ASP 1022 Project PDF

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Creative project for the unit...

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ASP 1022 Project Introduction: Attention to all units, this year’s annual Martian space conference of 3200 is a famous one. We have our best human spy Dr Hanish Sareen here with us with important findings from Earth. His research is crucial in helping us colonise a habitable planet before those pesky humans. Debrief: 10 people were interviewed who were each asked 10 questions which included 8 multiple choice questions, one checkpoint question and one rankings question. Individuals were compared for their answers and analysed against expertise knowledge. This investigation was undertaken to examine the target audience’s understanding of the different disciplines of astrobiology and to find out what their beliefs are about potential life beyond Earth. The target audience includes a range of individuals from 18- 45 years old who possess very basic scientific understanding (at least year 10 level) Questions: 1. What do you think is the first requirement that astronomers look for when looking for habitable planets? A. Liquid Water (3) B. A Planet very close to the star (1) C. A Planet of great size (1) D. Carbon Dioxide E. None of the above (5)

Column Graph representing percentage (%) of each answer vs option (Letters) for Question 1 60 50

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2. Rank the planet which you think has the most potential for life in our solar system? 1. Neptune 2. Mercury (2) 3. Venus (1) 4. Mars (7) 5. Saturn 3. What do you think is the level of appearance and complexity of life that can be found? A. Small reptiles like lizards and geckoes (0) B. Human like intelligent creatures (2) C. Birds (0) D. Small microbes and bacterial life including extremophiles (6) E. None of the above (2) 4. What do you think is an appropriate size for a star that would be suitable for life in comparison to the sun? A. A star 100x larger than the sun and much hotter (9) B. A star 100x smaller that the sun and much cooler (0) C. A star about the same size of the sun and around the same temperature (1) D. A star is not required for life and is simply there for stargazing (0) E. None of the above (0)

Column Graph representing percentage (%) of each answer vs option (Letters) for Question 4 100 90 80 70

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5. Which elements do you think are required by life? Please tick the appropriate boxes  Oxygen (10)  Carbon (6)  Nitrogen (1)  Iron (7)  Helium (5)  Chlorine (5)  Lead (4)  Hydrogen (6)  Calcium (7)  Air (2) 6. Why do you think it is very unlikely that alien life exists on gaseous planets that are very far away from their star? A. It cannot as the necessary elements of life are absent (water, oxygen etc) (2) B. It cannot as they are too big (4) C. It can because aliens are far smarter than us and have found a solution to this problem (0) D. Both A and B (3) E. None of the above (1) 7. Do you think that natural selection and evolution is true (on Earth), and can it occur in other celestial bodies? A. True and cannot occur in other celestial bodies (1) B. False and cannot occur in other celestial bodies (0) C. True and can occur in other celestial bodies (9) D. False and can occur in other celestial bodies (0) E. None of the above (0)

Pie chart representing frequency of each answer in percentage (%) for Question 7

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8. Why do you think our Earth is so habitable or able to support life? A. Presence of the important elements of life (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen) (1) B. Presence of liquid water on the surface (0) C. Perfect distance from the sun so that it is not too hot or cold (1) D. Presence of oxygen and an atmosphere able to hold gases (2) E. All of the above (6) 9. What do you think is chemically important for life to exist in any form? A. Capacity for self-replication and self-assembly (3) B. Capable of extracting, transforming, or using energy from their environment (6) C. Capable of breathing nitrogen and expelling argon D. Must only have DNA as a blueprint (1) E. Both A and B

Column Graph representing percentage (%) of each answer vs option (Letters) for Question 9 70 60 50

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10.Finally, after these questions do you believe life can exist on other planets? A. Yes, as the size of the universe makes possibilities endless (2) B. No, as astronomers have spent so many years looking and have not discovered anything meaningful (1) C. Yes, as the rovers and other robotic mission have limitations and human exploration skills and expertise are required to discover life which has not yet been found by these robots. (1) D. No, as the universe is so big and with our current technology, we will be unable to travel that far to economic limitations. (6) E. None of the above

Results:  Overall, there were many terribly answered questions and just one question that was answered extremely well. We will discuss in detail the strengths and weaknesses of the answers  Question 1 about the basic requirements of life was answered poorly. It appears that the public lack an understanding of what characteristics are used to find life. Most of the participants believed that the presence of water was not important which was perhaps most shocking as this is the principle requirement of life. As the most selected answer appears to be none of the above it is hypothesised that perhaps they gave preference to oxygen or being able to breathe over drinking water. It could also be that participants theorised that in the future human civilisation would advance so much that the requirement of water on a planet will not be required as water could potentially be obtained from asteroids or other methods and stored. These findings however contradict question 8’s findings about what the public believes makes Earth habitable, which suggests that participants are unsure of detection methods of life or exoplanets in astrobiology however understand what makes Earth habitable.  Question 4 about the appropriate host star size which would allow life as compared to the sun was appallingly answered as almost 90% of the participants believed that we require a larger star size. This misconception has thought to arise due to the participants believing perhaps with increasing energy requirements in the future and greater reliance on renewable and especially solar energy, a more luminous star will release far greater energy

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fulfilling those requirements. It is also thought that the participants thought that with a bigger star, the planets would not be required to be close to the star and hence be unaffected by violent activity in the star. It is also theorised that the audience misunderstood the question all together and an outlier such as this will not be used to summarise responses. Question 7 was surprisingly very well answered. The audience clearly understood the concept of natural selection and that it can occur in any ecosystem regardless of where in the universe it is. This may be because evolution of is a concept easier to understand when compared to other arduously challenging scientific concepts. Nevertheless, the responses achieved in this study are in great contrast to a research conducted by Evolution: Education and Outreach [2] who find that many individuals have insufficient or incorrect factual knowledge. They also theorised that it may be due to religious beliefs that meddle with scientific facts. Question 9 tested the audience on their knowledge of basic chemical requirements of life and were disappointed to witness that not one individual had selected the correct answer. Participants predominantly chose either the need for energy or the capacity for self-assembly however did not select both of them. This may be because participants did not understand the term selfassembly in which they believed it was maybe different to being able to reproduce. The audience perhaps also may have overlooked the correct option. An outlier such as this will not be used to summarise responses. Participants overall opiniated that life may not be discovered in the cosmos due to economic limitations and our current technology. Nevertheless, 60% of participants believe that if life were found it would be in a microbial form. In conclusion, the participants displayed a satisfactory understanding of life in the universe. Despite performing below expectations in the factual area, the audience displayed potential in the rankings and checkpoints questions where oxygen had been correctly selected by all participants as an important element of life. For the factual multiple-choice questions ( questions 1,4,6,7, 8 and 9) out of the 60 answers, 21 were answered correctly. This provides us an accuracy of just 35% which is much lower than expectations. The results suggesting that much of the knowledge obtained by the general public comes from the news. This is evident as Mars is in the astronomy news often and the most voted answer for the most liveable planet in the solar system is Mars. The study has been successful in its purpose to understand where the public stands in terms of knowledge as we move towards a space revolution. Thank you Doctor for these amazing findings. We truly hope we can beat those humans in finding a new habitable planet for us, before the sun runs out of steam muhahah.

References: 1. https://theconversation.com/for-life-to-form-on-a-planet-it-needs-to-orbitthe-right-kind-of-star-33477- Accessed 11/10/2020 2. [2] https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052011-0371-0- Accessed 11/10/2020 3. https://www.livescience.com/our-solar-system.html- Accessed 11/10/2020 Credit-Live Science 4. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/thank-you/- Accessed 11/10/2020 CreditGrammarly 5. The work uses some ideas and concepts from the lecture notes...