RESEARCHERS have claimed that alien life could evolve from elements different from what we’re used to.
The findings were presented in a new study published in the Journal of American Chemical Society.
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As far as we know, the building blocks of life are contingent on certain elements.
These elements are known as biosignatures, or organic molecules normally found in living systems.
Typically, they consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, among others.
But now, scientists believe that radioactive metals and even certain gases could create the kind of reactions needed to form life.
“It’s important to explore these possibilities so that we have an idea of what all forms of life can look like, not just Earth life,” study senior author Betül Kaçar told Space.com.
One specific reaction scientists have been looking at is autocatalysis; in this process, one of the reaction products is also a catalyst for the same reaction.
This means that autocatalytic reactions are self-sustaining, such as the process of reproduction.
“One of the major reasons that origin-of-life researchers care about autocatalysis is because reproduction — a key feature of life — is an example of autocatalysis,” Kaçar said.
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“Life catalyzes the formation of more life. One cell produces two cells, which can become four, and so on.”
“As the number of cells multiply, the number and diversity of possible interactions multiply accordingly.”
In their study, the team of scientists looked for autocatalysis beyond the chemical compounds we’re used to seeing it in.
They looked at more than two centuries of digitized scientific documents.
“With effective language search and translation tools, we were able to design and conduct this first-of-its-kind assessment of the pervasiveness of autocatalytic cycles,” study co-author Zach Adam said.
In conclusion, the researchers uncovered around 270 different cycles of autocatalytic reactions.
“Autocatalysis may not be that rare, but instead it might be a general feature of many different environments, even those that are really different from Earth,” Kaçar said.
In the cycles, some of the elements found are rare in life on Earth, such as mercury, or thorium.
Meanwhile, other cycles only happen under extremely high or low temperatures or conditions.
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“It was thought that these sorts of reactions are very rare,” Kaçar noted in a statement.
“We are showing that it’s actually far from rare. You just need to look in the right place.”
