Is There Life Beyond Earth? đž "Unpack-It" with NASA and @AstroKobi | Google Arts & Culture
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into humanity's quest to understand life beyond Earth, focusing on astrobiology and NASA's ongoing efforts to explore the universe. Experts discuss the origins of life, the possibility of extraterrestrial microorganisms, and missions like the Europa Clipper and Mars Perseverance Rover aimed at discovering biosignatures. While the search for life might lead to microbial organisms rather than complex life forms, these discoveries could reshape our understanding of life in the universe. Ultimately, the video highlights the extraordinary possibilities of space exploration and our place in the cosmos.
Takeaways
- đœ The script explores the human tendency to fear aliens, yet questions how realistic that fear is.
- đ Astrobiologists focus on three main questions: how life begins, if it exists elsewhere, and how we can search for it.
- 𧏠Life on Earth is incredibly diverse, from the deepest oceans to mountain tops, showing that it adapts to various environments.
- đĄ The origin of life on Earth remains unknown due to the planet's ever-changing landscapes and chemistry over time.
- đ The vastness of space and history makes it statistically likely that life exists or has existed elsewhere in the universe.
- đ Planets with geologic activity, like Europa, may have the conditions necessary for life, with missions like the Europa Clipper aimed at exploring this possibility.
- đŠ Microbial life is the most likely form of extraterrestrial life we'll find first, as microbes dominated Earth for billions of years.
- đŹ Biosignatures are evidence of life, such as fossils or chemical signatures, and tools like the James Webb Space Telescope can help detect them on distant planets.
- âïž Sample return missions, like OSIRIS-REx and Perseverance, aim to analyze pristine materials from asteroids and Mars to better understand our solar system's history and the potential for life.
- đ Mars is a focal point for exploration because it once had conditions suitable for life, and ongoing missions seek to uncover any past or present evidence of life on the red planet.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video?
-The video explores the search for extraterrestrial life, focusing on astrobiology, how life begins and evolves, and the potential for life beyond Earth, including missions like the Europa Clipper and the Perseverance Rover on Mars.
Why do humans often associate aliens with fear?
-Humans often associate aliens with fear because they represent the unknown, and it's natural for people to be wary of things that are unfamiliar or different.
What does NASA's astrobiology program aim to discover?
-NASA's astrobiology program seeks to answer three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? And how do we search for life in the universe?
How does the environment impact the development of life on Earth?
-Life on Earth has evolved through a conversation with its environment, with factors like water, energy from the sun, and the planet's temperature and pressure playing key roles in enabling life's chemistry.
Why is the possibility of finding microbial life more likely than discovering larger organisms on other planets?
-Microbial life is more likely because microorganisms dominated Earth's history for billions of years before larger organisms evolved. Additionally, the environmental conditions on other planets may favor the survival of simpler forms of life.
What role does water play in the search for extraterrestrial life?
-Water is crucial in the search for life because it is the solvent life uses on Earth. Scientists follow water when searching for life on other planets, like in the oceans beneath the ice on Europa, one of Jupiterâs moons.
What are biosignatures, and why are they important in astrobiology?
-Biosignatures are evidence of past or present life, such as chemical compounds or physical traces like fossils. They are vital in the search for extraterrestrial life because they provide clues that life may have existed or currently exists on other planets.
Why is Mars a key focus in the search for life beyond Earth?
-Mars is a key focus because it shares similarities with Earth, such as evidence of ancient oceans and rivers. Its history suggests that it may have once supported life, making it a prime target for exploration and sample return missions.
What is the significance of the Europa Clipper mission?
-The Europa Clipper mission is significant because it will explore Europa, an ice-bound ocean world, to determine if it has the necessary conditions for life, including geologic activity and potential hydrothermal vents under its ice-covered oceans.
What makes astrobiology important for understanding life on Earth?
-Astrobiology helps us understand life on Earth by examining how life interacts with its environment, how it might arise in other parts of the universe, and by providing insights into how we can protect and sustain life on our own planet.
Outlines
đž Fear of Aliens and the Search for Life Beyond Earth
The script opens with a reflection on humanity's fear of aliens, which is deeply rooted in the unknown. It questions whether this fear is rational and transitions into a broader discussion about life beyond Earth. The introduction of Kobi, a space enthusiast, leads to an interview with NASA astrobiologist Heather Graham, who explains that understanding life involves studying the interaction between life forms and their environments, sparking the curiosity of the audience.
