Better than Earth: Superhabitable Exoplanets with Prof. Abel Mendez

it's only a matter of time before we find another earth the hunt for exoplanets in the universe has been a resounding success so far just a few decades ago all we had was a suspicion that planets were probably common in the galaxy why wouldn't they be why would the solar system be an exception now we know of thousands of exoplanets many of them nothing like Earth truly alien worlds in which we have no analog of in the solar system but there are also more familiar sites such as gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn the one thing that has largely eluded us thus far our planet similar to earth we know of a handful but fundamentally this is a rather small world that would be difficult to see at a distance but this is changing as the search for exoplanets continues and equipment improves we will begin to find very earth-like worlds indeed and we may even find a twin my guest today is engaged in the search and exploring the possibilities of what life on these worlds might be like [Music] welcome to event horizon with John Michael Gautier [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] John is joined today by Professor Abel Mendez professor Mendez is a planetary astrobiologist and director of the planetary habitability laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo professor Mendez is best known for developing the Earth's similarity index the visible paleo Earth project and maintaining the habitable exoplanets catalog he's also co-author of the popular science book searching for habitable worlds welcome everyone to event horizon with me John Michael Gautier if you enjoy what you hear fall into the event horizon hit the like button and become an active subscriber by ringing the bell professor Abel Mendez welcome to the program I get to be here you do work on the habitability of exoplanets and you know we look at Earth and we see this beautiful jewel of a planet and we wonder if there are others now what is your recent work on habitability or the habitable zones around stars yes that's a very important concept in studies of planetary habitability let me start by defining first what we mean with habitability for exoplanets and what we mean is that the planet might have the right conditions for life based on things we can measure now things that we can measure now for planets are their size their mass and their insulation so we are not including yet other important factors regarding the habitability of the system we don't know anything yet about their atmosphere about the water content eventually we might have some information for dharam we will include but once you have an identified planets that match your basic criteria base of things you can measure you then plan ahead for foods for the observations for those lands so we do mostly theory on exoplanets so I let me just compare the two things because there are people that are doing the observation the sperry mental world which include that that thing it's the planets and others that do the theory theory is important because it helps to understand what you are seeing and actually also to be fine where to look at base of the theory so that's what important where to look at and understand once you see something how relevant or not is that as a planetary that might be considered potentially habitable in our current work we are trying to define what are the possible planets that might be out there so just in terms of theory what my aspect and we can devise the plan is at least in five categories and they must common planet that we might consider it potentially habitable it's not something like Earth it's probably something like a tidally locked planet so one size or the planet is always looking to the star so that size usually I'm thoroughly would get over heat and no water might be pressing in that side and the other side in the dark side it will always be a nighttime so it will be too cold and water will freeze and go outside so unless there's a big ocean planet that might have some circulation and I'm from heat from the lights I go to the dark side these planets are maybe just one side is a desert another size a nighttime polar desert so the problem is that if you have a planet like that for microbial life that's something that might be feasible both for complex life and I mean plants and animal that might not seem to be so good anyway because you needed for a planet to have the condition for complex life to have a rain rain is very important the most habitable places in our own planet are forests and that's because you have a lot of rain you have the ground you have the atmosphere and you have so you have a lot of this ingredients then you will have enough mass and energy to build learn large things like plants and animals otherwise you will only have microbial life so we expect that the first type of planet that we might consider habitable the first type that it should be more abundant and this is also because red dwarf star they should they should be orbiting red dwarf stars on cradle start are the months up under stars in the universe 75% of the stars are precursor so we think that that should be the most abundant type of plant so then after that we expect ocean planet land planets and earth-like planets probably in the last category not to have too much water or too little water for life so you need the planet to be earth-like to have continents and ocean and the ocean provide rains and our rain makes forest and the forest feed large animals if you are interested in in earth-like planet but in between there's probably other categories that we're burying trick is the category of super a bit of awards this is something like Earth but atmosphere is denser so there is more energy and mass available for in the surface for life which means that probably will make more likely to have a denser biomass in the planet and support a larger biosphere so this is in theory this is very interesting because it tells you that earth-like planet and and this super habitable planet if they do assess they might be easier to detect because they you need a large biosphere to change the atmosphere somehow so we can see the atmosphere from afar and tell that there is like there so if you have a planet only of full of microbial life only that might be harder to detect not impossible you have a widespread biosphere of microbial life but in general that might be harder to eat it so that's why we are very interested in designing this kind of theory just to see what's the