. . . and lives on the ocean floor, well out of the reach of sunlight.
Photosynthesis Found Where the Sun Don’t Shine
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 22 June 2005
06:59 am ET
Scientists have discovered the first organism known to rely on photosynthesis in a place where the sun never shines.
The creature lives well more than a mile under the sea and captures dim radiation coming from hydrothermal vents.
"Life finds a way," said Arizona State University biochemist Robert Blankenship, one member of the study team.
The green sulfur-loving bacteria were found off the coast of Mexico. They use sulfur and the faint light to produce energy and are yet another "extremophile" found on Earth that suggests the sort of strange biology that might populate other planets, scientists said.
Other microbes have endured more than 30,000 years of frozen, suspended animation. Some eat hydrogen and live inside Earth. Still others do just fine in hot or acidic conditions.
"This is startling in the sense that you do not expect to find photosynthesis in a region of the world that is so completely dark," Blankenship said.
The discovery, led by J. Thomas Beatty of the University of British Columbia, was detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Other creatures that live without sunlight rely on other chemical conversions to produce life-giving energy. Sunlight penetrates only about the distance of one or two football fields below the surface of the sea, the scientists said.
The newfound bacteria use sophisticated antenna systems that act like a microscopic satellite dish to collect light, the researchers said. Tests show the microbes indeed depend on photosynthesis. Visible light is just one aspect of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes radio waves, infrared "heat," and X-rays. Instead of sunlight, the deep-sea microbes use geothermal radiation.
"This shows that photosynthesis is something that is not limited only to the very surface of our planet," Blankenship said. "It lets you consider other places where you might find photosynthesis on Earth as well as on other planets."
Scientists have long considered Jupiter's moon Europa as a world where life might exist in a liquid sea beneath a frozen shell, supported by hydrothermal vents rather than sunlight.
Hydrothermal vents on Earth have been known for years to support rich colonies of microbes and higher life forms. Some research suggests they may have been the points of origin for life on this planet.
"Life is much stronger than what we realized," Blankenship said.
Exciting to see that life has evolved a way to photosynthesize using light in the infrared portion of the spectrum (these are the only 'radiations' a deep-sea hydrothermal vent can produce.) This is a fairly profound implication, since it was previously thought that photosynthesis couldn't occur very well at those wavelengths.
So a bacteria that directly converts heat energy into a form of sugar.
...Holy fuck, so many implications there that it's hard to get into. Imagine plants that increase by significant percentages, their rate of growth by taking energy from a much greater spectrum. Plants that can survive much higher temperature ranges by absorbing the energy and turning it into food. Solar cells that convert heat to electricity directly....holy fuck!
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That's incredibly cool; it re-opens the possibility of life on moons orbiting Brown Dwarfs. I would think that the heat energy from the vent wouldn't have photons energetic enough to drive photosynthesis.
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Julhelm wrote:Awesome. Maybe there is life on Europa after all?
If there are hydrothermal vents on Europa, then the chance was always there. Life independent of photosyntheis living around volcanic springs and hydrothermal vents has always been known about.
However, photosynthetic life which subsists on heat/infrared solves another hurdle that life would have to overcome to be successful in what is likely to be the most common biosphere in the universe (planets orbiting red dwarves.) Most of a red dwarf's output is in the infrared portion of the spectrum, and it was always thought that this should preclude life from taking root on planets orbiting them (since photosynthesis was always thought to require input from the more energetic parts of the EM spectrum (further into visible light.)
SyntaxVorlon wrote:So a bacteria that directly converts heat energy into a form of sugar.
...Holy fuck, so many implications there that it's hard to get into. Imagine plants that increase by significant percentages, their rate of growth by taking energy from a much greater spectrum. Plants that can survive much higher temperature ranges by absorbing the energy and turning it into food. Solar cells that convert heat to electricity directly....holy fuck!
Chlorophyll based solar cells are already in the works. This would certainly make them even more efficient if they can use IR based wavelengths too as well as the usual red or blue. They'd at least be a) cheaper and b) more environmentally friendly than current solar cells.
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