HomeSpace NewsBroccoli emits gas that could help search for life on other planets

Broccoli emits gas that could help search for life on other planets

If there is a planet or moon crawling with extraterrestrial life-forms that are anything like life as we know it, they might act like broccoli.

Alien broccoli? Not exactly. There is now another potential biosignature that could reveal signs of life on far-off worlds. Methylation is a process used by broccoli, algae and many other plants and microbes on Earth to purge toxins by morphing them into gases. These same gases, if present in the atmospheres of exoplanets, could potentially be detected by instruments such as those aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. Planetary scientist Michaela Leung of UC Riverside recently led a study that determined it is highly unlikely these gases could be emitted by anything that is not alive. 

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