What's that smell? Broccoli emits gas that could signal presence of alien life

They might act like broccoli if there is a planet or moon crawling with aliens.

Is broccoli an alien vegetable? It's not quite right. There is a possible biosignature that could show signs of life on distant worlds. Broccoli, algae, and many other plants and organisms purge toxins by morphing them into gases. If these gases are present in the atmospheres of exoplanets, they could potentially be detected by instruments. According to a study led by a planetary scientist, these gases are not likely to be emitted by anything that is dead.

"Methylation is so widespread on Earth, we expect life anywhere else to do it," said Leung. Cells can expel harmful substances. If you find it, it's more indicative of life because there are limited ways to create it.

A space telescope could find alien life.

Living organisms are more prolific producers of gasses than volcanic eruptions. Toxic heavy metals are transformed with hydrogen atoms and carbon atoms before being released as gas.

When a planet passes in front of a star, atmospheric gas particles can be seen in the mid-IR. Once the NIRSpec separates positive signals from background noise, it will pick them up.

Some gases are more likely to give away strange organisms. Even if a biological source is decaying, methane is still likely to be a by-product of abiotic reactions. If it shows up, it has to have been released from something recently. Something may still be there.

Astronomers are going to be looking for another methylated gas in the future. The atmosphere of a planet in the vicinity of an M-dwarf star would be the most obvious place to detect it. The gasses are broken up by what is left of the water molecule. The sun emits more UV radiation than the m-dwarfs.

It could take as much as a hundred transits of just one planet before a telescope can see anything. It could be that Earth is not alone in hosting life if any are in a distant atmosphere.

There is a paper in the Astrophysical Journal about the research.

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