Weird Life From Beyond

Life as we know it on Earth is not the only kind possible in the universe, scientists reminded NASA in a report released today.

Issued by the National Academy of Sciences and sponsored by the space agency, the 116-page report reviews current research into what life is and what it needs to survive, as well as the way life might differ on other worlds.

“Our investigation made clear that life is possible in forms different than those on Earth,” said committee chair John Baross, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Despite UFO reports, scientists have not yet found any evidence for life beyond Earth.

The report committee, made up of 11 scientists from diverse fields, worry that researchers have already limited their scope of thinking about where extraterrestrial life might be found.

The assumption that life requires water, for example, has limited the search for life on Mars to those “habitats” where liquid water is thought to be present or to have once flowed. But recent research suggests liquids such as ammonia or formamide could serve as an alternative to water for some alien organisms.

For this reason, the committee recommends that increased priority be given to a follow-up mission to probe Saturn’s moon Titan, a world now known to be covered in lakes and rivers of liquid water-ammonia mixtures.

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