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Researchers: Purple planets a better bet for alien life forms

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Yeah.

Okay, so the sky high microbes turned out not to be from space, as claimed (you were surprised?) Look, that’s so last summer anyway.

To find extraterrestrial life, as Marcus Woo explains (this month) at New Scientist, you should look for a purple planet:

Find a purple planet, and you may have spotted alien life. Some of the first Earthlings were purple bacteria that ruled the planet about 3 billion years ago. If any Earth-like exoplanets host similar microbes, their distinctive hue will be visible from space.

Previous work showed that we might be able to detect the infrared signature of vegetation on exoplanets, based on the signal given off by trees and other plants on modern Earth. Other studies suggest sniffing for gases in alien atmospheres that would only be given off by life.

A recent model showed that the purple would more likely be visible on land.

In honour of the basic idea:

Aud only.

See also: “Behold, countless Earths sail the galaxies … that is, if you would only believe …

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