Can life be brought to celestial bodies outside our solar system which are not permanently inhabitable? This is the question with which Professor Dr. Claudius Gros from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt is dealing in an essay which will shortly appear in the scientific journal Astrophysics and Space Science.
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| Artist's concept of a planetary system [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] |
From a technical standpoint, the Genesis mission could already be achieved within a few decades with the aid of interstellar unmanned micro spacecraft which could be both accelerated and slowed down passively. On arrival, an automated gene laboratory on board the probe would synthesize a selection of single-cell organisms with the aim of establishing an ecosphere of unicellular organisms on the target planet. This could subsequently develop autonomously and possibly also into complex life forms. "In this way, we could jump the approximately four billion years which had been necessary on Earth to reach the Precambrian stage of development out of which the animal world developed about 500 million years ago," explains Gros. In order not to endanger any life which might already be present, Genesis probes would only head for uninhabited exoplanets.
The mission's actual duration played no role in the Genesis project, since the time scales for the subsequent geo-evolutionary development of the target planet lies in the range between a few tens of millions and a hundred million years. The Genesis project therefore has no direct benefit for people on Earth. "It would, however, enable us to give life something back," says Gros. In this context, he is also discussing whether biological incompatibilities would have to be expected in the case that a second Earth fully developed in terms of evolution were to be colonized. "That seems, however, at present to be highly unlikely," says the physicist, dampening any too high expectations.
Source: Goethe University Frankfurt [September 01, 2016]