possibility and how likely are not we might be able to detect this words professor let me get this straight super habitability that would imply it better than Earth right for life I guess mmm-hmm in this case what I mean yes so you could have I mean look at look at her okay at the moment the very earliest moment that life could arise on this world it did and on top of that we have just a blinding array of biodiversity across the history of this planet you know so many different species and I mean if you look at the microbes my gosh the the diversity the microbes this is insane so a planet that's super habitable could have orders of magnitude more types of life than Earth is that what you would expect yeah I would SPECT that the available space on the planet is use better for life if you see Earth today you see that all the all the land available forests are not everywhere you see that you have a large desert in our planet you see polar desert also why not are these places are covered with forests so that's the difference in the super habitable case you we have a planet with all your surface will be it will be a little bit hotter planet the planet will be all surface covered you won't have a polar regions you won't have to search you will have only have forests everywhere and and because the atmosphere should be a little bit denser then this forest could grow big much bigger than in the rest air force and that in suspected is life if all the life on like animals are present then they will a lot of resources available for freedom themself so that's like in our tropics on earth you have a larger diversity of animals in the tropics not closer to high girl at it was closer to the polar regions you have a decrease on diversity now this idea of a large surface area of a planet being covered with vegetation brings up a bio signature or a possible bio signature the vegetative red edge so if it's photosynthesizing life that has a cell structure similar to what we have here this would be visible at a distance right yes that's the point if you have a it would be very easier much easier much less and not even know it's not easy anyway but much easier to detect from different methods one you have a larger biospheres producing oxygen and with my career life also producing methane so you will have a stronger signal in your atmosphere tell a tell tale that some big biological process is going on to oxygen emitting an atmosphere so that's including just atmosphere detection something that we are trying to do for the next decade for example with the James Webb Space Telescope and water still cover our plan might be able to detect these signals you see the in the next decade but for detecting directly through the Reg so you Anna you need to analyze in the individual light of the planet and use some made up like angle Coulter to to hide the light from the star and you see the planet as a dot and if you get that you can use the idea of the red edge just to see the to the tender greens the absorption and reflection of light by the plants which is different and you will see in the indirectly detecting the greens of the plants if you have a large by a here 10 surface bio fears now I mean so then I that would be much easier to detect now you're involved with a microbial life database correct ah yes that's now how does that play into this is is is are there possible other bio signatures beyond the red edge and obviously oxygen and methane levels is sir is there anything else maybe that we could possibly detect microbial life or alien planet for something like that is there is there any other astrobiological signals bio signatures that we could look for yes and we yes but we'll still be a very eccentric and we are trying to consider different models low like life the history our planet it was not always dominated by the same thing things so we'll steer Bary centric and we are ours critique way if you were to absently but why you're not consider other possibility we always are considering all the possibilities but when you're doing astrobiology one of the first things that you learn is if you want to dare to talk about life elsewhere just understand your life first not because necessarily you expect that you will find that life similar to us but because you need a base of comparison so based on these models we might expect a planet full of vegetation or full of differing which is complex life or all in microbial life that might change the spectral signature because they are in the ocean because they are the land so we might expect to have a planner like that but the thing is the ones and this is something that is related to earth and we something like that then we will know okay this is this is a process a biological process that we know of but otherwise if we find and we see that we indicate your life but all the things that does not make sense to what we know from the rest of life they will say okay this is a by a little process that is going on but it's unrelated to Terry stay on life so that's why we have to model habitability and bio signatures together and we plan to match goals so if we detect some indication for life bio signatures we expect that there they they match a specific habitable place otherwise by a signature with suspecting habitability is telling you well you know there's something wrong here or this is life as we don't know it so so we try ours too to use the base of Earth but that's because it is very important to recognize something different now that brings up two questions in my mind first of all is convergent evolution is it possible I mean or is it likely that we would see similar life to what happens here or is it invisible that it would be so radically different that we might not even recognize it as life is are these possibilities that you think about yes and to answer that we need to start by resources if resources like water like oxygen methane so these are chase gases that are available I am easily available in large quantities in the atmosphere of planets if we think about a life that are using a more complex or rare type of gases something quite different then that life won't have enough or those resources and at least we have to compete if end with any other life that are using the maximum available resources so in a sense there is a force converge evolution there because you have the same resources available as our planet Earth those are gases there are very abundant in the soil in the atmosphere and if all the ingredients are available in the there might be a little bit concentration