From UC Riverside

Carbon monoxide detectors in our homes warn of a dangerous buildup of that colorless, odorless gas we normally associate with death. Astronomers, too, have generally assumed that a build-up of carbon monoxide in a planet’s atmosphere would be a sure sign of lifelessness. Now, a UC Riverside-led research team is arguing the opposite: celestial carbon monoxide detectors may actually alert us to a distant world teeming with simple life forms.

Click here the full press release.

The study, “Rethinking CO Antibiosignatures in the Search for Life Beyond the Solar System,” was published in The Astrophysical Journal. The work was supported by the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS).  NExSS is a NASA  research coordination network supported in part by the  NASA Astrobiology Program. This program element is shared between NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) and the Astrophysics Division. The work was also supported in part through the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) element of the NASA Astrobiology Program, and the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP). The NASA Astrobiology Program element of the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) provides opportunities for Ph.D. scientists and engineers of unusual promise and ability to perform research on problems largely of their own choosing, yet compatible with the research interests of the NASA Astrobiology Program. Applications to the Astrobiology Program are accepted twice each year: March 1 and November 1. Note that the Astrobiology Program does not participate in every application/award cycle.