Cornell University | 2019 Aug 13
Astronomers seeking life on distant planets may want to go for the glow.
Harsh ultraviolet radiation flares from red suns, once thought to destroy surface life on planets, might help uncover hidden biospheres. Their radiation could trigger a protective glow from life on exoplanets called biofluorescence, according to new Cornell research. ...
Astronomers generally agree that a large fraction of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system – reside in the habitable zone of M-type stars, the most plentiful kinds of stars in the universe. M-type stars frequently flare, and when those ultraviolet flares strike their planets, biofluorescence could paint these worlds in beautiful colors. The next generation of Earth- or space-based telescopes can detect the glowing exoplanets, if they exist in the cosmos.
Ultraviolet rays can get absorbed into longer, safer wavelengths through a process called “photoprotective biofluorescence,” and that mechanism leaves a specific sign for which astronomers can search. ...
Biofluorescent Worlds – II. Biological fluorescence induced by stellar UV flares,
a new temporal biosignature ~ Jack T. O'Malley-James, Lisa Kaltenegger
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 488(4):4530 (Oct 2019) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz1842
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1608.06930 > 24 Aug 2016 (v1), 12 Aug 2019 (v2)