Carlsbad Caverns May Hold The Secret To Finding Extraterrestrial Life

According to Pew Research, about 2/3 of Americans, (65%), believe there are intelligent lifeforms on other planets. Carlsbad Caverns may help NASA find it.

Carlsbad Caverns is a beautiful, (and HUGE), cave system about 150 miles east of El Paso.  It's home to the largest single cave chamber in North America, so big that comedian/actor Will Rogers once called it "the grand canyon with a roof over it."

In addition to everything else Carlsbad Caverns has taught us, it may now have given us a major clue to help track down E.T.

How Can Carlsbad Caverns Help Find Extraterrestrial Life?

For all the scientific specifics, click here. The "dumbed down" version goes like this:  lifeforms that glow, (cyanobacteria), have been found in Carlsbad Caverns. The glow comes from them harnessing light ... in a totally dark environment.

Light waves are kind of weak and don't penetrate very far into the caves. Infrared red, ok near - infrared light waves travel much farther from the source, deeper into the darkness of the cave.

How are these lifeforms getting light from darkness?

It has to do with forms of chlorophyll known as chlorophyll d and f which can pick up the near infrared light easily. (You can geek out on that info here, I'm trying to keep this moving.)

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Basically; finding stars that produce the type of light that generates chlorophyll d and f  would REALLLLLY narrow down the search area for extraterrestrial life.

How Will This Help Find Extraterrestrial Life?

The plan is to go into the deepest caves on Earth and figure out how much infrared light cyanobacteria need to live.

"What our work is trying to do is figure out what is the longest wavelength of light and lowest level of light at which you can photosynthesise," says Barton. - BBC

That info will, in turn, tell scientists where to look for lifeforms.

"Then what you can do is take the 100 billion potential stars that we can point the James Webb Space Telescope at, and reduce it down to say 50 stars [which may host life]." - BBC

If NASA goes for this, Carlsbad Caverns may have just targeted alien lifeforms.

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