1
|
Tenelanda-Osorio LI, Parra JL, Cuartas-Restrepo P, Zuluaga JI. Enceladus as a Potential Niche for Methanogens and Estimation of Its Biomass. Life (Basel) 2021; 11:1182. [PMID: 34833058 PMCID: PMC8624164 DOI: 10.3390/life11111182] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2021] [Revised: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 10/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Enceladus is a potential target for future astrobiological missions. NASA's Cassini spacecraft demonstrated that the Saturnian moon harbors a salty ocean beneath its icy crust and the existence and analysis of the plume suggest water-rock reactions, consistent with the possible presence of hydrothermal vents. Particularly, the plume analysis revealed the presence of molecular hydrogen, which may be used as an energy source by microorganisms ( e.g., methanogens). This could support the possibility that populations of methanogens could establish in such environments if they exist on Enceladus. We took a macroscale approximation using ecological niche modeling to evaluate whether conditions suitable for methanogenic archaea on Earth are expected in Enceladus. In addition, we employed a new approach for computing the biomass using the Monod growth model. The response curves for the environmental variables performed well statistically, indicating that simple correlative models may be used to approximate large-scale distributions of these genera on Earth. We found that the potential hydrothermal conditions on Enceladus fit within the macroscale conditions identified as suitable for methanogens on Earth, and estimated a concentration of 1010-1011 cells/cm3.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Laura I. Tenelanda-Osorio
- Grupo de Estudios en Astrobiología AMEBA, Planetario de Medellín, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
- Grupo de Ecología y Evolución de Vertebrados, Instituto de Biología-FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
- Solar, Earth and Planetary Physics—SEAP, Instituto de Física-FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
| | - Juan L. Parra
- Grupo de Ecología y Evolución de Vertebrados, Instituto de Biología-FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
| | - Pablo Cuartas-Restrepo
- Solar, Earth and Planetary Physics—SEAP, Instituto de Física-FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
| | - Jorge I. Zuluaga
- Grupo de Estudios en Astrobiología AMEBA, Planetario de Medellín, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
- Solar, Earth and Planetary Physics—SEAP, Instituto de Física-FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia;
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Méndez A, Rivera-Valentín EG, Schulze-Makuch D, Filiberto J, Ramírez RM, Wood TE, Dávila A, McKay C, Ceballos KNO, Jusino-Maldonado M, Torres-Santiago NJ, Nery G, Heller R, Byrne PK, Malaska MJ, Nathan E, Simões MF, Antunes A, Martínez-Frías J, Carone L, Izenberg NR, Atri D, Chitty HIC, Nowajewski-Barra P, Rivera-Hernández F, Brown CY, Lynch KL, Catling D, Zuluaga JI, Salazar JF, Chen H, González G, Jagadeesh MK, Haqq-Misra J. Habitability Models for Astrobiology. Astrobiology 2021; 21:1017-1027. [PMID: 34382857 DOI: 10.1089/ast.2020.2342] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global scales. Astrobiologists have been proposing different habitability models for some time, with little integration and consistency among them, being different in function to those used by ecologists. Habitability models are not only used to determine whether environments are habitable, but they also are used to characterize what key factors are responsible for the gradual transition from low to high habitability states. Here we review and compare some of the different models used by ecologists and astrobiologists and suggest how they could be integrated into new habitability standards. Such standards will help improve the comparison and characterization of potentially habitable environments, prioritize target selections, and study correlations between habitability and biosignatures. Habitability models are the foundation of planetary habitability science, and the synergy between ecologists and astrobiologists is necessary to expand our understanding of the habitability of Earth, the Solar System, and extrasolar planets.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Abel Méndez
- Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA
| | | | - Dirk Schulze-Makuch
- Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section Geomicrobiology, Potsdam, Germany; Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Stechlin, Germany
| | | | - Ramses M Ramírez
- University of Central Florida, Department of Physics, Orlando, Florida, USA; Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Tana E Wood
- USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
| | - Alfonso Dávila
- NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
| | - Chris McKay
- NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
| | - Kevin N Ortiz Ceballos
- Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA
| | | | | | | | - René Heller
- Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research; Institute for Astrophysics, University of Göttingen, Germany
| | - Paul K Byrne
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
| | - Michael J Malaska
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
| | - Erica Nathan
- Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Marta Filipa Simões
- State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | - André Antunes
- State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau SAR, China
| | | | | | - Noam R Izenberg
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, USA
| | - Dimitra Atri
- Center for Space Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
| | | | | | | | | | - Kennda L Lynch
- Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, Houston, Texas, USA
| | | | - Jorge I Zuluaga
- Institute of Physics / FCEN - Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Juan F Salazar
- GIGA, Escuela Ambiental, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Howard Chen
- Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
| | - Grizelle González
- USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
| | | | - Jacob Haqq-Misra
- Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Seattle, Washington, USA
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Heller R, Williams D, Kipping D, Limbach MA, Turner E, Greenberg R, Sasaki T, Bolmont É, Grasset O, Lewis K, Barnes R, Zuluaga JI. Formation, habitability, and detection of extrasolar moons. Astrobiology 2014; 14:798-835. [PMID: 25147963 PMCID: PMC4172466 DOI: 10.1089/ast.2014.1147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2014] [Accepted: 06/05/2014] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
The diversity and quantity of moons in the Solar System suggest a manifold population of natural satellites exist around extrasolar planets. Of peculiar interest from an astrobiological perspective, the number of sizable moons in the stellar habitable zones may outnumber planets in these circumstellar regions. With technological and theoretical methods now allowing for the detection of sub-Earth-sized extrasolar planets, the first detection of an extrasolar moon appears feasible. In this review, we summarize formation channels of massive exomoons that are potentially detectable with current or near-future instruments. We discuss the orbital effects that govern exomoon evolution, we present a framework to characterize an exomoon's stellar plus planetary illumination as well as its tidal heating, and we address the techniques that have been proposed to search for exomoons. Most notably, we show that natural satellites in the range of 0.1-0.5 Earth mass (i) are potentially habitable, (ii) can form within the circumplanetary debris and gas disk or via capture from a binary, and (iii) are detectable with current technology.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- René Heller
- Origins Institute, Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada
| | - Darren Williams
- The Behrend College School of Science, Penn State Erie, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - David Kipping
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Mary Anne Limbach
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
| | - Edwin Turner
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
- The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan
| | - Richard Greenberg
- Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
| | | | - Émeline Bolmont
- Université de Bordeaux, LAB, UMR 5804, Floirac, France
- CNRS, LAB, UMR 5804, Floirac, France
| | - Olivier Grasset
- Planetology and Geodynamics, University of Nantes, CNRS, Nantes, France
| | - Karen Lewis
- Earth and Planetary Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Rory Barnes
- Astronomy Department, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
- NASA Astrobiology Institute—Virtual Planetary Laboratory Lead Team, USA
| | - Jorge I. Zuluaga
- FACom—Instituto de Física—FCEN, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| |
Collapse
|