Search for life in the Milky Way's most common stars illuminated by simulator

Italian researchers have demonstrated experimentally for the first time that microorganisms can photosynthesize using the infrared-dominated light produced by the most common kind of star in the Milky Way. The results from the Star Light Simulator, presented at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022, suggest that life could create around stars not quite the same as our Sun and produce oxygen-rich worlds that are habitable by additional complicated organisms.

Most stars in our Milky Way are the smallest kind of hydrogen-burning star, known as red M-dwarfs. They are cooler and less luminous than our Sun and primarily transmit light in the infrared and far-infrared, with exceptionally low emissions at visible wavelengths. Because of their abundance, many exoplanets have been tracked down around M-dwarfs. In any case, whether or not these planets could support life has been the subject of much debate as of late.

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The Star Light Simulator, worked by a collaboration of teams from the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology (IFN-CNR) and the Department of Science in Padua, can generate light intensities and spectra at various ranges to repeat the light for any star. For this experimental setup, the team recreated the transmitted light from a M-dwarf along with an atmospheric simulator chamber that replicated an artificial planetary environment.

"We initially focused on cyanobacteria since they have extraordinary capacities to withstand each environment on the Earth, as well as a known ability to survive in near-infrared light," said Prof Nicoletta La Rocca of the University of Padua, who drove the study. "When these acclimatized to the simulated environment, we stretched out our tests to mosses and various types of red and green microalgae."

All the experiments were successful, with all the microorganisms demonstrating that they could develop and photosynthesize under M-dwarf light.

Prof La Rocca remarked that "life as we probably are aware it depends on fluid water, so that is one of the major criteria for an exoplanet to be considered to be habitable. More perplexing terrestrial life forms also rely upon oxygen. On Earth, photosynthesizing cyanobacteria played a vital job in oxidizing our atmosphere. The new experimental results broaden our insight into potentially habitable environments and subsequently, where we could hope to find a planet harboring complex life."