Tomonori Totani, an astrobiologist from the University of Tokyo, has put out a proposition suggesting that the study of space dust should be included in the search for life beyond Earth, Phys.org reports.
It was suggested in his study that was published in the International Journal of Astrobiology that space dust may be carrying evidence of life that was blasted away from distant worlds by asteroids.
How Space Dust Helps Search for Alien Life
Space dust can be found in the polar ice caps and even in the atmosphere. When an asteroid impacts a planet, debris is produced. Some of this debris could be hurled so violently by larger impacts that it escapes the planet's gravitational pull and travels into space. If the planet has life, some of the evidence for its existence could be carried along with it on grains of space dust.
According to Totani, the ideal size for grains of space dust is approximately 1 micrometer. Such minuscule grains would be large enough to carry evidence of life but small enough to leave their home planet's gravity and travel quickly enough to reach other planets such as Earth.
The researcher also notes in a press release that over one hundred thousand of these grains settle on Earth every year, and some of them may contain evidence of life that originated on distant planets and may be studied for biosignatures.
Material from a planet that has been impacted, such as fossils of microorganisms, could be thrown into space and travel great distances for eons. This material may contain direct or indirect indications of life on the host planet.
Notwithstanding the difficulty in determining extrasolar material from material from our solar system, the hunt for extrasolar life utilizing well-preserved grains ejected from other worlds is a valuable endeavor worthy of serious thought and investigation.
A New Approach to Studying Extraterrestrial Life
According to Totani, the study of space dust may present an opportunity for a novel strategy in the search for extraterrestrial life. Exoplanet research is still very important, but broadening the search to include space dust could provide scientists with a new avenue to investigate in their quest to find evidence of life beyond Earth.
The concept is in its infancy at present, but with continued improvements in technology, it has the potential to lead to ground-breaking discoveries in the search for life beyond the confines of our planet.
In general, the approach that Totani suggests is one that is exciting as well as unique in its search for life beyond Earth. The investigation of space dust has the potential to yield significant information and fresh perspectives on the question of whether or not there is life beyond Earth, making it a field of research that should absolutely be pursued further.
"I hope that researchers in different fields are interested in this idea and start to examine the feasibility of this new search for extrasolar life in more detail," Totani notes.
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