"While scientific observations are the key to reliable theories and predictions, they cannot speak for themselves. Every person, including a scientist, filters the data through his own assumptions and expectations.
Astrobiology: Inconvenient truths: Ever since the first exoplanets were found, astrobiologists have assumed that they could detect “biomarkers” (hints of life) by looking for disequlibria in their atmospheric spectra: that is, indications that life is tweaking the atmosphere into a non-natural state. Wrong, says a new PNAS paper. Three scientists present “Some inconvenient truths about biosignatures involving two chemical species on Earth-like exoplanets.” The method can produce false positives:
Astrobiology: Inconvenient truths: Ever since the first exoplanets were found, astrobiologists have assumed that they could detect “biomarkers” (hints of life) by looking for disequlibria in their atmospheric spectra: that is, indications that life is tweaking the atmosphere into a non-natural state. Wrong, says a new PNAS paper. Three scientists present “Some inconvenient truths about biosignatures involving two chemical species on Earth-like exoplanets.” The method can produce false positives:
The search for life on planets outside our own solar system is among the most compelling quests that humanity has ever undertaken. An often suggested method of searching for signs of life on such planets involves looking for spectral signatures of strong chemical disequilibrium. This article introduces an important potential source of confusion associated with this method. Any exoplanet can host a moon that contaminates the planetary spectrum. In general, we will be unable to exclude the existence of a moon. By calculating the most optimistic spectral resolution in principle obtainable for Earth-like planets, we show that inferring a biosphere on an exoplanet might be beyond our reach in the foreseeable future.
Such misleading biosignatures are “the cosmic equivalent of fool’s gold,” Science Magazine notes.” CEH
Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools,
Romans 1:22