Features Reporter
Astrobiology was invented to answer one of the most pressing questions of our human existence: Are we alone?
Dr. Bryan Hynek is determined to spend his life’s work answering this question. Not only is he an assistant professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado, but he also is a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. When he is not traveling the world, sampling various extreme environments of Earth, he ponders extraterrestrial life and how to find it.
Every second Thursday of the month, the Changing Landscapes of Science Series provides a guest lecturer to speak about their area of interest. To conclude the Space Frontier Series, Hynek was chosen to fill the audience’s head with philosophical questions about extraterrestrial life.
“Before we die, we will likely have answered one of the greatest questions: are we alone? I want to be a part of that grand effort,” Hynek said.
As a child, Hynek was enthralled by topics of space and geology. His love and dedication for the subjects rewarded him with an internship about the geology on other planets. Ever since then, he has been 100 percent involved with the subject.
In order to understand how to find extraterrestrial life, an understanding of exactly what life looks like is necessary. According to Hynek, astrobiology is the “broad field of searching for life beyond our own planet.” Several factors go into finding out the true cause of life. He explained life as five separate categories: physiological, metabolic, thermodynamic, biochemical, and genetic. Personally, he sees life as “a self-contained chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
With his geological background, Hynek measures the extreme environments of Earth and compares them to other planets and moons.
“We’re searching for the habitable places,” he said.
Habitable places are the key, because if life exists here on Earth, who’s to say that extraterrestrial life forms are different than us? Since there is little to work with, known Earth life has been our basis for categorizing habitable zones. Unfortunately in space, the environment does not put life in favor. There is limited water, extreme temperatures, atmospheric deficiencies, high radiation, limited nutrient sources, and drastically varying gravities.
The best way to measure these extreme conditions is to observe extremophiles. Literally defined as extreme lovers, extremophiles are organisms that adapt to harsh environments. With strange names such as piezophile, xerophile, acidophile and many more, these extremophiles have different favorable conditions that vary with temperature, pressure, oxygen availability and chemical conditions.
Hynek has travelled all across the globe to study these various organisms. While visiting locations such as Yellowstone, the Cerro Negro volcano in Nicaragua, Iceland, Antarctica and other volcanically active areas, one must wonder how this affects extraterrestrial living conditions. These extreme environments are the closest representation we have to outer space.
“[We] understand how these places happen on Earth and apply it to Mars,” Hynek said.
Martian living conditions are the main backbone of his research. This involves interpreting and mapping out information collected by probes. For example, looking at photos from Mars, rivers and deltas have been identified. The key term used by Hynek was “fluvial.” This means that there could have been presence of water on Mars. Since deltas collect salt and mineral deposits on Earth, the same must go for Mars. Hynek believes that early Mars may even have hosted an ocean.
Mars is not the only local space object that is in question. Jupiter has many moons that give clues to possible habitable zones. Europa has extreme tidal forces that cause cracks along its surface. These cracks are expelling organic materials that have caught the interest of scientists. Saturn also has a few moons that are kept under close watch. Titan has lakes of liquid methane, and Enceladus has geysers of water blasting into open space. While none of these moons show significant signs of life, their environments show similarities to early Earth, which was flooded with microbial life.
The problem facing Hynek now is detecting these signs of life. At the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, he helps develop technology that could detect life. Utilized by NASA, Hynek has been a valuable part of deciding how to detect life in outer space.
At the end of the lecture, Hynek stayed around and answered questions from all of the attendees. Joshua Montgomery, a Grand Junction local, was fascinated with the lecture. Constantly asking Hynek questions, Montgomery said, “I’ve always known [about] possibilities of life on moons and Mars, just not specifics.”
If you are interested in attending the Changing Landscapes of Science Series, more information can be found at https://www.museumofwesternco.com/. For the next year, the museum will be showcasing geology topics.
Recent Comments