more or this or that but in general those are the things that has us but but once once I say that since the issue is that once you start a process of life thing evolution can't take you anywhere else and I mean diversity will so we should expect very different things but probably using the same resources not because necessary they are are forced to use those resources or their so the only possibility but because those are the most available resources such as water as a solvent right yes do something like ammonia or some it's more likely that it's gonna be water right yes he has a wider range of temperatures for a planet for first it's more abundant and then ammonia and it has a largest range of temperatures for a planet to have that so you can have a planet at different distance from the start and I still have water but all the constituents like eighteen ammonia that have been considered has a smaller range and then will be the planet has to have is more strictly right to have the right position to keep those liquid up there services so we are not discarding that but again for that to happen there's these are other temperature ranges so they have to be very cool to have a for example ammonia or maintaining as a liquid and there's all the issues there if you have temperatures that are so cold for to keeping this environment together and you have life everything will move very slowly there I mean reactions the chemistry yes low temperature life like Titan perhaps yes and then any life there we have the a even microbial and even there to consider a complex life everything will be a seamless flow so that includes the evolution also so would it would be because of the the slow down nature of it it would it could be microbial for billions upon of years before it ever makes any sort of leap to like eukaryotic analogue life or anything like that it could just be just so slow in this environment that nothing happens yeah as compared to any other planet with water evolution will go much much faster faster reaction will go much faster so it's more likely to things evolve more rapidly than the other this kind of planet I want to ask you specifically if we're gonna have to take a break soon but I wanted to ask you specifically about something that's related to this in your work the quantitative habitability theory can you give us an overview of that oh it is very important to have a good definition of habitability and a good to finish and how to measure habitability and the thing is that you have you have seen a lot of people arguing about we don't know how to define habitability we know how to do better but in fact we did I really just asked biologists well specifically ecologist so where do you learn about habitability in biology that's the first question you want to learn in this topic so you have to learn that in biology and in biology there's the field of ecology and we'll think ecology ecologist in the seventies we're arguing the same thing that we are astrobiology are doing now how to define a measured habitability and they develop a quantitative theory of habitability and and manuals and how to to do that so all the all the science and the math is done Boris McCall habitability and that's one issue when the astrobiology feel started to take to gain track by the 90s when a night late 90s so is they started to use this word habitability which is a common word it's not a scientific word for habitability is a common word that we use for human ability and that's confusing and that's why we are trying to put together the language that astrobiologists are using right now with the language that biologists know how to measure and do habitability in a general theory of irritability and that's our quantitative habitability theory it seems that you know the zone of habitability as I call it in the solar system where we have Earth and Mars is just a little bit in it but we also have things like Europa Enceladus that I have these their ice shell moons with this apparent liquid water ocean environment underneath them how do they work into the theory I mean it seems almost like an earth-like planet is very different from an ice Sheldon is it does this theory cover both of them oh yes that's that's very important because when something that we learn from the college's here is that you start with the basics not from from the big picture and then going down is going from the core I'm going to to the other possibilities so the first thing that you need for any life-form are the resources and the resource is mass and energy so this is very fundamentally it doesn't mean that it has to apply to complex life to a big planet could apply to microbial life to microbiome into a global biosphere is that the planet has the right resources drive mass oniony meaningful life from that own then that but when I say that mass that mask depends of the rainfall so different I form will select from the available mass search young ingredients so Allah complex like others and lift also the energy from the energy available depending on the line form but so this is like a mathematical general core just to connect so no matter the type of light you are considering do believe evaluate the habitability on this in terms of massing energy of the system but every lie have their particular requirement so we can apply to full biospheres also to to microbial life in the oceans or Europe for example let's say or even Titan if you consider the possibility of life in maintenance and we have to take a break I'm joined today by Professor Abel Mendez of the planetary habitability laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo we'll be back in a moment [Music] professor Mendez welcome back my pleasure ok now you're you're a nurse Eva which is a very noteworthy place because of the venerable radio telescope and I know you work with that telescope as well what do you do with an astrobiology what do you do with that telescope oh that's excellent questions I told you before that I like to do more theory of this as the planets are there scientists that I also like to do the the detection this parameter work but more recently because the observatory is there and that's a place I loved from childhood so I was always wondering how I can use something from our theory just to use related to habitability planning how to use the receivers repertory so everybody garden in mind well you can just say it no no no I don't want to do SETI no search for extraterrestrial intelligence at the servitor II did that long ago there is no true engine anymore so all the