NASA Pluto and Earth Oceans Share Life Blocks
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| Tara Oceans navigating the World Oceans. In the background NASA New Horizon Pluto rises. |
When scientists go out on the search for new life forms there are several basic things that they look for. Amino Acids and proteins are top listed in the search for life. If one finds them then one would have found life. But what are amino acids built with? What is the raw material of these basic manifestations of life? If you answered Nitrogen then you are right on the money.
Two seemingly unconnected recent news reveal to the World just how little we know about Nitrogen -the most basic element required for life.
On March 22 Phys reports that a new study based on TARA Oceans Expedition data has unlocked the secrets on how nitrogen spreads through the ocean food webs. While Nitrogen is present in abundance here on Earth it requires some work to put Nitrogen to work in favor of life. Diverse life forms such as microorganisms can synthesize atmospheric Nitrogen in what is known as the Nitrogen Cycle. The nitrogen is then passed to other life forms through the food webs reaching even human beings. Nitrogen is a component of all proteins and can be found in all living systems and DNA. But Nitrogen is not only found here on Earth...in fact now we know for sure that it is present in abundance in the outer reaches of the Solar System and not precisely present as a gas...
On March 28 NASA reported that the spacecraft New Horizons revealed evidence of oceanic presence in Pluto as well as evidence of presence of frozen Nitrogen Lakes long gone.
“NASA's New Horizons spacecraft spied several features on Pluto that offer evidence of a time millions or billions of years ago when -thanks to much higher pressure in Pluto's atmosphere and warmer conditions on the surface -liquids might have flowed across and pooled on the surface of the distant world,” NASA communicated.
While Nitrogen is known to be present in Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and moons and several other celestial bodies the fact that Pluto is the “most distant” planet in our solar system speaks of the finding´s great importance. It seems that Nitrogen -building raw material of life is spread throughout the entire solar system from Solar close orbits to the darkest regions.
To say that the sole presence of liquids or Nitrogen in Pluto is evidence of life is to reach out in advance because the Nitrogen Life Cycle is complex. But thanks to new ocean science here on Earth we are beginning to understand how the same element which is found on Pluto and other planets works its way through life here on Earth.
In the report “Nitrogen Factories in the Cretaceous Oceans” Phys covered the latest work of researchers from the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council ICM-CSIC. Working side by side researchers of the University of Bristol UK they amazingly discovered exactly how nitrogen is fixed in the oceans.
The study was published in Nature Communications and is based on data which was made available by Tara Oceans - a small scientific boat which has surprised the entire world more than one time in the past years.
Scientists have known that nitrogen in its biological form is provided by cyanobacteria but the CSIC study dug deep into the process and identified for the first time two organisms which are crucial in the ocean Nitrogen game.
During the Cretaceous Nitrogen Ocean levels increased dramatically and took Ocean Life to new unknown and unexpected dimensions. CSIC discovered important elements of this crucial time of quantum evolution jumping.
CSIC discovered a cyanobacteria now called UCYN-A which lives in a tight symbiotic relationship with an algae. Cyanobacteria is usually a word which is followed by photosynthesis but the cyanobacteria UCYN-A has no photosynthetic capabilities. Instead it takes its necessary organic carbon from an algae in exchange for the production of Nitrogen.
CSIC assures that UCYN-A only exists and has the “sole purpose” of providing nitrogen to its more complex cell host. In this relationship UCYN-A provides nitrogen to the algae while the algae provides the organic carbon derived from photosynthetic activity. UCYN-A is a Bio-Nitrogen-Factory.
The study also revealed how the relationship evolved by studying two different species of the cyanobacteria and of the algae. The species which were studied broke apart different branches of the evolution tree about 90 million years ago. This was the time in which the lowest regime of ocean nutrients was registered for the past 500 million years ago.
CSIC described the finding as import to ocean life forms as the formation of chloroplasts in the Plant Kingdom.
“It is about a symbiotic system very relevant for marine environment because they are globally distributed and therefore they can condition the Nitrogen and the Marine Carbon Cycle,” Silvia Acina researcher of CSIC stated.
While the mysteries of Nitrogen fixation in Earth's Oceans is unravelled NASA continues getting busy with a packed agenda to find life in planets beyond our own. Discovery reported on March 17 that new findings reveal that Pluto probably has an ocean under its surface.
NASA´s vision is that of an ocean which is kept warm thanks to internal heating caused by natural radioactive decay. This ocean hidden under the surface of Pluto is likely to rich in Ammonia. Above the frozen surface elements such as Nitrogen, Carbon Monoxide and Methane encircle the atmosphere.
“We now have half a dozen worlds, like (Saturn’s moon) Enceladus, (Jupiter’s moons) Europa and Ganymede, and now Pluto, that seem to have oceans in their interiors,” New Horizons’ lead scientist Alan Stern, with the Southwest Research Institute told Discovery News.
“It’s interesting that only Earth wears its ocean on the outside,” Stern added. “From the surface, we don’t see them. Who would know that oceans would turn out to be fairly common?”
As far as the prospect for life on Pluto, Stern said, “Anytime you have liquid water, the astrobiologists get interested in that place. That’s as far as I’m willing to go.”
Perhaps -and most likely when we do find life in planets beyond our own we will find organisms very similar to the Cyanobacteria UCYN-A and its symbiotic algae.
