PULLMAN, Wash. — Try to imagine life forms that get their energy from electricity, creatures whose chemistry is based on liquid methane and whole ecosystems that thrive in the permanently cloudy atmosphere of Venus:
These are just a few of the provocative possibilities Dirk Schulze-Makuch explores in his recently published book, “Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints.”
“What we are doing is thinking about what is physically and chemically possible,” said Schulze-Makuch, an associate professor in
Common assumptions about what life requires – such as the need for oxygen and liquid water – can blind us to other possibilities, he said. “Most of that is narrow-minded. I think it’s a lack of imagination.”
Schulze-Makuch said his book makes several suggestions readers might find surprising. For example, life might be based on energy sources such as magnetism or heat, rather than light and organic molecules; and water is not by any means the only fluid that might support the development of life.
Being more open-minded about where life might be and how it might function is essential to designing good space missions, he said. If we don’t send up instruments to detect certain molecules or measure the magnetic field, for instance, we won’t gather evidence about any life forms that rely on those factors.
Schulze-Makuch said the book has been criticized by some as being too speculative. But he argues that there are so many possible ways of supporting life, and so many worlds where conditions might be right, that “everything that’s possible is probably somewhere out there.”
He said the discovery of “extremophiles” – microbes that thrive in extreme environments on Earth – has already broadened our understanding of what constitutes a livable habitat.
A review in the scientific journal Astrobiology praised the book’s clear language and spirited discussion. “The honest approach of this book’s authors is stimulating,” it said. “Readers will feel invited to think about problems more deeply, and find solutions of their own.”
Schulze-Makuch and his co-author, Louis N. Irwin of the
“One of my graduate students gave it to his grandma to read,” recalled Schulze-Makuch, “and the grandma liked it. So she understood it. So I don’t think it’s difficult.”
In addition to theorizing about life on other planets, Schulze-Makuch does research on the movement of microbes and viruses through groundwater. He holds a patent for a mineral-based filtering system that blocks viruses and E. coli bacteria from entering wells.