đ Life on Earth and the Diversity of Organisms
The second section highlights the rich diversity of life on Earth, from vast ecosystems to the tiniest microbes. It emphasizes that life isn't limited to humans and animals, pointing out that organisms exist in extreme environments like ocean depths and icy peaks. Heather Graham suggests life is a flux of matter and energy, and discusses the origins of life on Earth. The section also touches on the possibility of life on other planets and how understanding our own life forms can guide us in searching for extraterrestrial life.
đ Exploring Microbial Life on Other Planets
This part delves deeper into the scientific approach to searching for life on other planets. It stresses the importance of geologic activity and water in fostering life. The focus shifts to Europa, an ice-bound ocean world that might harbor hydrothermal vents capable of supporting life. NASA's upcoming Europa Clipper mission will investigate whether such environments can sustain small life forms like microbes, leading to exciting possibilities in astrobiology.
đ Microbial Aliens: The First Form of Life We Might Find
The script underscores the idea that microbial life may be the first form of life discovered beyond Earth. Microbes have existed on Earth for billions of years, and understanding their evolution could help us find similar life forms on other planets. The section explains how biosignatures, or signs of past or present life, can help scientists identify life on other planets. The importance of missions like the Perseverance Rover on Mars and the James Webb Space Telescope in analyzing biosignatures is highlighted.
đȘ Asteroid Sample Return and Mars Exploration
This segment emphasizes the significance of sample return missions from asteroids and Mars. It discusses how studying asteroid samples, like those from the OSIRIS-REx mission, can offer insight into the early solar system and the formation of Earth. The Perseverance Rover's mission on Mars is highlighted, focusing on its ability to collect rock samples that may contain traces of past life. The exploration of Mars and its ancient oceans adds a deeper perspective to humanity's ongoing quest for answers about life beyond Earth.
đ The Bigger Picture: Astrobiologyâs Role in Understanding Life
In the concluding paragraph, the focus shifts to the broader implications of astrobiology. The study of life beyond Earth teaches us about our relationship with our planet and the importance of preserving its ecosystems. It emphasizes how each discovery, no matter how small, expands our understanding of the universe and our place in it. The closing thoughts encourage viewers to appreciate Earth's uniqueness and its extraordinary capacity to support life.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄAstrobiology
đĄBiosignatures
đĄMicrobiology
đĄHydrothermal Vents
đĄEuropa Clipper
đĄGeologic Activity
đĄJames Webb Space Telescope
đĄMeteorites
đĄSample Return Mission
đĄPerseverance Rover
Highlights
In the early 20th century, humanity was unaware of being observed by intelligences greater than itself.
Astrobiologist Heather Graham discusses the importance of understanding life by looking at both the living and the environmental context in which it exists.
NASA's astrobiology program is focused on three key questions: How does life begin and evolve, does life exist elsewhere in the universe, and how do we search for it?
Life's diversity on Earth is vast, existing in environments ranging from the ocean floor to dry mountaintops, illustrating life's adaptability.
Water is a critical solvent for life on Earth and is abundant across the solar system, offering clues for where life might exist elsewhere.
Mars and Venus may have once supported life billions of years ago, but deteriorating conditions made living there increasingly difficult.
Microbial life, not large organisms, is the most likely form of alien life we will discover, given Earth's own microbial-dominated history.
Hydrothermal vents on Europa could potentially support life, drawing parallels to similar ecosystems deep in Earthâs oceans.
Missions like NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars and James Webb Space Telescope are designed to search for biosignaturesâevidence of past or present life.
Asteroid Bennuâs sample return is critical for understanding the building blocks of life, providing pristine records of early solar system material.
Mars sample return mission, including the Perseverance Rover, is collecting subsurface samples, which could offer clues about past life on Mars.
Mars, once having rivers and oceans, is a symbol of what Earth could have become if conditions were different.
Microbes ruled Earth for 70% of its history, suggesting that microbial life is the most likely form we will encounter elsewhere.
Astrobiology helps humans understand not only life beyond Earth but also our own relationship with the environment and how to protect it.
The incremental discoveries made by scientists, using missions like the Europa Clipper and Mars Rovers, are essential in expanding our understanding of life's potential in the universe.
Transcripts
- [Announcer] We know now that
in the early years of the 20th century,
this world was being watched closely
by intelligences greater than man's
and surely drew their plans against us.
(suspenseful music)
(planet exploding)
- When we think of aliens,
most of us think of something scary,
something different.
I think it's natural
for us to be a little bit fearful of them.
The unknown.
That's just human nature.
