TEMPE, ARIZONA Astrobiologists are looking for life in all the right places, not only on Earth but elsewhere in the Universe.
But as scientists study natures own autograph book its pages filled with the biosignatures of life there is a growing understanding that researchers not become limited or trapped by Earth-o-centric thinking.
That is a key challenge reported scientists and engineers meeting at the 2003 NASA Astrobiology Institute General Meeting, held here February 10-12 on the campus of Arizona State University (ASU).
Different from terrestrial life
A study arm of the National Research Council has begun identifying how best to look for alternative life forms, even tagging it "weird life."
The academys Space Studies Board, in cooperation with the Board on Life Sciences, recently convened top experts in the field to focus on forms of life that could be different from familiar terrestrial life.
An upshot of that meeting is creation of a special committee that will delve into the topic, to be assembled in the next three to six months, said David Smith, Study Director for the Space Studies Board.
NASA, the National Science Foundation, and possibly the National Institutes of Health are being asked to help sponsor the 18-month to two-year study, he told SPACE.com.
Pace of exploration picking up
Why now for such a study?
Astrobiologists gathered here contend that such discussions, although speculative, are timely.
Its clear that the pace of exploration is picking up. For example, future sample-return missions from Mars; on-the-spot exploration of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto; and the upcoming dive in 2005 of the Cassini/Huygens probe into the organic-rich environment of Titan, a moon of Saturn.
Breaking free of a purely terrestrial biochemical perspective is necessary given the diversity of locales available for detailed exploration in the next decade, Smith said.
Furthermore, what sorts of environments could or would support novel life forms are worthy of study, as are what kinds of data should be gathered about potential habitats for extraterrestrial life.
Life like us?
"All of the experiments for detecting life on Mars are based on assumptions that life is like us. So you may have a lot of money going to Mars looking for something using the wrong experiments," Smith said. "Also theres planetary protection. If you bring something back from Marsyou want to make sure theres nothing nasty in it. And if that nastiness is not like us, how do we know its nasty?"
Spotting novel life forms is likely to be a tough task. "In part, the challenge is to avoid being trapped into Earth-o-centric thinking based on familiar terrean biochemistry," said Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida.
While fanciful "Star Trek chemistry" is fun to think about, Benner said, it lacks any chance of reality. Every bit of information known in chemistry, and then some, is required to ensure reality, he added.
Benner told SPACE.com that it is timely to look at the question of life as a natural consequence of the physics and chemistry of the universe. There is a need to reexamine Venus, Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn as well as the moons of those giant planets with an eye toward life sustaining environments.
Out-of-the-box thinking
Searching for weird life is being officially sanctioned as out-of-the-box thinking, said Michael Meyer, Astrobiology Senior Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"This will be an excellent exercise, but theres need to keep it within the realm of reality," he told SPACE.com.
"Were not looking for ourselveswere looking for extraterrestrial life," Meyer said. The benefit of doing so may have an unexpected consequence, he said.
"Ive got a sneaking suspicion that, through this exercise, we might even have some ideas of how to look for life here on this planet that we havent recognized yet," Meyer concluded.
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