CFA-Lecture-2021

Clara Sousa-Silva, Astrochemist, Center for Astrophysics

with a sun-like star
- Looking for methane? would have to be a sewage planet to see it from this far away!
- phosphine much easier as a bio-signature. No false positives on rocky temperate planets
  - not phoshite and phosphate reduction
  - Not lightning volcanism, etc
  - any detectable amounts of PH3 on a rocky planet cannot be explained without life
- She published her paper on phosphine as a bio-signature in 2018
- test: phospine possibly detected in clouds of Venus via ALMA and JCMT?
- Made the press rounds
- Venus — something strange is happening
  - Is the signal real?
  - is it phosphine?
  - What is making it?
- more observations forthcoming
- will we be better prepared w/ next observation
- We only spectra for roughly 4% of full range of molecules
  - life could emit 16,367 molecules
- She’s also working on the UK Twinkle Space Mission
- she created a new program: ORBYTS
  - Original research by young twinkle scientists
    - each group studying the spectrum of potential bio-molecules
  - Harvard/MIT SRMP (Science Research Mentoring Program)
    - Adapting astrophysics projects to accommodate original research by HS age students
    - SRMP Symposium 2021: May 21 2021 at 3:30pm
  - JURA — STEM for students that don’t quite fit in in normal STEM programs
  - These efforts helping identify spectra for more bio-molecules
  - in reality, the detection of life on another planet will have lots of uncertainty
    - Detecting 1 bio-molecule won’t do it on its own
    - better to have multiple confirming multiple signatures
  - Her biggest concern is that we’ll be pointing telescopes at habited life and miss the signs due to not have the tools/processes to really detect it
Questions:
- Are there any ANTI bio-signatures? Detected chemical compounds that rule out life