But how realistic is that fear?
(upbeat electronic music)
- [Narrator] What it's out there?
Searching for answers.
What is life?
Discovery.
Ancient cultures.
(upbeat electronic music)
- Hey there, I'm Kobi,
and some of you may know me
from my social media channels, Astro Kobi,
but if you don't, don't worry.
My goal has always been to make space more interesting
for the general public.
And speaking about life
beyond earth is something I've done many times, but today,
I wanna get to the bottom of it
and get some real answers from a NASA astrobiologist.
- [Heather] People have been asking
this question for a long time.
Everyone has looked out at their landscape
around the world and tried to
imagine how they arrived there,
how all the other life that's there arrived there.
If you wanna understand something so grand as what is life,
how does it arise on a landscape, how does it perpetuate,
how does it distribute itself,
you absolutely require that not only the living part
of that equation be addressed,
but also the grander understanding
of the environment where the life is at.
I'm Heather Graham.
I work at NASA Goddard and I'm an astrobiologist.
- Currently,
the NASA astrobiology program is
working to address three fundamental questions:
How does life begin and evolve?
Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?
And how do we search for life in the universe?
- The first thing we have to think about in astrobiology is,
what is this thing we call life?
- [Narrator 2] What is life?
- [Narrator 3] What is life?
- [Narrator 4] What is life?
- It is summer here in Australia and everything
around me is teeming with life.
Isn't it just incredible to think about how many landscapes
around our planet alone can support this much life?
(monkey screeching)
Now, when we talk about life,
the conversation tends to center around
life that more or less looks like humans.
But life is definitely not just you, me, and animals.
The diversity of life is truly mind-blowing.
- Everywhere we go on this planet, we see life,
down at the very bottom
of the ocean in the deepest sediments,
encased in ices and at the top of dry mountaintops.
I like to think of life as
basically fluxes of matter and energy.
- [Narrator] 95% of the plant is made
of elements originally contained in the air.
Some of these come to the plant by way of the soil.
The other 5% originates in the soil itself.
The plant has locked the sun's energy,
the key and spark of life.
- [Narrator 2] But how?
- [Narrator 3] But how?
- How? - How?
- We don't actually know yet how life on this planet began.
And it's really a hard and tricky problem to get
at because the earth has looked wildly different
over its history,
very different atmospheric compositions,
wildly different ocean chemistries.
The continents have moved around and been
in so many different places, but for much of that history,
life has been part of the landscape on earth.
And so when we roll back that clock
and we think about the earliest history of the Earth,
we can think about these places.
They're basically foreign to us right now.
(dinosaur growling)
When we look at these fossils,
we have to remember that they were the best
at what they were doing at the time they were alive.
But they're no longer with us,
these very strange life forms.
Life is everywhere, but the environment selects.
(growling)
And the other thing to think about though, too,
is that the myriad possibility space
for life isn't necessarily represented by just us,
by just this one really successful experiment that was done
on the early earth that became the diverse
and varied family of life that we now have.
So I don't really know if I would want to just think
about how did this life begin, but how does any life begin?
- How does any life begin? - How does any life begin?
- [Narrator] How does any life begin?
- We know that water is the solvent that life uses here.
It's all around us and
it's replete throughout the solar system.
We have lots of energy sources on this planet,
starting with the sun,
and that's the basis of most of the biosphere.
And we know that we're in a physical space that promotes all
of the chemistry that's special to life.
We're a good temperature and pressure
for all of those chemistries to happen.
So when we start to look at life this way
and realize that life is this grand conversation happening
with its environment,
it makes it easier for us to imagine
that on other planets,
they also have rich histories
and they also may have been many planets
over the course of their lifetime.
And even more significant,
this means that they may have also been able to
accommodate many different types of life.
- How crazy is that to think about?
We look to Mars billions of years ago, or Venus.
There are indications that they could've supported life
in the past, and over time,
these conditions have just deteriorated.
So, living became more challenging.
There could've been a story of life similar
to ours somewhere in the history of the universe.
Just think about how easy it would be to have
missed each other within the full 13.8 billion year history
of the universe.
- [Group] Wow!
- With this widened perspective of planetary availability
and what life is,
it makes it almost statistically
impossible to think that there isn't
or hasn't been life elsewhere in the universe.
- [Narrator] It's gotta be there, but where?
- Where? - Where?
- So when we're thinking about the kind of planet
where we think might life might be,
it's important to think
about a planet that has a certain amount
of geologic activity.
- [Narrator] Geologic activity.
