A report from the journal Astrobiology, March edition, indicated that plants on other planets could be red or yellow in color. The report was given by scientists, who had been conducting tests on light that is absorbed and emitted from plants and bacteria on Earth.
The study lead by Nancy Kiang, a biometorologist at NASA, along with scientists of the California based Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL), also found out the nearest reason to explain the green color of plants on Earth.
Scientists also added that, based on the light emitted from other planets surface, it can be analyzed that the color of plants might not be green on those planets.
Since the formation of the Earth and the emergence of the blue-green algae, plants have survived covering the Earth’s surface for more than a billion years. Plants makes use of an amazing feature of photosynthesis and during this process, it absorbs and reflects light.
Victoria Meadows, an astrobiologist from VPL, conducted tests to find how organisms on Earth manage to absorb and reflect light. The studies allowed them to create a computer model, giving ideas of the plants color on Earth-like planets and also bringing out some realities of plants on Earth.
It is a well known fact to scientists, that chlorophyll in plants absorbs very little green light but more red and blue light. But it was always difficult for them to explain why.
The color distribution in the sunlight is such, that some colors are emitted more than the rest and the colors get easily absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere. It was found that only the red light manage to touch the Earth’s surface more than the others.
Since plants absorb the most dominant color for photosynthesis and ignore the rest, they tend to absorb mostly the red color, in turn, reflecting out the color not used, hence, giving them the greener look.
According to scientists, the distribution of light patterns of other stars might not be the same as the Sun, hence, plants might absorb different colors and in turn reflect the color not utilized by them.
Meadows says that, the photosynthesis in plants can be a common feature on other planets too. She also adds that, if scientists are searching for life on Earth-like planets, they would also keep an eye on photosynthesis in those planets.
Picture: WSU.edu
Via: Reuters
