Discovering a “potential key” to finding life outside Earth

United States – Cornell University scientists believe they have made a major step forward in the search for aliens.

Scientists have claimed that planets that attract alien life may give off a distinctive purple color.

“We are opening our eyes to these wonderful worlds around us,” said Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, co-author of the study. “Purple bacteria can live and thrive under such a wide variety of conditions that it’s easy to imagine that on many different worlds, purple might just be the new green.”

“We need to create a database of signs of life to make sure our telescopes don’t miss life if it doesn’t look exactly like what we encounter around us every day,” she added.

In this regard, the research team cataloged the colors and chemical signs of a variety of living organisms and minerals.

The study revealed that purple bacteria can use invisible infrared rays to activate photosynthesis. Therefore, these bacteria were likely prevalent on early Earth before plant-type photosynthesis emerged.

Farther from our planet, purple bacteria could be suitable for planets orbiting cooler red dwarf stars (the most common type in our galaxy).

Scientists say that these planets will produce a distinctive “light signature” that we can discover using ground and space telescopes.

“If purple bacteria are thriving on the surface of a frozen planet, an ocean world, a snowball, or a newborn body orbiting a cooler star, we now have the tools to search for them,” said Ligia Fonseca Coelho, first author of the study.

The new study comes after a team of University of Washington scientists suggested that alien life could be hiding near Earth. It has been claimed that NASA could confirm the presence of alien life in 2030, when it launches its $178 million spacecraft to Jupiter’s moon.

Source: Daily Mail