way that I can't use the servitor II and I cut interesting I had an idea it was to use Observatory to look at these stars that we know have already a potentially habitable planet which we know that has the right master or right size and the right insulation to be considered potentially habitable so looking at those stars with those planets just to see the the activity of the source for example red dwarfs stars are very active stars and especially are the beginning of the life that means that even that they are smaller and more common than the song and a little bit relish even that they are smaller they are much more active and the planet of the planet will get a lot of radiation from the especially you be and even x-rays from time to time it births flares of this kind of energy and what happened is that all these extra energy will erode slowly the atmosphere of any planet so we are worried about one of the issues are other biology right now is if the red dwarfs stars are good or not for life 75% of the stars are red Wooster they're small and smaller star have smaller planets just like like air so if they are easier to the third planet to the table already or stars what about the orange two works oh I mean could that be a better situation yes though that's the case stars which are high a higher temperature a little bit larger than the little star they we consider those stars like the our song and orange stars k-stars sun-like star so as our Sun they are more stable they emit less those random fluxes of radiation so that's much better but they are not that many of those stars compared to that latter right that gets rarer you know I mean the red dwarfs as you said there's just an enormous amount of them so using SETI to look at red dwarfs as I recall there was the question of Ross 128 be what what happened there what what piqued your interest about that and what did it end up being okay so I started using the receive observatory to look at Israel or start not to look for any signal from a potential signal from civilization that was not my interest but look at the activity of red door star so if I look this stars and I don't see that they are athlete it means that the planet has a great chance to still have an atmosphere otherwise if I see a star that is very active then that might not be a good candidate for example for an astronaut can use that to 2d and not be to consider to observe that start now because there are all the better candidates always all stars about Sarah being but just a thing of priority just to look at those star with the planet are more likely to have an atmosphere that will be a very a better candidate to look her order so the idea is just to look at a star to the team is a star and in this process you get a lot of signals and you get signals from the star the variability you also get a lot or are five radio frequency interference and that's something that you have to struggle through all the salvations especially airplanes Raider you got that wrong everywhere very easy to to the Ted at the frequency that we were looking at but sometimes that's very rare sometimes do you have signals that you cannot tell immediately if the signal is produced by the star or the signal is something our technology here so we got one signal like that for Ross 128 so we really treat this is something astronomical or not so we ask a lot of astronomers especially people from zappy know because this is related to save a book because they are spurred on the testing r5 because they are looking at signals that they have to differentiate the rest here for only any potential civilization so we ask them to you recognize this as some terrestrial communications so and they will therefore also in this process press notice the this discussion and this and then just I add that that okay does might be something alien because we don't know so the question he was it was not a conceiving considered by us that is something alien but we don't know between astronomical or r5 eventually we took many more observation to recognize what it was so we were if it was a terrific he we thought that I could be satirize not something in the ground but something in the space satellite but it was the signal was not like a Saturday so that was the big deal and eventually recognized that it was the combination of many satellites there was a resonant pattern form because of that location of the star the declination the stern and looking through the receiver of servitor II and the location of Observatory then you have is a addition of different communication satellites that are closing the Houston area Navy position and that made that will signal and it was not observed before because that frequency that were using it was not commonly used not many people observe that frequency and we were serving for a long time I mean long time is 10 minutes in sets of 10 minutes if you know so much quick observation one minute so you will notice that so that was a big deal about about that it was a not one Saturday but a bunch of satellites confusion yes yes that's I we love that because that's the process that's the process of discovery and we had to all these observations a group of people we have an outreach component of the program and they were observing the stars with Rios coming through all the presence observation they are of the servitor e so you know there were everybody was very interested what it is but ok they all knew that it was not something related to alias but the thing is is something astronomical that will be a hard something good to splain well astronomical process is going that makes it's not like that but eventually it was not well a fine example of that would be a tabby star kic a four six two eight five two where we still don't completely understand what's going on seems to be a phenomenon of dust but that's the fun part is trying to unravel exactly what's going on with radio bursts I don't think now red dwarfs some of them appear to be quiet quiescent some of them appear to be rather active early on and then they quiet down it's some appear to just be quiet what's the difference it says it doesn't have something to do with mass or circulation within the star what's the difference between these flare stars and quiet red dwarfs and how does that relate to an exoplanet because if an exoplanet gets its atmosphere eroded away can it ever reacquire an atmosphere after that oh it was the red dwarf quiets now a good point because that could happen they can require the atmosphere so we expect through our theory and modeling I mean