NASA Says Other Planets May Have Red Plants and Trees

NASA scientists think that they have found out how to predict the color of plants on planets outside of our solar system.

The scientists think that green, yellow, and red dominant plants may live on other planets, according to NASA scientists. The scientists have two papers appearing in the March issue of the journal Astrobiology which make the claims.

The scientists studied light absorbed and reflected by organisms on Earth, and determined that if astronomers were to look at the light given off by planets circling other stars, they might be able to predict that some planets have plants in colors other than green.

"We can identify the strongest candidate wavelengths of light for the dominant color of photosynthesis on another planet," said Nancy Kiang, lead author of the study and a biometeorologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.

Kiang led a team of scientists from the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

"This work broadens our understanding of how life may be detected on Earth-like planets around other stars, while simultaneously improving our understanding of life on Earth," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NAI at NASA Ames.

The researchers calculated what the stellar light would look like at the surface of planets similar to Earth that had atmospheric chemistry consistent with the different types of stars they orbit.

Researchers were able to identify colors that would be most favorable for photosynthesis on other planets by looking at the changes in light in different atmospheres.

The scientists say that each planet will have different dominant colors for photosynthesis which is based on the planet's atmosphere. It's even possible that the dominant photosynthesis color may be in the infrared, the researchers said.

The new scientific research narrows the range of colors that scientists think would be seen when photosynthesis is occurring on extrasolar planets.