRL, led by Katherine D. Burgess and team members Brittany A. Cymes and Rhonda M. Stroud, have recently announced their findings whilst studying some of the lunar rock. They wanted to understand the source of water on the Moon and to understand its formation. Future lunar exploration especially permanent lunar bases will rely heavily upon existing lunar resources. The paper articulates “Effective use of the resource depends on developing an understanding of where and how within the regolith the water is formed and retained”.

Image showing Buzz Aldrin's footprint in the dusty lunar regolith - Credit NASA
Buzz Aldrin’s footprint in the lunar regolith – the soft powdery material found over the surface of the Moon (Credit – NASA)

Transmission electron microscopy was used as part of the study to explore lunar sample 79221. The technique utilises a particle beam of electrons to visualise specimens and generate a highly magnified image. In particular, the team looked at grains of the minerals apatite and merrillite and discovered signs of ‘space’ weathering due to the solar wind. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles that rush outward from the Sun at speeds of up to 1.6 million km per hour!

They found hydrogen signatures in samples in vesicles – small holes left behind after lava cools. The discovery confirms that solar wind is being trapped in detectable quantities proving a potential reservoir that could be accessible to future explorers.

Hydrogen itself is a tremendously useful resource and if that can be mined from the lunar surface material it can aide many aspects of exploration. The real buzz around the discovery is that it may finally resolve the mystery about the origins of lunar water and that it might well be the result of chemical interactions between the solar wind and lunar rocks. If we can understand the origins of the lunar water – and we may finally be close to that now – then we can be sure we use it effectively to reach out further into the Solar System.

Source : Hydrogen detected in lunar samples, points to resource availability for space exploration

The post Apollo Samples Contain Hydrogen Hurled from the Sun appeared first on Universe Today.

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