r/Astrobiology

So I’ve been thinking of creating a possible habitable planet orbiting a neutron star as a location for a world building project I’m doing as some exotic planet type. I’ve already thought of a couple things for it, such as it being a lemon shaped super earth that’s really hot at around 150-300 C.

But I’m still trying to figure what factors would give it the best chance at hosting life.

One of the biggest problems I’m trying to figure out is how to have it absorb and block out the bombardment of x ray radiation hitting the planet or what atmospheric composition would best be able to

We search for biosignatures based entirely on what we know: carbon, liquid water, oxygen, temperatures compatible with our biochemistry. But that's just one data point — life on Earth. We have zero alternative examples.

Which raises the question: are we searching for life, or are we searching for copies of ourselves?

In 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope detected possible traces of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b — a compound that, on Earth, is only produced by living organisms. It's not confirmed, but it's not dismissed either.

Meanwhile, researchers like Lee Cronin and Sara Walker are working on Assembly Theory, an attempt to define and detect life based on chemical complexity rather than specific biochemistry — which could theoretically identify life that looks nothing like ours.

Fiction has been playing with this for years: the astrophage in Project Hail Mary, the Na'vi's biological network in Avatar, even the energon-based Transformers. All fictional, but all pointing at the same idea — life doesn't have to work the way ours does.

So my question is genuine: given that our instruments are calibrated to detect our kind of life, how confident can we actually be that none of those 6,000+ exoplanets host something alive? And what would it even take to detect life we don't recognize as life?

If life on Earth began 3.8 billion years ago, and inevitable changes to our Sun end all life on Earth in 600 million years, that means we are 86% percent along in the total span of life on Earth. Just 14% left on the timeline! Thoughts?

So apparently 3I Atlas has a lot more deuterium than the Solar system's comets. Now, we know that heavy water is toxic to Earth life in large quantities - it messes with all the bond angles and distances our enzymes depend on to function. Would a significant amount of heavy water be an obstacle to abiogenesis? I doubt that 3I Atlas has enough to be a problem, but theoretically?

New research reveals that 3.4 billion years ago (Archean Eon), ancient microbes relied on molybdenum — a metal that was vanishingly rare at the time — and even experimented with tungsten.

The findings may rewrite how astrobiologists search for life on other planets...

Hello Everyone!

I am an undergraduate student in Global Health and Environmental Sustainability in Oral Roberts University, and have always had an interest in space science.

I really love connecting topics that are not too mainstream or do not seem really connected. I know Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary field requiring expertise in different areas coming together to solve the mysteries of the universe in an attempt to understand life on exoplanets, and I want to contribute to this field of science by gaining expertise in my field of environmental science including geology, chemistry and biology.

I am currently trying to get into things like environmental toxicology to solve issues like PFAS and other forever chemicals, which could in its own way help with Astrobiology, to understand chemical compositions required to sustain life, because there are bacterium here on our planet itself that can survive chemical compositions humans cannot, so this kind of research can create a base to understand life on other planets.

Geology is not taught in my university so I am trying to study it by myself from basics to understand how to study rocks in a way to decipher the history of a region, which could be extremely beneficial in Astrobiology. I am minoring in Chemistry as it is not a big part of my major. So to stay on track at least academically with my goal.

It's all okay, I believe. But the problem is when it comes to deeply scientific fields like Astrobiology, it is just kind of a prerequisite to have a guiding figure. Someone who is already in some or the other way interested in this field, and through their guidance I can learn about my next steps to do individual discoveries. Teams are required, and the university I am in is facing some administrative issues due to which the best of its professors are leaving. I am an International Student and cannot afford to move to other university and I have already done my Freshman year here.

This field kind of seems impossible for me, Space programs like NASA are highly competitive and I do not know how to prepare myself in order to be a part of projects bigger than my existence.

If anyone has any tips they can give me, wish to be straight-up mean to me for being a coward or something, or just have anything to say, please go ahead. I have been really confused about my journey in career from here.

See also: The study as it was published in the journal Terra Nova