A few years ago I wrote about how Mars' seasonal methane fluctuations suggested - although far from confirmed - that microbial life might be present just under the Martin surface. Now another world in our solar system, the Saturnian moon Enceladus, has ignited discussion along similar lines.
The Cassini probe conducted flybys of Enceladus over a decade, revealing that Saturn's sixth largest moon was venting geyser-like jets of material, including water vapour, from its southern polar region. The material being emitted from these vents also included organic compounds and methane, hinting that this distant moon's watery oceans may also contain alien methane-producing microbes. Whereas Titan and Europa were originally deemed the moons most suitable for life, Enceladus's status has now been boosted to second only to Mars, with conditions not dissimilar to those in the oceans of the early Earth.
Of course, unknown geochemical processes cannot be ruled out, but nonetheless the quality of the evidence is such as to invite further exploration of Enceladus. There have been at least seven potential mission designs proposed by various bodies, including NASA and ESA, to gain more information about the moon and its geysers. Several of these include landers, while others would fly through a plume in order to examine the vented material for biosignatures. However, to date none have received official funding confirmation. As it stands the first probe to arrive might be billionaire Yuri Milner's privately-funded Breakthrough Enceladus, rather than one from a major organisation. However, don't hold your breath: the earliest any of these missions is likely to reach Enceladus is at some point in the 2030s.
What happens if future probes find evidence of microbial life on both Mars and Enceladus? Or even, whenever a method is found to reach it, in the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa? The first key fact will be whether they are genetically independent of Earth biota or if the panspermia hypothesis - the delivery of microbes via cometary and meteorite impact - has been proven. If that turns out not to be the case and multiple instances of life arose separately within a single solar system, this has some profoundly mixed implications for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). After all, if simple life can arise and be sustained on three or even four very different worlds - including bodies far outside their solar system's 'Goldilocks zone' - then shouldn't this also imply a much higher chance of complex alien life evolving on exoplanets?
Yet despite various SETI programmes over the past few decades, we have failed to pick up any signs of extraterrestrial intelligence - or at least from other technological civilisations prepared to communicate with radio waves, either in our galactic neighbourhood or with super high-powered transmitters further away. This doesn't mean they don't exist: advanced civilisations might use laser pulses at frequencies our SETI projects currently don't have the ability to detect. But nonetheless, it is a little disheartening that we've so far drawn a blank. If there is microbial life on either Mars or Enceladus - or even more so, on both worlds, never mind Europa - then a continued lack of success for SETI suggests the chances of intelligent life evolving are far lower than the probability of life itself arising.
In effect, this means that life we can only view via a microscope - and therefore somewhat lacking in cognitive ability - may turn out to be common, but intelligence a much rarer commodity. While it might be easy to say that life on both Enceladus and Mars wouldn't stand much of a chance of gaining complexity thanks to the unpleasant environmental conditions that have no doubt existed for much of their history, it's clear that Earth's biota has evolved via a complex series of unique events. In other words, the tortuous pathways of history have influenced the evolution of life on Earth.
Whereas the discovery of so many exoplanets in the past decade might imply an optimistic result for the Drake equation, the following factors, being largely unpredictable, infrequent or unique occurrences, might suggest that the evolution of complex (and especially sapiens-level intelligent) life is highly improbable:
- The Earth orbits inside the solar system's Goldilocks zone (bear in mind that some of the planets have moved from the region of space they were created in) and so water was able to exist in liquid form after the atmospheric pressure became high enough.
- The size and composition of the planet is such that radioactivity keeps the core molten and so generates a magnetic field to block most solar and cosmic radiation.
- It is hypothesised that the Earth was hit by another body, nicknamed Theia, that both tilted the planet's axis and caused the formation of the Moon rather than having a catastrophic effect such as tearing our world apart, knocking it on its side (like Uranus) or removing its outer crust (like Mercury).
- The Moon is comparatively large and close to the Earth and as such their combined gravitational fields help to keep Earth in a very stable, only slightly eccentric orbit. This is turn has helped to maintain a relatively life-friendly environment over the aeons.
- The Earth's axial tilt causes seasons and as such generates a simultaneous variety of climates at different latitudes, providing impetus for natural selection.
- The Great Unconformity and hypothesised near-global glaciation (AKA Snowball Earth) that might have caused it suggests this dramatic period of climate change led to the development of the earliest multi-cellular life around 580 million years ago.
- Mass extinctions caused rapid changes in global biota without destroying all life. Without the Chicxulub impactor for example, it is unlikely mammals would have radiated due to the dominance of reptiles on the land.
- Ice ages over the past few million years have caused rapid climate fluctuations that may have contributed to hominin evolution as East African forests gave way to grasslands.
The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould often discussed 'contingency', claiming that innumerable historical events had led to the evolution of Homo sapiens and therefore that if history could be re-run, most possible paths would not lead to a self-aware ape. Therefore, despite the 4,800 or so exoplanets discovered so far, some within their system's Goldilocks zone, what is the likelihood such a similar concatenation of improbable events would occur of any of them?
Most people are understandably not interested in talking to microbes. For a start, they are unlikely to gain a meaningful reply. Yet paradoxically, the more worlds that microbial life is confirmed on, when combined with the distinct failure of our SETI research to date, the easier it is to be pessimistic; while life might be widespread in the universe, organisms large enough to view without a microscope, let alone communicate with across the vast reaches of interstellar space, may be exceedingly rare indeed. The origins of life might be a far easier occurrence than we used to think, but the evolution of technological species far less so. Having said that, we are lucky to live in this time: perhaps research projects in both fields will resolve this fundamental issue within the next half century. Now wouldn't that be amazing?
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