Revealed! >> Scientists Reveal Why All Our Extraterrestrial Searches Have Not Revealed The Hiding Planet Of Alien Life

Scientists hunting for life beyond Earth have long thought that water is one of the key indicators.  But a group of experts now says that looking for life on water–rich planets could be a waste of time.

Instead, they claim we should be turning our telescopes to worlds that are filled with phosphorus and nitrogen.

Life as we know it simply cannot form without these two elements – even if there’s abundant water.

Phosphorus is required to make DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic information in all lifeforms.

Nitrogen, meanwhile, is an essential component of proteins, which are the basic building blocks of cells.

This means that life can only form on worlds within the ‘chemical Goldilocks zone’, where there is just the right amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in the rocky mantle.

Lead author Dr Craig Walton, of ETH Zurich, told the Daily Mail: ‘You could feasibly have a planet that looks great with oceans and even dry land, but there is no life and never will be because the other elements you need are simply all but absent.’

While no life as we understand it can survive without liquid water and oxygen, looking for planets that have these ingredients might be misleading.

This is because a planet’s ‘oxygen balance’ at the moment of its formation determines how much phosphorus and nitrogen remain available for life.

When planets cool out of molten rock, a sorting process happens in which the heavy elements like iron sink towards the core, while lighter ones float to the surface to form the mantle and crust.

If there is too much oxygen present, phosphorus gets locked in the mantle while nitrogen is forced out into the atmosphere and eventually lost into space.

On the other hand, if there is too little oxygen, phosphorus binds with other heavy elements and is dragged down to the core, where it can’t be used to kickstart life.

Dr Walton says: ‘Having too much or too little oxygen in the planet as a whole – not in the atmosphere per se – makes the planet unsuitable for life because it traps key nutrients for life in the core.

‘A different oxygen balance means you have nothing to work with left at the surface when the planet cools and you form rocks.’

What is necessary for life?

In the future, the researchers suggest that searches for alien life should pay much more attention to Phosphorus & Nitrogen, as well as, the chemical composition of exoplanets.

This is very difficult to measure directly, but astronomers can get a clue by looking at the type of star the planet orbits.

Since planets primarily form out of the same material as their host star, their chemical compositions are closely related.

Solar systems that have similar stars to our own are, therefore, a much more promising place to look for life out in the Universe.