Aerial view of the construction site of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
© G. Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)/ESO
Although it's nothing to do with evolution, which is the science of how living organisms respond to environmental pressures and diversify over time, abiogenesis is a favourite of creationists because they imagine, without being able to define 'life', that it must involve some magical, God-given quality that turns 'non-life' into 'life'. But then when did facts bother creationists?
So it must be disconcerting to those of them who are still in touch with reality, that 28 French scientific organisations, involving over 100 scientists, have formed a partnership (Programme et Équipement Prioritaire de Recherche - PEPR) led by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (French National Center for Scientific Research - CNRS) to research into the origins of life, not only on Earth but on other planets. The project is already being known as 'Origins'.
According to the CNR News release by Mehdi Harmi:
The scientists, including astrophysicists, chemists, historians of science, physicists, geologists, biologists and anthropologists, will strive to devise, develop and design a whole range of groundbreaking instruments by the end of the decade. These resources should enable them to understand the conditions necessary for the emergence of life and for the formation and evolution of planets – and eventually find the answers to questions that have long intrigued humanity. The project will be led by the astrophysicist Alessandro Morbidelli, from the J-L Lagrange Laboratory[1] in Nice (southeastern France), best known for his model of the formation of the Solar System called the “Nice Model” and Maud Langlois, an astrophysicist specialising in the direct detection of exoplanets[2], and a senior researcher at the CRAL[3].It might seem that a search for the origins of life should involve chemists and microbiologists, but the only planet we know for sure that life has arisen on is Earth, so, to understand how biological activity can arise, it is essential to study how planets and systems form. 'Origins' will therefore concentrate on 5 key areas:
- The detection and characterisation of exoplanets by direct imaging;
- The chemical and isotopic analysis of primitive samples (both terrestrial and extraterrestrial);
- The study of the Earth as a habitable planet;
- Laboratory experiments in astrobiology and bioanalysis of samples from ancient Earth and Mars;
- Numerical modelling and data analysis.
One of the key areas for study by Origins is a spectral analysis of the light from selected exoplanets, looking for characteristic 'biosignature' molecules such as ozone (O3), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) each of which will have characteristic spectral lines in the light. Because the light from an exoplanet is so faint and can be swamped by the light from the sun it is orbiting, this presents a number of challenges, which are being addressed by the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will be the world's largest ground-based optical instrument of its kind. Currently being built in Chile's Atacama Desert by the European Southern Observatory, the ELT's primary mirror will have a diameter of 39 metres, the largest ever designed.
Being Earth-bound presents the additional challenge of the already faint light passing through Earth's turbulent atmosphere. This is to be compensated for by using a technology called 'adaptive optics' which changes the mirror's focus to compensate for atmospheric turbulence but this needs to be adjusted several times a second in response to atmospheric changes. The Origins project will need to design and build instruments capable of doing this to be fitted to the ELT.
The first images of an exoplanet (HIP 65426 b) captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The four images show the same planet at different wavelengths.
© NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI).
“It is essential that analytical tools are developed by then, so that scientists can make the best use of this precious material,” Langlois stresses. Once the samples are back on Earth, they will be subjected to detailed analysis. The objective is to “identify organic or potentially biological molecules in interaction with inorganic materials,” explains Maguy Jaber, a lecturer and researcher at the LAMS[4], who is not involved in the Origins PEPR. To achieve this goal, “three key challenges must be met”. The first is connected to the fact that some analytical techniques are destructive, meaning that once the experiment is over, the sample is lost, which is problematical given the small amounts of material available. The second relates to the detection methods, which “must be agnostic, in other words, applicable even if the nature of the samples is unknown, which considerably complicates the task”, Jaber points out. In fact, since researchers have no idea what types of molecule make up extraterrestrial biological systems, one of the main difficulties will be to successfully differentiate between biotic and abiotic molecular systems. The third challenge is to preserve the samples from potential contamination, requiring some of them to be completely isolated from the Earth's atmosphere.In parallel with these space observations, Origins will also study Earth in depth, using hundreds of quasi-autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with seismographs and other detectors capable of, for example, following the migration of whales, or measuring the temperature and chemical composition of the sea water at those depths.
Four major projects will be launched to that effect. The first concerns infrared hyperspectral imaging at the sub-micrometre scale by combining an atomic force microscope with an infrared analyser. This technique, which is particularly well-suited to the size of the samples, will be used to identify and characterise organic molecules.
The second instrument is a tomographic atom probe, which is able to determine elemental and isotopic composition in three dimensions on atomic scales. In addition, detecting molecules that may be present in the samples, but only in trace amounts not exceeding a few parts per million, requires extremely precise techniques based on ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry under ultra-high vacuum. This method is “the only one that can formally identify the organic molecules present in a sample”, Jaber insists.
The final cutting-edge technology used is based on the development of high-security analysis chambers that will pre-characterise unknown samples under a controlled atmosphere.
The autonomous underwater vehicles developed as part of the Origins PEPR will travel along the seabed equipped with seismographs. They will thus be able to “hear” any events taking place in their vicinity and in the depths of the Earth (illustration).
© Dorian GUILLEMAIN / OSU Pythéas / CNRS Images
The humanities and social sciences (HSS) will also play a role in the programme. “Because this is a large-scale project that aims to tackle major issues, it inevitably has a societal and cultural dimension. It's important for the HSS to be involved because these are fundamental matters for contemporary societies,” points out Charlotte Bigg, a science and technology historian at the Alexandre Koyré centre[5]. “The question of the origins of life and of the Earth is not just a scientific one.”As with every other gap in human knowledge, where creationism's ever-shrinking little god used to sit, and which, when closed by science was found to be devoid of gods altogether with no goods needed in the explanation, so the gaps this massive research project will close are guaranteed to be found to be god-free. So, creationist frauds need to be preparing their disinformation campaign and deciding on the best strategy for fooling scientifically illiterate simpletons into believing these gaps haven't really been closed and their god is alive and well and still filling the gaps in their understanding.
Long before astrophysics and astrobiology stepped in, “every human society wondered about how life originated, how animals and plants grow, and why planets exist,” says Perig Pitrou, a research professor at the CNRS, in charge of anthropology of life at the Collège de France, and also attached to the Maison Française d'Oxford[6]. “This human and social dimension of research into our origins will be explored by the HSS. In addition, these sciences are able to provide a critical perspective on current research.” So that, as part of the Origins PEPR, “the role of the humanities and social sciences will be to undertake a kind of real-time analysis of the new concepts being developed,” the researcher concludes.
Their parochial ignorance and cultural chauvinism have already conditioned them to fall for the false dichotomy fallacy by which they reason that, if science hasn't explained something, the only alternative on offer is "God did it!"
One thing we can be sure of is that no creationist fraud whose income depends on selling disinformation to creationists will have the honesty and integrity to admit they got it all wrong, tell their dupes the game's up - science won, and start looking for ways to earn an honest living.
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