r/Astrobiology

In origin-of-life research, abiogenesis is often framed in terms of prebiotic chemistry leading to increasingly complex molecular systems (e.g., RNA-world hypotheses, lipid world scenarios, metabolism-first models). However, I’m wondering whether this framing underestimates the potential role of informational organization prior to stable biochemistry.
Specifically, could early Earth environments have supported self-reinforcing informational gradients—where patterns of energy flow, catalytic probability, and environmental feedback loops produced persistent “information structures” that were not yet fully biochemical life, but already exhibited selection-like stability?
If so, would these structures constitute a distinct intermediate regime between chemistry and biology, in which:
persistence is governed by informational stability rather than molecular replication alone
selection acts on patterns of energy/matter organization rather than discrete replicators
“proto-evolution” occurs at the level of dynamic constraint networks
Could such a framework complement existing abiogenesis models, or does it risk collapsing into overly abstract information-theoretic language without empirical grounding?
In short: is there a theoretically and experimentally defensible role for prebiotic information dynamics as a causal layer in abiogenesis, distinct from but compatible with current chemical evolution models?

Every time NASA announces a new exoplanet discovery or a rover mission to Mars/Europa, the headline is always the same: "Scientists find evidence of liquid water!" or "Looking for organic carbon signatures."

Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense. We are carbon-based, we need water, and Earth is our only blueprint for a living planet. It’s the ultimate sample size of one. But as an aspiring astrobiologist, I can’t help but feel like our current search parameters suffer from massive human bias.

Are we completely blinding ourselves to truly alien biology?

Think about it:

The Carbon Bias: We assume carbon is king because its four valence electrons allow it to form complex, stable chains (DNA, proteins). But Silicon sits right below carbon on the periodic table. It can form four bonds too. Sure, silicon bonds are more rigid and silicon dioxide is a solid (quartz) rather than a gas like CO2, but under intense heat and pressure, like the interior of a massive super-Earth, could a silicon-based biochemistry thrive?

The Water Bias: We treat liquid water as the cosmic gold standard. But on a freezing moon like Titan, liquid methane and ethane form entire lakes and rivers. Could life evolve to use liquid hydrocarbons as a solvent instead?

If a rover rolled right past a non-carbon, non-DNA based entity that was technically alive, would our instruments even recognize it?

If its metabolism is so slow that it looks like a rock, or if its chemical composition doesn't register on our "organic molecule" scanners, we might just categorize it as weird geology and move on. We might be staring right at alien life and calling it a rock formation.

Are we spending billions of dollars looking for our own reflection in the cosmic mirror, or do you think looking for "life as we don't know it" is just scientifically impossible right now because we wouldn't know what to test for?

We are looking into the past. Doesn't matter if we look in the visible spectrum or IR. Spectroscopic measurements will just tell us about the past content of the atmosphere in question, not current. So does that mean that some planets we wrote off could potentially harbour life in the future?

Scientists are investigating Cladosporium sphaerospermum, a black fungus discovered in the Chernobyl exclusion zone that thrives under ionizing radiation. Researchers propose that the organism uses melanin to perform "radiosynthesis," converting radiation into metabolic energy much like plants use photosynthesis. Testing on the International Space Station suggests the fungus could eventually serve as a protective radiation shield for future space exploration missions.

Say an alien body was found in a field somewhere, no tech or ship, just a body, what sort of biological or chemical discoveries could be gleaned from it? In science fiction it's always a big deal DISCOVERING an alien of any sort but why? Bonus points if the alien is silicon based. Would this actually be scientifically revolutionary?

Could mysterious life exist deep inside Earth's mantle? Explore the science behind hidden underground ecosystems and the possibility of life beneath the crust.

Hello!! First post here :) Ive always been interested in our Earth's history. The 'why's and 'how's of our very existence and the extremes our Earth has been and will be. Also have loved astronomy and what could be out there to discover, various other planets and star systems and if life can happen there like us. Its been an inward dream to work for a place like NASA or similar :)

It didnt hit me till recently just how much I want to be an astrobiologist. Finally have a reason for my life, ha! The issue is that I have no clue where to start.. Im getting a laptop today to do research, and then a library for various books on the subject and around it, but Im already 21 and havent gone to college yet.. Ive taken AP Bio though in senior year of HS 😅 Do I have a chance?? Even if it takes till Im 40, at least its doing something that Im passionate about!

