Scientists propose new way to find aliens — and we may already have a spacecraft that can help

Researchers may have just revealed a new way of looking for alien life — it's based on the idea that it isn't just the type of biosignatures that are important, but also how they are organized. "Our approach could help make the search for life more efficient. If a molecular assemblage shows no life-like organization, that may make it a lower priority target," Fabian Klenner of the University of California, Riverside told Space.com. Let's break down the concept. First, it should be noted that life uses and produces a range of biologically useful materials such as amino acids, peptides, proteins, fatty acids and so forth. These compounds are therefore considered potential "biosignatures" — if we find them on another world, it is quite possible that they have been produced by life's processes (life as we know it, at least). However, these compounds are not exclusively biological — abiotic chemical reactions that have no connection to biology can also produce them, and distinguishing between the two possible sources is one of astrobiology's greatest challenges. For example, methane plumes on Mars could be biological or geological in origin, and the same uncertainty also clouds the detection of phosphine in Venus ' atmosphere , or the potential discovery of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b . This sows confusion because detecting biosignatures does not necessarily mean we have detected life. …