in general astronomers think that red dwarf at the beginning are the like all star very active so that's at a time where the planet is just formed with the atmosphere that it probably happened some time but then the stars very active so it is very likely that primals your atmosphere the planet what was blown away at the beginning but planet could take them up here back by by gases from from the ground volcanic activity or so that I'm probably casas comets in Pat's more asteroids impact so you can recover that mass we're but the star could continue to be active or not the general trend is that if the time if the star is Joan then I say two three billion years it probably will be still active but after that star is older than our solar system it tends to get more quiet unless active but that's a long time after their summer after sonde activity and we don't know at what point the planet loss or not the atmosphere so this is only this is something that is do it to this the best the simplest way to explain this if you have a big star you have a lot of gravity but I lack a lot of energy also the energy wants to blow away to your star and then the gravity wants to collapse your star but smaller door star even the smaller that nuclear energy wants to blow with the star but they don't have enough gravity just to keep all things together and you have more convection in the star so that's what produce or more the star to be more active I'm probably not so good for the planets at least for some time unless the planet can be atmosphere so that will depend on the on the actual history and initial condition the planets the planets if he let's say for example it was a planet with a big atmosphere then thermosphere was a road but not to the point or not having any once the stark acquire so that's good but if this planet starter will let atmosphere ding eventually he became so it's not there's no way to tell because he's depends on the evolution he's trying to look at Venus Earth Mars now and from that information figure out from afar what were their history and if what I must really have that's impossible now that very convection is what allows a red dwarf to live for a very long time yes and that allows temporally a lot longer for life to develop on an exoplanet that that is in orbit of a red dwarf so if the dwarf comes back down and you end up with a planetary atmosphere say it gets bombarded by comets or whatever volcanism then you have a whole lot of time for life to develop and that seems to work in favor of the red dwarfs just simply because it lasts so long so do you think it's likely that if you had to pick a star type that to look for signs of life at is it the red dwarf is it the cave dwarf is it sun-like stars what is the best the best chance what type of stars well I like that question because when you start in this field you are more positive about the possibilities of life elsewhere once you go deeper learning more about life on Earth and the possibility where the module and you are more skeptic and you are more amazed that even earth has life so many things that could happen in star at the planet system so many things that could happen in terms of the biology of the biology and evolution to reach one point so probably the astronomers will be more in general more interested right now in stars song like star not red dwarf star because there are so many issues with the positive and negative let's say about red was started with positive the one day you mentioned the time that's one of the positive but there's also so many negative things and probably the the majority a tournament will say okay even that the red or starter more common we prefer sun-like star but right now a more mean particular more interested in things that I haven't seen before even if they don't have life or not so I totally intrigued but so I prefer red dwarf star because I'm totally intrigued if they're not because if they have life or not oh well not necessary just to find life just to if they don't have like why not why of all these factors came to play so the more interested in for me more surprising to buy a place that we consider for example habitable but with our life because I used to everybody used to a place a habitable place we life does earth I seen that before this is Earth but a place that we might consider having up all without life that's something that we haven't seen everywhere we look on earth we find life in habitable place we find life but that will be very interesting to find elsewhere and if it doesn't have a life and it has closed conditions but it is not so that will be more intriguing that finding a place or life so that this is my open you know it's kind of crazy if you if you really look at life on earth and the resiliency of it you start to see extremophiles microbes that can survive things that nothing else can and tardigrades of course and things like that that so you wonder about things like pence per Mia so if you end up with a star system that has life in it does it seed life across the whole system my question to you is alright one thing one filter seems to separate microbial life on Earth from more complex microbial life that jumped from prokaryotic to eukaryotic life and that took a very long time for to be able to do that so do you think we live in a largely microbial universe or do you think there's no real reason why complex life shouldn't be everywhere do you think there's a great filter there oh yes I think we are living a in mourning in microbial life universe than a macro life like plants of our animals one of the filters is related to energy especially oxygen oxygen is for reaction we are seeing is a very important for the development of complex life and even intelligent life because for having things big things big plants animals and especially animals you need oxy and you need a reaction that produce enough energy for moving parts because that's that's something that requires a lot of energy so so we have luckily we have that transition in our planet that enough microbial life was producing enough oxygen in the atmosphere just to provide and that also helped to to a bowl but you see the east we have a planet that happens at the last moment it was not at the beginning that happen he started to happen at least half the history of planet board it was not into the end that oxygen was enough to support a large biosphere so up seeing I think is the key and if you can see they're also intelligent in life like us to build a knowledge II more important is the oxygen so any much boutique