Searching For Alien Life

A new report by the National Academy of Scoence, sponsored by NASA, encourages NASA to take a broader approach in its search for alien life.

So far, NASA has largely focused on looking for Earthlike life and Earthlike conditions on extrasolar planets. That approach, for example, has led to NASA's "follow the water" strategy in searching for life on Mars, either current or fossilized. Because of NASA's political and budgetary situation, trying to find life everyone can immediately recognize was probably a necessity, possible realities of the universe notwithstanding.

The Academy committee that produced the report, however, points out that alien life could be fundamentally alien. Some life forms may not have DNA-based genetics, for example. Some life may not need water in the same way Eathly life does. That could mean Saturn's moon Titan, with its lakes of mixed ammonia and water, should be studied more closely. Many scientists see Titan as an analogy of early Earth. It may be more analogous than most dared dream.

Trying to define life in all its possibilities, and trying to construct an exploration strategy that will encompass that definition, could be beyond our capabilities of the moment. Exploring may simply mean keeping an open mind and looking for complex chemistry.