Any tips, advice, and communities? Thank you all!! Cant wait to discover <3

We have no idea if there is any life in the universe apart from earth and if there is life of it has the possibility of becoming conscious.
Seeding the universe with DNA based life could be the start of live in multiple places in the universe and by the time the earth no longer exist live might have found a foothold elsewhere.
Isn’t this on almost sacred task that we have as humans ?
We have the technological capability to do this at this moment but this window of opportunity might close again.
So please, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others that have more money then they know what to do with please make this happen and make us laugh ok at the stars KNOWING that we’re not always gonna be alone !

what would be more impactful?

I'm a dude from Italy whose dream job is becoming a researcher in this field in the EU, however it has zero opportunities in my country and it is a very specific field so the job opportunities can be very narrow.

My career plan would be something like this:

-Bachelor's Degree in Natural Sciences(comprises biology, geomorphology, genetics, botanics ecc.)

-Master's Degree in Astrobiology(already found at least 5 in the EU)

-PhD and Post-Doc in Astronomy/Space Sciences

Would this career plan be feasable?

I watch media theories, space facts, relativity from youtube and most of em are often talked or discussed with an astrobiologist, astronomer, and many more. and my question is.. since we found possible habitable planets, like the planets in the star system TRAPPIST-1, can we send living microorganism on it for it to like spread and adapt? I know i could've just searched but i wanna read answers and discussions! (i am not trying to mislead anything neither anyone, i want to hear from someone's perspective and debate through it.)

So I am an undergrad student currently studying a multitude of things and an interest in everything! My current research project for the lab I am in is studying genome size of zooplankton, specifically copepods, and environmental factors. Over the past few years I’ve learned a lot about zooplankton but one thing specifically has really stuck with me… they are very resilient.
Some species can survive in environments that are radioactive, extremely cold or hot, and many other weird aspects that would leave any other living thing to die. These zooplankton are staples in water systems and hydrobiology.
Another huge interest of mine is space and alien life and life in space, a very broad and common topic of discussion. When thinking about how in the world these fit together I began to question whether some of these zooplankton species could possible survive in environments that would be present in space and on other planets.

Essentially could I recreate certain environmental factors that resemble those in space, collect the most resilient species of zooplankton, algae and bacteria, and create a functioning and surviving water ecosystem?

I know there is a lot to discuss with this topic and so many things that would need ironing out but I thought I would bring it to Reddit first to see other people’s thoughts on it!

TLDR : could I create an ecosystem of algae, bacteria and zooplankton in an environment that resembles one in space such as mars?

I'm a final-year CS undergrad working independently on a habitability scoring framework for tidally locked exoplanets, and I'd like feedback from people who actually work in this space before I take it further.

The motivation: ESI has no stellar environment term at all. SEPHI only touches tidal locking indirectly, through a magnetic-field scaling in one of its four sub-indexes. HITE (Barnes, Meadows & Evans 2015) doesn't include tidal locking as a formula component in any form. Barnes (2017) computes lock timescales but doesn't turn that into a habitability score. So as far as I can tell, nothing maps the full rotational spectrum — freely rotating through spin-orbit resonance to synchronous lock — onto a continuous habitability number. Planets in intermediate spin states get forced into a binary label that doesn't reflect their actual physical regime.

My approach (TLHI): compute a tidal lock probability P_lock = 1 − exp(−age/τ_lock) using the Peale formulation,

then blend two scores: P_lock × TLHI + (1 − P_lock) × SEPHI.

The TLHI component itself folds in five factors specific to locked/near-locked planets — terminator-zone habitability fraction, atmospheric heat-transport efficiency (Cowan & Agol 2011), tidal heating flux, day-night temperature gradient, and XUV-driven atmospheric escape (Ribas 2005 scaling).

Phase 1 (the SEPHI/HZD filtering pipeline) is done and validated against published Kepler-442 b numbers.

Phase 2 (the TLHI layer itself) is in progress — currently working through the tidal locking probability layer on a 181-candidate dataset(after analysis) from the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

Two open questions I haven't resolved yet, if anyone has thoughts:

1. Albedo assumption for the terminator-zone factor — blackbody (A=0) or Earth-like?
2. How to handle the nightside temperature floor when atmospheric pressure data is missing — is an Earth-like pressure prior defensible, or too strong an assumption?

Not looking for co-authorship or mentorship, just want to know if the underlying physics holds up before I go further. Happy to share more detail on any part of it.