Laughing gas in space could mean LIFE!
Scientists are suggesting something is missing from the typical roster of chemicals that astrobiologists use to search for life on planets around other stars laughing gas.
Chemical compounds in a planet's atmosphere that could indicate life, called biosignatures, typically include gases found in abundance in Earth's atmosphere today.
"There's been a lot of thought put into oxygen and methane as biosignatures. Fewer researchers have seriously considered nitrous oxide, but we think that may be a mistake," said Eddie Schwieterman, an astrobiologist in UCR's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
This conclusion, and the modeling work that led to it, are detailed in an article published today in the Astrophysical Journal.
To reach it, Schwieterman led a team of researchers that determined how much nitrous oxide living things on a planet similar to Earth could possibly produce. They then made models simulating that planet around different kinds of stars and determined amounts of N2O that could be detected by an observatory like the James Webb Space Telescope.
"In a star system like TRAPPIST-1, the nearest and best system to observe the atmospheres of rocky planets, you could potentially detect nitrous oxide at levels comparable to CO2 or methane," Schwieterman said.
There are multiple ways that living things can create nitrous oxide, or N2O. Microorganisms are constantly transforming other nitrogen compounds into N2O, a metabolic process that can yield useful cellular energy.
"Life generates nitrogen waste products that are converted by some microorganisms into nitrates. In a fish tank, these nitrates build up, which is why you have to change the water," Schwieterman said
"However, under the right conditions in
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