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Never mind little green men: life on other planets might be purple

Bacteria that make food using a compound other than chlorophyll could paint other planets in a wide range of colours.
Trappist-1 is a red-dwarf star, the most common variety, located some 40 light-years away in Aquarius. In 2015, astronomers discovered that Trappist-1 was host to three earth-sized planets.

An exoplanet (artist’s illustration) that’s home to living organisms might not look green. Credit: Mark Garlick/SPL

Green light isn’t the only green flag to search for life on other planets. A new guidebook will help astronomers to look for purple, brown, orange and yellow hues reflected from worlds dominated by certain kinds of bacteria1.

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Nature 629, 263 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01261-8

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 05 June 2024: An earlier version of this article used an incorrect version of the first author’s name.

References

  1. Coelho, L. F., et al. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 530, 1363–1368 (2024).

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