30.2 Astrobiology  (Page 7/19)

Nevertheless, as noted earlier, high-temperature environments like hot springs and hydrothermal vents often offer abundant sources of chemical energy and therefore drive the evolution of organisms that can tolerate high temperatures (see [link] ); such an organism is called a thermophile    . Currently, the high temperature record holder is a methane-producing microorganism that can grow at 122 °C, where the pressure also is so high that water still does not boil. That’s amazing when you think about it. We cook our food—meaning, we alter the chemistry and structure of its biomolecules—by boiling it at a temperature of 100 °C. In fact, food begins to cook at much lower temperatures than this. And yet, there are organisms whose biochemistry remains intact and operates just fine at temperatures 20 degrees higher.

Hydrothermal vent on the sea floor.

Cold can also be a problem, in part because it slows down metabolism to very low levels, but also because it can cause physical changes in biomolecules. Cell membranes—the molecular envelopes that surround cells and allow their exchange of chemicals with the world outside—are basically made of fatlike molecules. And just as fat congeals when it cools, membranes crystallize, changing how they function in the exchange of materials in and out of the cell. Some cold-adapted cells (called psychrophiles ) have changed the chemical composition of their membranes in order to cope with this problem; but again, there are limits. Thus far, the coldest temperature at which any microbe has been shown to reproduce is about –25 ºC.

Conditions that are very acidic or alkaline can also be problematic for life because many of our important molecules, like proteins and DNA, are broken down under such conditions. For example, household drain cleaner, which does its job by breaking down the chemical structure of things like hair clogs, is a very alkaline solution. The most acid-tolerant organisms ( acidophiles ) are capable of living at pH values near zero—about ten million times more acidic than your blood ( [link] ). At the other extreme, some alkaliphiles can grow at pH levels of about 13, which is comparable to the pH of household bleach and almost a million times more alkaline than your blood.

Spain’s rio tinto.

High levels of salts in the environment can also cause a problem for life because the salt blocks some cellular functions. Humans recognized this centuries ago and began to salt-cure food to keep it from spoiling—meaning, to keep it from being colonized by microorganisms. Yet some microbes have evolved to grow in water that is saturated in sodium chloride (table salt)—about ten times as salty as seawater ( [link] ).

Salt ponds.

Very high pressures can literally squeeze life’s biomolecules, causing them to adopt more compact forms that do not work very well. But we still find life—not just microbial, but even animal life—at the bottoms of our ocean trenches, where pressures are more than 1000 times atmospheric pressure. Many other adaptions to environmental “extremes” are also known. There is even an organism, Deinococcus radiodurans, that can tolerate ionizing radiation (such as that released by radioactive elements) a thousand times more intense than you would be able to withstand. It is also very good at surviving extreme desiccation (drying out) and a variety of metals that would be toxic to humans.

From many such examples, we can conclude that life is capable of tolerating a wide range of environmental extremes—so much so that we have to work hard to identify places where life can’t exist. A few such places are known—for example, the waters of hydrothermal vents at over 300 °C appear too hot to support any life—and finding these places helps define the possibility for life elsewhere. The study of extremophiles over the last few decades has expanded our sense of the range of conditions life can survive and, in doing so, has made many scientists more optimistic about the possibility that life might exist beyond Earth.

Key concepts and summary

The study of life in the universe, including its origin on Earth, is called astrobiology. Life as we know it requires water, certain elemental raw materials (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur), energy, and an environment in which the complex chemistry of life is stable. Carbon-based (or organic) molecules are abundant in space and may also have been produced by processes on Earth. Life appears to have spread around our planet within 400 million years after the end of heavy bombardment, if not sooner. The actual origin of life—the processes leading from chemistry to biology—is not completely understood. Once life took hold, it evolved to use many energy sources, including first a range of different chemistries and later light, and diversified across a range of environmental conditions that humans consider “extreme.” This proliferation of life into so many environmental niches, so relatively soon after our planet became habitable, has served to make many scientists optimistic about the chances that life could exist elsewhere.