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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH . . .
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LUNAR LAVA
Small pits in a crater
near the Moon’s
north pole may lead
to an underground
network of lava tubes.
MAXED OUT
Non-rotating neutron
stars of more than
2.16 solar masses are
doomed to collapse
into black holes.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP
A new radio image of
the Small Magellanic
Cloud reveals features in
three times the detail of
previous observations.
SCHOPF/UCLA
UNIVERSITY/L.
SNAPSHOT
Life in the
universe
may be
common
New research from experts
in early life on Earth
points toward life in the
universe at large.
J. William Schopf is an old friend
of Astronomy magazine who has
consulted with us in the past.
He’s also one of the world’s
sharpest researchers on the ori-
gin of life and the existence of
ancient microfossils. Recently,
Schopf and his team at UCLA,
along with scientists at the
University of Wisconsin, released
studies of early microfossils that
could shed light on how common
life is in the universe.
The oldest known microfossils
on Earth come from Western
Australia and date to 3.465 bil-
lion years ago. In a study pub-
lished in December 2017 in the
Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, Schopf and
his team report that two species
they studied appeared to undergo
a primitive form of photosynthe-
sis, another produced methane
8
A ST R O N O M Y • MAY 2018
This fossil microorganism from Western Australia is 3.465 billion years old and suggests that life may be spread throughout the cosmos.
gas, and two more used methane
to build their cellular walls.
In a world of growing under-
standing that early, primitive
microbes on Earth were diverse,
the team suggests that this diver-
sity, coupled with the increasing
number of known exoplanets and
the sheer number of stars in the
universe, points toward life being
common throughout the cosmos.
“By 3.465 billion years ago,”
said Schopf, “life was already
diverse on Earth; that’s clear —
primitive photosynthesizers,
methane producers, methane
users. These are the first data that
show the very diverse organisms
at that time in Earth’s history,
and our previous research has
shown that there were sulfur
users 3.4 billion years ago as well.”
To Schopf and his team, the
new evidence adds credence to
the fact that life formed quickly
on early Earth, and also under-
scores that primitive life evolved
quickly into more advanced
microorganisms.
— David J. Eicher