The viability of Earth-life on other planets
| Project/Area Number |
19K23459
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
0204:Astronomy, earth and planetary science, and related fields
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Institute of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
Smith Harrison 東京工業大学, 地球生命研究所, 研究員 (50843934)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-08-30 – 2023-03-31
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2022)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,340,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥540,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
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| Keywords | complex systems / biochemistry / networks / astrobiology / planetary science / Astrobiology / Metabolism / Software / Networks / Complex Systems |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
I aim to elucidate the viability of Earth-life’s metabolic pathways on several planetary bodies with different chemical availabilities by applying the metabolic network expansion technique on all catalogued biochemical reactions.
I will identify the organisms and communities which could be viable on other planets (based on their known geochemistry); or if none are viable, to identify the compounds necessary to make them so. In the process, I will develop software which can be used to answer these important research questions, as well as any follow-up questions which emerge from this project.
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
I led development of two software packages related to 1) collecting and organizing biochemical data (package is called ecg, written in python), and 2) performing network expansion on biochemical data, including determining compounds necessary to make organisms viable in different environments (package is called BioXP, written in Julia). These packages were used to demonstrate the practicality of a methodology to determine the viability of Earth-organisms on other planets (based on observations of the compounds available on those planets). This work showed that none of the investigated organisms were viable on Enceladus given our current state of knowledge.
This methods were also used to investigate research questions to the origin and nature of life on early Earth, and early evolution of life. We found that most of Earth's metabolism is accessible from a simple set of initial compounds.
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
This is one of the first systematically quantitative predictions on the viability of Earth-life on other planets. It even touches on explaining the Fermi paradox;perhaps colonizing other planets is hindered by the dependence of life on specific geochemistry.
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Report
(5 results)
Research Products
(12 results)
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[Presentation] (untitled)2022
Author(s)
Harrison Smith
Organizer
NAS Committee on Planetary Protection Meeting No. 4 on Planetary Protection for Missions to Small Bodies Astrobiology and Astrochemistry Contamination Concerns for Small Bodies Science
Related Report
Int'l Joint Research / Invited
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