People have long considered what life was on earth first, and if our solar system is life behind our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons of our solar system – such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn Enceladus – can be deep, salty liquid oceans under the icy shell. Sea bottom volcanoes could heat these lunar oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.
Similar deep -sea volcanoes found on Earth support the life of microbes, which lives in a solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at a sufficiently hot temperature to boil water on the surface. They grow from chemicals leaving active volcanoes.
Because these microorganisms existed even before photosynthesis or oxygen in the Earth, scientists believe that these deep -sea volcanoes and germs can be similar to the earliest habitats and life on Earth and beyond.
In order to determine whether these ocean worlds can exist outside the Earth, NASA 1997 Sent a Cassini spacecraft to orbit Saturn. The agency also sent three spaceships to the Orbit Jupiter: Galileo in 1989, 2011. Juno, 2011, and the last Europe bang in 2024.
However, they must first understand how similar habitats operate and live on Earth to interpret the data they collect.
My microbiology laboratory at the University of Masachusetts researched thermophiles from hot sources in the deep sea volcanoes, also known as hydrothermal openings.
Diving deep for examples of life
I grew up in Spokan, Washington, and had more than an inch volcanic ash land in my home when in 1980. The St. Mount Helens. This event encouraged my fascination with volcanoes.
A few years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected examples from St. I have explored the thermophil from the hot springs of Helens Hill and from this place. Later, I collected examples in hydrothermal openings along the underwater volcanic mountain area of hundreds of miles from the shores of Washington and Oregon. I continued to explore these hydrothermal openings and their germs for almost four decades.
Pilots of submarines collect examples that my team uses from hydrothermal openings using submarines or remote -controlled underwater items. These vehicles are lowered into the ocean from research vessels, where scientists do research 24 hours a day, often a few weeks.
The collected samples contain rock and heated hydrothermal fluids that come from the seabed cracks.
Underwater ships use mechanical levers for collection of hydrothermal fluids for rocks and special sampling pumps and bags. Submarines usually stay on the seabed for about one day before returning samples to the surface. In each expedition, they travel for several trips to the seabed.
Hydrothermal liquids inside the hard sea bottom rock, as hot 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius), mix with cold sea water to the rock cracks and pores. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and sea water creates the ideal temperature and chemical conditions that thermophils should live and grow.
When submarines return to the ship, scientists, including my research team, begin to analyze chemistry, minerals and organic matter such as DNA in water and rock samples.
These samples contain live germs that we can develop, so we grow microbes we want to study on board. Samples show how germs live and grow in the natural environment.
Thermophiles in the laboratory
In my laboratory, my research team distinguishes new germs from hydrothermal fan samples and raises them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them with volcanic chemicals such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron, and measure their ability to produce compounds such as methane, hydrogen sulfide and magnetic mineral magnet.
Oxygen is usually fatal to these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and sealed tubes or large bioreactors that do not contain oxygen. In this way, we can control their growth temperature and chemical conditions.
From these experiments, we are looking for separated chemical signals that these organisms create in that spacecraft or instruments that descend on extraterrestrial surfaces.
We also create computer models that best describe how we think these germs are growing and they compete with other organisms in hydrothermal openings. We can apply these models under conditions that we think have existed in early Earth or in the ocean worlds to see how these germs can be suitable under these conditions.
We then analyze proteins from thermophils that we collect to understand how these organisms work and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information determines our understanding of how life can exist in an extreme environment on earth and beyond.
Using thermophils in biotechnology
In addition to the fact that Thermophiles research provides useful information to planets scientists as well as other benefits. Many thermophil proteins are new for science and useful for biotechnology.
The best example of this is the enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially reproduce in the DNA laboratory during the polymerase chain reaction. DNA polymerase, first used for polymerase chain, was purified from thermophilic bacteria Thermus Aquaticus 1976 This enzyme must be heat resistant to operate the replication technique. Everything from determining the genome sequence to clinical diagnosis, crime solution, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.
My laboratory and other research on how thermophils can be used to break down waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms are growing in milk from dairy farms and brewery sewage – substances causing the massacre of fish and dead zones in ponds and bays. Microbes then produce biohydrogen, a compound that can be used as a source of energy.
Hydrothermal openings are one of the most charming and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows in the first life on Earth and beyond can be at the bottom of our oceans.
This article has been published from a conversation, non -profit, independent news organizations that provide you with facts and reliable analysis to help you give meaning to our complex world. This was written: James F. Holden, UMASS AMERERST
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James F. Holden receives funding from NASA.