Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...20912401b&link_type=abstract
2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #124.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society,
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
Since Earth is the only planet that unequivocally supports living ecosystems, it is logical to first look for life elsewhere that resembles Earth-life. Earth-life requires liquid water, either light or a chemical energy source, other nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, iron and a large number of elements in trace concentration. Additionally, chemical disequilibria are required to fuel the maintenance and growth of organisms. Thus the search for extraterrestrial life is focused on planets and moons that currently have or have had liquid water; that have a history of geological and geophysical properties that favor the synthesis of organic compounds and their polymerization; and that provide the energy sources and nutrients needed to sustain life. However, inasmuch as we can use Earth-life as a point of comparison, we are also limited by our almost complete lack of data about possible alternative biochemistries. We begin any extraterrestrial search by assuming carbon-based life. The key arguments in favor of carbon-based life are the ubiquity of organic compounds in the universe and the ability of carbon to form stable compounds with a high number of different inorganic elements, thus creating the wide variety of structural, catalytic and informational macromolecules that make up Earth-life. But how versatile and adequate is the carbon-based life model to environmental conditions that have either not been adequately explored on Earth, or that extend beyond the bounds found on Earth? Are there alternate carbon-based biochemistries that would allow organisms to exist under more extreme conditions than can Earth-life? What are the limitations to evolutionary innovations in carbon-based life? These questions will be discussed with emphasis on our search for life on planets and moons that have environmental conditions that are outside the bounds of Earth life including Titan, deep subsurface of Europa and Earth-like planets in other solar systems.
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