The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has successfully simulated an artificial alien environment that encourages astronomers to search for life on other planets.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a research assistant from the space administration's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, said the experiments have produced proof that there was a significant ozone build up in the atmosphere, even if in some cases, oxygen was not produced there.

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The research said the mix of oxygen and methane are essential elements in producing life. Methane does not stay long in an environment where oxygen is omnipresent, but when these elements are combined, their molecules provide the perfect condition to spur biological activity that can potentially generate life.

When these gases are both present in this kind of environment, oxygen would react in a way that it will consume methane, says Antigona Segura, co-author of the study.

Segura said you need life to replace methane found in the atmosphere and enable it to co-exist with oxygen and vice-versa.

This research brings about new insight in finding new life beyond the solar system where it is conducted by NASA Astrobiology Institute's (NAI) Virtual Planetary Laboratory at the University of Washington. The NAI is formed by scientists from twenty prestigious institutions who study how telescopic observations can establish whether or not life is supported by an exoplanet.

This new study heralds a new stage where scientists can now design space telescopes in the future to explore exoplanets, which are planets that do not orbit within the Sun and the solar system.

TagsTechnology Internet, Environment, Astronomy, atmosphere, Extrasolar planet