The planet Earth is nothing but a tiny blue speck in the massive universe it inhabits, yet it is the only planet with the ability to sustain life as we know it.
By combining ideas and bringing different specialists into one room to collaborate, the UCLA Center for Astrobiology is working to answer the timeless questions about the origins of life and whether humans are alone in the universe, said Edward Young, professor in the department of Earth and space sciences.
“Over the past 10 years that the institute has been around, it has been a success in bringing astronomers, geologists and chemists together,” Young said. “We need to be able to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together to be able to answer the burning questions.”
With Earth as the only model of a habitable planet that scientists have, the goal of astrobiology is to uncover the mysteries of the Earth while searching for the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, Young said.
SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is one of the newest advancements for astrobiology research set to start flight next year on a mission to do just that, locate newly forming planets and stars similar to the Earth, Young added.
The project is managed for NASA by multiple research teams of the Astrobiology Institute, one of which is UCLA.
“SOFIA provides the stepping stone to understanding the chemical mix that is needed for planets to form with the use of an infrared telescope to observe star formation and planet birth,” said Mark Morris, professor of physics and astronomy. “The chemical mix that these planets form from will provide clues as to whether or not they could sustain life as we know it on Earth.”
SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP airliner that will make flights up to the stratosphere, where Earth’s atmosphere is thin and the water vapor is low so as not to degrade the telescope imaging.
Morris, who has been on the committee overseeing the SOFIA project for nearly a decade, said scientists would be on board during each mission along with the infrared telescope that will point at different stars and planets to study their properties via infrared spectroscopy.
Infrared is part of the spectrum of light that occurs outside of the human visual field, but with the use of tools, humans have extended their visual capacity to see beyond what nature intended.
“Many organic molecules are present when stars and planets form,” Morris said. “With SOFIA, scientists will be able to study the ingredients for the organic soup needed to spark a planet able to sustain life like Earth.”
Young said SOFIA will provide a clear image of the infrared space sky and allow scientists to tell where new stars and planets are forming by letting them see through the cosmic dust that visible light cannot penetrate. Hence, much of the invisible is made visible through the infrared telescope, free from the atmospheric image effects that ground telescopes must cope with.
The strikingly diverse microbiology of life that has recently been discovered on Earth, such as organisms thriving and flourishing in sulfuric acid, has made the need for collaboration between fields evident, said Bruce Runnegar, a professor in the department of Earth and space sciences.
“Looking more closely at our own planet has led us to rethink our concept of habitability,” Runnegar said. “There are microbes on Earth living well below the freezing point, deep inside tiny films of ice, undetectable without the proper tools.”
Geologists, along with biologists and eventually astronomers who study newly forming planets and their properties, must be brought in to study what Earth was like when it was just being formed and how it became complex.
With the efforts of the Astrobiology Institute to establish an interdisciplinary new field of research, the collaboration between universities is also being accomplished with the use of technology, Morris said. In order to share ideas about research and be progressive, the head of the institute of each team have televised meetings and shared ideas and discoveries.
Young believes that more departments need to start coming together, because by working together many ideas can be thought up that could not even before be imagined.
The UCLA Center for Astrobiology has prompted these collaborative efforts, Runnegar said. To remain a part of the institute for another five years, researchers are compiling proposals to attain funding from NASA next year.