Aliens may be Purple in Colour Not Green as Shown in Sci-Fi Movies!

Although scientists have not yet stumbled upon aliens till now, yet the hunt for extraterrestrial life continues. Recently a group of scientists have come to the conclusion that the extraterrestrial life may be lavender-hued.

Their finding is based on purple microbes that may have dominated Earth in the early days of its history. These purple microbes are well-suited to emerge on planets that orbit dim red stars smaller than our sun, suggests the new study.

The co-author of the study Lisa Kaltenegger of Cornell University said in a statement. “Purple bacteria can survive and thrive under such a variety of conditions that it is easy to imagine that on many different worlds, purple may just be the new green.”

On Earth life sustains itself on oxygen-producing photosynthesis driven by green coloured chlorophyll that harness sunlight.

But before that microorganisms generated metabolic energy by harnessing sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal.

Scientists think retinal may exist on other faraway worlds. But they can be seen by telescopes. A red sun could give them the most favorable conditions for photosynthesis.

To develop a catalog of the chemical makeup of purple organisms, the researchers grew purple bacteria collected from different places — including shallow pond waters at Cornell, Massachusetts’s Cape Cod and deep-sea hydrothermal vents — and measured their unique fingerprints. In subsequent simulations, they modeled purple bacteria dominating a variety of Earth-sized planets, including ocean worlds, frozen icy orbs and terrestrial rocky spheres like Earth.

The findings of this research was published in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, on April 16.