Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.
can now include purple bacteria, according to a group of astronomers who are recording the chemical makeup unique to the lavender-hued organisms. These microbes may have dominatedearly on in our planet's history and are well-suited to emerge on faraway worlds that circle dim red stars smaller than our sun, a new study suggests.
The latest cataloging effort is in part"to create a database for signs of life to make sure our telescopes don't miss life if it happens not to look exactly like what we encounter around us every day," study co-author Lisa Kaltenegger of Cornell University said in a."Purple bacteria can survive and thrive under such a variety of conditions that it is easy to imagine that on many different worlds, purple may just be the new green.
Prior to that, microorganisms generated metabolic energy by harnessing sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal, whose origin may have predated chlorophyll. If retinal exists on other faraway worlds, scientists think the molecule's unique fingerprint would be discernible by upcoming ground- and space-based telescopes.
"They already thrive here in certain niches," said study lead author Lígia Fonseca Coelho of the Carl Sagan Institute in New York."Just imagine if they were not competing with green plants, algae and bacteria: A red sun could give them the most favorable conditions for photosynthesis.
The current search for alien life is biased toward looking for green pigments, primarily because of limited measurements of organisms of other colors including purple, Coelho and her team argue. To develop a catalog of the chemical makeup of purple organisms, the researchers grew purple bacteria collected from different places — including shallow pond waters at Cornell, Massachusetts's Cape Cod and deep-sea hydrothermal vents — and measured their unique fingerprints.
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