When we say ‘alien’, the first color that comes to mind is undoubtedly green. There are some reasons why we think that, but the progress of science, it could actually be purple say.

Of course it’s not just about color, or it’s not that simple. We’ll talk about bacteria We’re going on a space trip.

Alien life may harbor purple bacteria, according to astronomers who have pinpointed the chemical structure specific to purple-colored organisms.

These microbes, estimated to have lived in the earliest periods of our planet’s history, can survive and thrive under such a variety of conditions that on different planets Maybe they even are. Current research into extraterrestrial life has generally focused on the search for green pigments. We’ll explain why in a moment.

Researchers who wanted to study the chemical structure of purple organisms collected data in several places. They grew purple bacteria and they modeled purple bacteria that dominate several Earth-sized planets, including terrestrial rocky spheres like our Earth.

What distinguishes these bacteria from others is not only their color, but also the type of energy they feed on. They perform photosynthesis with heat and infrared. This shows that their biopigments are on the completely different side than what we are used to looking for.

We define the Earth with the color green.

cyanobacteria

The only planet we know of life on is Earth, so we also look for life on other planets We use the Earth as a reference. Chlorophyll, which most organisms use to take advantage of sunlight, is pigmented green.

However, about 2.4 billion years ago, the first species known to photosynthesize emerged small, blue-green algae called “cyanobacteria” This wasn’t the case until it started using chlorophyll to harness sunlight and carbon dioxide for metabolic energy, releasing oxygen as a byproduct.

Before green there was purple.

Previously, microorganisms produced metabolic energy from sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal, whose origins may predate chlorophyll. If retina also exists on other distant worlds, the molecule’s unique properties could be predicted in the future. through a space telescope It should be noticed!

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