Re: Colors of alien plants -- Scientific American

Brian Davis wrote:

> On Mar 30, 8:24 pm, "Dan Goodman" <dsg...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > The April issue of Scientific American has an article on
> > astronomical including what light would be used for
> > photosynthesis on planets of various star-types...
> 
> Curious. What are they basing this on? 

A whole lot of computing (largely sponsored by NASA, I think -- won't
be able to check till someone I've loaned it to returns it) and on
what's known about photosynthesis and its byproducts on Earth.

> Things like "take advantage of
> frequency where the tensity is the greatest" (green, for our Sun...
> oops, looks like evolution missed that)? It would seem so much depends
> on what first photoactive pigment gets fixed into the system that
> there's an awful lot of good old evolutionary luck in there. 

Chlorophyll isn't the only one used on Earth.  

And reasons are given for ignoring green light -- reasons which I'll
probably take a while to understand, but you'd likely understand.
(Possibly deciding that they're nonsense, but that's another matter.)

> Not to
> mention there's going to be some frequencies that biology would have
> intense trouble tapping (it's tough to fix energy when the incoming
> energy is enough to break covalent bonds, for instance).
> 
> What's your take on it - worth the read, or reha****ng the wrong?

Worth reading, and following up the links given.
 
> > and what the plants might look like.
> 
> It does sound interesting, especially when I teach biophysics again.



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Dan Goodman
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