The viability of Earth-life on other planets

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K23459
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0204:Astronomy, earth and planetary science, and related fields
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Smith Harrison 東京工業大学, 地球生命研究所, 研究員 (50843934)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-08-30 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: complex systems / biochemistry / networks / astrobiology / planetary science

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.

Free Research Field

Complex systems

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.