or an antenna like we require obsidian for for their metabolism but there is no other easy available gas in planets because the when the universe was formed they come stick there's a the different elements were produced in particular abundance so upsetting is the one real available so and obviously improvised only you do do any gear for from your metabolic the true combustion but also if you have a technology developing species that buildings of metal glass you need fire so II so we my aspect and this is something that may be related to converge evolution but cumber technology evolution you need up seeing in a planet because if that a saint in life-form tries to develop technology want soup built metals melt metas construed our tools our metals and unit fire so not good for ocean planet for intelligent life like octopus building tools with undersea without fire so you need at the surface level you need that obsidian and unless these capable life-form capable of technology build things out of wood or stone so that's not good so you need also option to fly to create fire so very important are all levels just to have complex life you need a chemical reaction a common chemical reaction with ingredients that are very easy available than by roaming and that's that requires oxygen and if you are considering also an intelligent species there build technology then more important is oxygen yet so you could you of course oxygen because of its wide reactivity who did you know provides the energy source for our big brains but also as you said if you're in an ocean you can't learn how to smelt metal you just can't do it but even if you had an exoplanet that was a super-earth bigger the gravity will you could probably not go into space right that's all their profit that's true that's true do we have a harder time so I'm probably that planning we have also more clouds and you have more clouds less beuliss or the night sky or the stars so do we have do you learn navigation stellar navigation much more later in your lifetime so this is like like we mentioned before for the simple life living in a colloid bottom in the evolution we move very slowly but now we're talking about technology for dance abilities and we move very slowly and we have to take another break I am joined today by Professor Abel Mendez and we come back we're going to talk about the first identified interstellar comet Borissov back in a moment and we're back with Professor Abel Minda now doctor if we have a very interesting object passing through our solar system and will be passing through for a while now Borissov the first identified interstellar comma now it's not the first interstellar object that was in moon but now we have a comet that actually has a coma around it that we can study what are you guys doing with observing this this object oh this is a very interesting topic because in 2017 by September by by October the first interests are object Oh moi was detected and a fourth observation shows us that this was probably not a comment we will expecting we should expect from elsewhere water is more available than than rock so we should spare comments more than the ungass droids but so this was probably an asterism Anwar in 2017 the issue was that the Arecibo territory was down at that time he had a small chance to observe that object but it was down because Hurricane Maria so we miss the opportunity to look at this a first interest our object with their receiver Observatory but not anymore because now one more that was recently in discovered we have the capability of observing the is not doing radar radar we we provide you more information but probably this Borisov is too far away when you get closer for radar but at least just to see how much water you have that's something that you can tell with a radio telescope so we are looking at the body soft right now we did are ready to observe patients we have more observations in the following month what are you looking for what you specifically studying we are trying to determine how much water he has and for that that depends also on the distance because this is a totally different object because he came from outside so not necessarily as our comment so our comments in our solar system but social observations tell is our telling that it has similar composition to our cone so we want to know everything so we have the opportunity not to go one of these started and get so planets are we what material from that probably different body man comes to our system so we can have a solid so we're looking at how much water is emitting but right now is farther away from the Sun so it probably it gets we will produce more water depending on it will need more water depending how much it has once you get through late October and November and December and we want to see that just to get a sample of how much what an estimate how much water it has if any which is now this is this is exciting because I mean we caught this one early this one's the closest approach I think is what December 8th to the Sun so you'll be able to watch over the next couple months and see how it evolves you know how the comb evolves I'm looking for water in there and you know of course this is intimately related with astrobiology because comets may have been what delivered water to earth and the building blocks of life in fact we look at comet related materials like certain meteorites carbonaceous chondrites and they we see the building blocks of life with them and is there a way to see if this comet has those sort of carbon compounds in it oh definitely they have their different measurements that you can take and different see with that depending on the telescope not necessarily by I receive also all those telescope are looking at the comment and just at the beginning we already know that he has cyanide so so that's a compound that requires carbon but eventually when it gets closer that signal-to-noise ratio we provide us with more information about the constituents definitely it will be better to get a closer look by a pro but that's not feasible at this moment not yet but now that we have the ability to detect interstellar objects and in fact Borissov was found by an amateur astronomer mm-hmm as we get things going and coming online like the LSST and things like that that can show us as these things pass through more easily someday we may be able to visit one of these and all of a sudden we have samples of an object that may have originated halfway across the galaxy and we can see if if it has the same building blocks of life that