- Geologic activity. - Geologic activity.
- [Narrator 2] Geologic activity.
- We wanna see that kind of geologic activity
on a planet that we imagine might have life
'cause we know that there's other mechanisms
for elemental cycling.
- [Narrator] The hot lava is cooled by ocean waves
and vegetation soon starts, starting another life cycle.
- So a mission coming up that I'm really excited
about is the Europa Clipper launching next year.
We know that there's a solvent there.
It's an icebound ocean world.
And when we get better imagery,
we'll be able to better understand
if it's an active, a geologically active world.
- And initial strategy when searching
for life is to follow the water.
Previous missions suggest that at the bottom
of Europa's oceans,
there could be hydrothermal vents,
or openings in the sea floor.
Those openings heat water
and could fuel life in these ecosystems.
On earth,
we see those same hydrothermal vent systems
on our own sea floor as an oasis for life,
fueled by chemical energy.
Because remember, life needs an energy source.
And with Europa being so far away from the sun
with oceans beneath the ice,
the type of energy required
for life would likely have to be chemical.
- [Narrator] We found something.
We found something.
- [Narrator 2] What did we find?
- As we're approaching an exploration
like the Europa Clipper, we have to be practical.
And that means we have to think small.
We have to think that we're going to be looking
for small organisms rather than manta rays.
- [Narrator] Manta?
No!
- The kind of ecosystem that is complex enough to
accommodate really big organisms would've already
modified the crust or the surface
or the atmosphere of that planet
in a way to give us a clue that life is there.
And we just don't see
that in the planets of the solar system.
So microbiology is really what we'll find first.
- Microbiology. - Microbiology.
- Microbiology. - Microbiology.
- [Narrator] Every living thing on earth
has evolved from the lowly, the invisibly small microbe.
Given nourishment,
the microbe will grow colonies,
microbes have adapted to survive the most hostile conditions.
- There's so much potential there, so many possibilities.
They have all sorts of different life states,
they also have all of these really unique
and interesting consortiums that they form.
They work together
as communities to maximize their potential
on a landscape to really optimize
for that conversation they're having with an environment.
- Her prediction of microbiology here is really important.
Let's back it up to where we started this video.
(suspenseful music)
Microbial alien life may not be what we have all envisioned,
but it's a really exciting prospect.
We have to remember that the majority
of our history has been microbial.
Microbes were in charge of
our planet for some three billion years
before bigger organisms even showed up.
If you think about the grand history of the earth.
it was a micro world for 70% of its existence.
If life elsewhere follows the same timeline,
we are far more likely to find a micro world then,
like Heather said, a manta ray world.
- [Narrator] Manta?
No!
- If we find a microbe,
it means we found a planetary chemistry
that discovered how to build life.
Yeah, maybe we wouldn't be able to talk to it,
but at least we would know
that we aren't alone and life isn't a one-off occurrence.
So now with this new perspective on what life we will find,
you may be wondering,
if it's a tiny microorganism and it's on another planet,
how are we ever going to find that?
To find that.
To find that.
To find that.
- [Narrator] How?
- [Narrator 2] How?
- [Narrator 3] How?
- [Narrator 4] How are we ever going to find that?
- In astrobiology,
we have this word that we use, biosignatures,
that we're looking for biosignatures.
Really biosignatures is just evidence
of life in the past or present.
And it can be as simple
as a footprint on a landscape.
That's a piece of evidence that something was living there.
It can be like fossils,
just that compression pattern
of fossils that you see in rocks.
That's evidence that there was an organism there
sometime in the past.
And that's one type of biosignature that we use.
That's an observational kind of biosignature.
Chemical biosignatures are
a little bit more specialized
and they use a lot of really technical equipment.
And a great example
of a mission that's using chemical biosignatures
is the Curiosity Rover on Mars.
(mysterious piano music)
- [Announcer] Stage online.
and confirmed.
- On that rover is an instrument called SAM
and it's basically an entire chemistry lab stuffed
down into something about the size of a big microwave oven.
And right now, on the surface of Mars,
it's taking rock and pulling out organic molecules
that we think might be possible chemical biosignatures.
But energy transfer is a little bit different.
You're looking for evidence that something
is using energy in that environment.
A mission that I would give as an example
of that is the kind of imagery that we're hoping to get
with James Webb's Space Telescope.
- The James Webb Space Telescope,
sometimes referred to as JWST,
is the world's largest and most complex space telescope.
JWST can analyze everything
from the most distant galaxies ever observed
to the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets.
