EPOXI Team Develops New Method To Find Alien Ocean

Matt_dk writes "Astronomers have found more than 300 alien (extrasolar) worlds so far. Most of these are gas giants like Jupiter, and are either too hot (too close to their star) or too cold (too far away) to support life as we know it. Sometime in the near future, however, astronomers will probably find one that's just right — a planet with a solid surface that's the right distance for a temperature that allows liquid water — an essential ingredient in the recipe for life. Now scientists looking back at Earth with the Deep Impact/EPOXI mission have developed a method to indicate whether Earth-like extrasolar worlds have oceans."

Re:Why...

[4D6963]

Yeah sure, or they could breathe lead and drink plutonium, I mean what do you know!

Or maybe possibly these guys have a better idea than you do about what seems even remotely plausible or even likely and they're taking their shot at it?

Re:As We Know It

[interiot]

What are the alternatives [wikipedia.org]? Carbon-sulfur [wikipedia.org] might be a reasonable option. Silicon-oxygen is a little further out. There are only so many atoms available, and their prevalence is dictated by stars [wikipedia.org], so that puts a limit on what variations could be possible, and, well, there aren't that many.

Life in supercritical water?

[jschen]

I just wondered something. Generally, the presence of condensed phase liquid water is considered a marker that tells us "Look for life here." Unfortunately, given our current technology, most planets we find are gas giants that orbit too close to the star to be in the "habitable zone". But gas giants, by virtue of being huge, have hugely high atmospheric pressures in the lower atmosphere. Couldn't supercritical water (i.e. water at a sufficiently high temperature/pressure that there is no distinction between gas and liquid) support life? Or, for that matter, supercritical methane, or any other supercritical medium? After all, we can run useful chemistry in supercritical fluids such as supercritical CO2. And if it can support life, wouldn't the possibility of life in supercritical water significantly extend the habitable zone?

Re:As We Know It

[jschen]

Even on earth, the study of lithotrophs ("rock eaters" that get energy by oxidizing inorganic materials) is a decades-old field. They are found in all sorts of settings, though not a significant part (by mass, not necessarily by importance) of the biosphere. Many lithotrophs even engage in carbon fixation from CO2 using the energy they derived from "rock eating", and thus can live completely independently of any need for photosynthesis (even by other organisms). As for lithotroph metabolisms, your imagination is the limit. Lithotrophs even have commercially viable applications. Anaerobic oxidation of ammonia by nitrite, a reaction performed by certain "anammox" bacteria, is useful for the treatment of fertilizer-contaminated waste water.