our comets have and we can say well maybe this is common across the universe or maybe we'll get surprised and something's missing do you anticipate any surprises from interstellar objects I anticipate any particular surprises probably one thing that this could parts of my two he will maybe be once he get closer you equal birth there's something because is it has been so cold for so long and now this is posing to the light of a star so you might have a birth even that is that far compared to all the comments that happen we all the comments but you have to get closer to the Sun so that was something too interesting to see because then you will have a more signals about the composition of the other comet then you can see from different observatories but hopefully or not I don't spare any any any surprise of this Oh mwah mwah was more surprising as I said we you were expecting something a comic and he was not a comic or maybe it was well or it's just some worn-out object that's been traveling the galaxy and getting bombarded by radiation and there was just very little left and it couldn't become a comment but it that brings up the question I mean how long you know do you travel through the interstellar medium I mean before you can't have a coma as Borissov has now with studying an object like that and you see the water what is it now the water is gonna outcast right so it should start basically forming a tail right mm-hmm and other gases and other gases like just like cyanide which is already ammonia carbon dioxide so they are solid other temperatures and carry the Sun they arise so a host of them now this is as I recall the closest approach is gonna be tween B between Mars and the asteroid belt right no now when it gets to that how bright is this thing gonna be I mean is it possible that amateur astronomers could see it and with smaller telescopes or is it just gonna be something that's just too dim no no it definitely it will be expected to really we will be able to see with a small telescope so I'm a curious tournament so I was talking to feel a material sternum is in the island here in Puerto Rico and you know they have a competition like who will be the first of their that would take a picture with three with small telescope and and that's great so that's eerily cemetary that we should be able to see if there's small telescopes now to switch gears back to astrobiology the other planets of the solar system how likely is it do you think that we're going to find microbial and I want to stress that microbial life on other bodies such as Mars do you think it's because Mars seems to hint a lot that it may have something going on it's hard to hard to separate it from residual volcanism or anything like that but what do you think it's likely that we're gonna find other microbial life not related to Earth somewhere in the solar system do you think it's probably not likely I think there's a big competition or who will find extraterrestrial life and there are three objects well three regions in particular one is earth and I mean why else I started as July I mean meteorites like 1996 that NASA report a potential microbial life one meteor that we know now it was just a false alarm yeah the island Hills meteorite yeah Allan Hills and and everybody there scientists still looking at a meteor race so that's one way to detect extraterrestrial life just at home if it is carried away in the meteorites the other the other place in general is the rest of the solar system I say and finally what we were discussing in episode plans plan other stars so one we will be the winner at some point if we succeed to the test attendee and I do my bit for the solar system not because it's impossible in exoplanets well you can have an answer planet microbial oddly and complex life but it would be much much definitely much easier to confirm and on from the all the system Mars because it's closer and we have more missions and stamp operators may be necessary we've had experience with the Allan Hills meteorite that even that it was an earth we were we were doubting this life on that for so long for years so that was a SS like wow it's hard to recognize even we have a sample here imagine that doing that from robotics Mars or for looking at exoplanets and having some indication I'm afeared that you have a lifepro segue there will be a lot of doubts anyway or confusion so I think Mars is the winner so the keys the key a big key is a month because let's say eventually do sample a no habitable environment and environment that is you put the rest your life he will survive there let's say you have machines that big down and find a flowing water you analyze that value water it has the right place you have the ground you have ingredients out that micro the wrister micro guidance can use you find all the conditions there let's say this hypothetical example but then you don't find life I think that Jack would be big you find life okay is big and then the to decide that life is related to earth or not but let's say you don't find in life like airView everywhere you look to find life but then you don't find life and it's a similar impact so that tells you a lot so no even contamination the two planets are relatively close together they have a similar revolution meteorites from Mars came to earth from probably meteor for girl came to mark stood and still it was there's no life there so I think that will be the biggest and concerning discovery just to find an a bit of iron without life and if we find life then the issue is is that life related to earth so you have a common origin it is not that would be big because that tells you okay there are other ways and there's more chances for like Elsa water so the case Mars that's that's interesting because we're gonna have to differentiate whether panspermia happened and earth life contaminated Mars or vice versa perhaps it started on Mars and we're in some way not actually native to this planet and that we might actually be Martians in some capacity but it'll could also be completely alien and we'd find something of a completely different character different chirality or something that you just don't see here on earth now I wanted to ask you specifically about the Allan Hills meteorite I think it was Allen hills 84001 that was the the controversial one where it got so far that as I recall Bill Clinton even sort of gave a speech about it and it turned out to get called into question do you think that's a good possibility that we might have found evidence of life or do you think it's barking up the wrong