It is so powerful
that we can use it in our hunt for biosignatures.
You see, recently,
it captured the first clear evidence
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
of a planet outside of our solar system.
Findings like these will give our scientists insight
into how these planets form
and the uniqueness of our own solar system.
- There's another really exciting thing that we do
in our search to understand our solar system,
and that's sample return.
So right now in our labs here at Goddard,
it is all hands on deck.
We are all madly working to get ready for the return
of Bennu, the asteroid sample that's coming
to us from OSIRIS-REx in September of this year.
- You have to keep in mind,
we still aren't entirely
sure how life first began here on earth.
And perhaps looking at some
of these asteroids will help us to understand our origins.
- We have asteroid pieces here
on this planet that we've had since
before sample return, and that's meteorites.
- [Narrator] These visitors from outer space come
in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.
They are meteorites, some 4 1/2 billion years old.
- I remember the first time I ever held a meteorite.
The person in my lab who handed it to me said,
"This is the oldest thing you'll ever hold."
This is as old as the solar system.
So we don't really know what the landscape was
when life arose on this planet.
And meteorites have been our lens to
understand that chemistry.
There's been problems, though,
with trying to understand the chemistry of meteorites
because they have to come through our atmosphere.
So they've been heated, they hit the earth,
there's the potential for contamination.
And so meteorites are an imperfect way to try
and rebuild that earliest earth.
And that's what's exciting about just going to an asteroid.
We can go and access that earliest planetary material
and protect it and seal it up as we bring it back
to earth so that we know we're getting a really
pristine record of what those small solar system
bodies that represent the earliest earth really are made of.
- And that is the coolest part
about an asteroid sample return mission.
We are getting to look at a snapshot
of what our own planet was formed out of.
- Another really exciting sample return mission
happening right now is what's going on
with the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars.
- [Announcer] Confirmation of entry interface.
Parachute has deployed about 20 meters off the surface.
- [Announcer 2] Tango Delta, nominal.
- [Announcer] Touchdown confirmed!
Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars
ready to begin seeking of half life.
- Mars sample return is a huge endeavor.
It's NASA, we have partners with the European Space Agency.
All over the world,
people are thinking really hard
about how we can collect and safely bring home
and analyze these precious samples from Mars.
This Rover has a special apparatus
and it's making these rock cores
about six inches long that it's putting in special tubes
and those tubes will eventually be returned to earth.
We have Rovers that have been doing chemistry
and looking at the surface of Mars,
but now we'll finally get below the surface to
see what's beneath.
On the surface of Mars,
there's a lot of radiation and it's very dry
and so it's actually hostile to a lot
of the important molecules that we look
for when we look for life as well as life itself.
But those things can be preserved in those rock cores
and we're really excited to see what's buried literally
in those rock cores that can tell us
about the history of Mars.
- The Perseverance Rover is doing some serious work
on Mars to get those samples ready to come back home.
But I think there is one last question
that we still haven't answered.
Why do we care about Mars so much?
Humanity has looked out to Mars for millennia
and dreamed about what it might be like on the red planet.
Mars is our sibling.
It represents what could've been
if earth weren't so fortunate.
It is true that at the moment,
Mars looks pretty dry and uninhabitable,
but it wasn't always like that.
The Rovers on Mars have already found solid proof
of ancient oceans and rivers that float
on Mars billions of years ago.
Data will continue to be used to develop plans
for future missions to collect samples
of the martian surface in the hopes
of identifying evidence of past or present life.
- Astrobiology is a way of looking
at life with the broadest possible lens.
So what unifies all of this exploration we're doing
for me is that we're building this data set,
we're building our knowledge of the universe,
and we're also finding out about ourselves,
our relationship to our landscape,
the conversation we're having
with our own planet that we are living on
and how we can protect it.
- For now,
we can put scary aliens on the shelf
and focus on these small incremental discoveries
that scientists are making with each mission
that creates new benchmarks and expands our opportunities.
We may not know yet how life began on this planet,
but we've learned how varied life is, and given time,
how little it needs to rise.
We also got a glimpse into some
of the tools for how to detect it
and we found a possibility that life could have arisen
beyond earth and is somewhere hidden
in the universe yet to be discovered.
But my key takeaway is that today,
we live in a world that is extraordinary,
and full of possibilities.
- [Announcer] It's all-inspiring.
It makes you realize just what you have
back there on earth.
The earth from here is a grand oasis
of the big vastness of space.
(inspirational music)
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