tree trying to use look at meteorites you mean no just that the detection of that particular meteorite back in the day when they were like well this could have been evidence of life microfossils in there or is that just a dead end and we can't really know what what's in that meteorite well no the agreement right now is that it was just a non-biological processes so going there so no life false alarm but the amazing thing is that it took time it took a lot of analysis debates and laboratory experiments especially with the one of the signatures magnetized signature the crystals monitor crystals they're worse the harder to explain because there was no non biological process to create those magnetite crystal like they were pressing in the meteorites oh okay so by already probably created but eventually we found we found that we need to create those in the lab and see that it was only that they could be created not necessary by biology and so eventually it's a the last piece of evidence crashes down and now we understand that it was just a false alarm but the samples was earth and it was so long and so it was a big lesson and and and that is this is not easy when you're looking for and trying to get microbial life and still we need to look forward so we'll need to still looking for guys not that we should not do this we have to learn if we get a sample from our someday that will be exactly the same exercise and we need and Allan Hills was IA test preparation for welcome and we need to do this kind of studies took one can imagine a scenario where we find an interstellar meteorite mmm that you know came from somewhere else and may have evidence of life in it or that's a little bit science fiction but in a best-case scenario won't that be amazing well just in our solar system detecting are recognizing something interstellar that unlikely because they're probably not much and even and also because of it not easy to the dead but then we are finding then so so this is this is a good field this is a lot of surprises it's good to always have a prediction got a prediction is not not to kill you possibilities elsewhere he used to to tell you wanna find something different the prediction gives wow that's something amazing I mean it's good to be discrete now my last question for you possibility of life in the Atmos upper atmosphere of Venus do you think maybe or probably not oh that's a very trending topic right now because k2 18b unless a few weeks ago a planet a super earth mini Neptune planet in the available zone water was detected in the atmosphere and probably clouds so he restarted the debate on the possibility of life in ink of the clouds at system so that includes previous ideas of life in the clouds of Venus life in the clouds of Jupiter so he doesn't have to be a terrestrial planet but there any type of planet with the right Klaus could probably have microbial life so this started to debate and you know that this is a big debate and my answer to that is very very unlikely and the best example of that is our terrestrial Klaus I was the racial clouds they issue here and that's why very it's very important to to understand the habitability I mean now we are applying to microbial life they issue here with the terrestrial plows you have water good you have that liquid their waters are drop ISM so you have the earth with the gas component you have the light but the per limiting factor he is here is you don't have the ground the soil well this particles provides tool for and other ingredients that are not readily available in the atmosphere and so you have an environment very dilute and and you have a salty stability this is not very stable water drugs go appear and disappear but beyond that is very diluted so you don't have in no ingredients and even that we have life on earth not far from the clouds you still don't see a ecosystem living on interesting clocks even that we have life so Klaus in our planet for micro Vella is a transit environment so trance does is transport to the clouds aerosols transport microbial life in the droplet but they cannot sustain the environment to be a department environment for life so and we are trying now to consider a cloud system and other planets that we don't know if you'd like to start I think is very very like let's say not something impossible so that's the theory I would love to be surprised otherwise but in this moment I say that is a very unlikely life in clouds professor we are out of time this has been a real pleasure talking with you today and I hope you'll come back and visit us sometime oh my pleasure it was a nice chat talking to you imagine the idea of super habitability a planet better for life than Earth in a way it's the opposite of the rare earth hypothesis there we make the assumption that earth is rare only arose here because of very specific conditions and we don't seem likely to encounter that much in the galaxy but it goes both ways there may be places even more Clement than this world that could host life on a next-level basis imagine a more efficient planet where there are vast forests with vegetation on a scale that might be war if our own imagine if life had more resources than it did here or maybe such a place could be too easy for life and evolution might stagnate and never achieve intelligence and civilization amazing things to think about and you can reasonably expect that the more we learn the more interesting things will become John are you ready for Halloween I am it's my favorite holiday and I bought like 40 bags of candy yesterday and it was a sale on corn stalks are you sure I don't see any pending what where'd it go wait the possum locked the candy in the LeBaron where are the keys I saw one of the cats with the keys about an hour ago I assumed he had permission what you let the cats have the keys for corns sake hopeless just hopeless Anna and on that note join us next week for a special Halloween edition of event horizon see you then [Music]

Channel: Event Horizon

Views: 288,334

Rating: 4.7403474 out of 5

Keywords: Superhabitable Exoplanets, Abel Mendez, Where is the best place in the universe to look for life?, better than earth, exoplanet, super earths, k218b, life on mars, europa, enceladus, alien, alien life, solar system, Allan hills 84001, oumuamua, comet 2I/Borisov, interstellar object, arecibo observatory, NASA, universe, space, SETI, john michael godier, event horizon, event horizon john michael godier, isaac arthur

Id: FrreX86-1_0

Length: 67min 3sec (4023 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019