Aliens: Scientists use AI to search for extra-terrestrial life

Could AI get us closer to finding aliens?

Scientists have developed a new method for searching for alien life.

It's by using machine learning - which is a tool you might know as AI, or artificial intelligence.

The new method can work out if a sample contains signs of life, even if it is hundreds of millions of years old.

They say the new method can work out, with 90% accuracy if a sample is biological or non-biological and could revolutionise the search for life on other planets.

Before they start using it out in the universe, scientists want to try it out by looking at rock samples on Earth, or samples that have been collected so far on Mars.

What is the new method?

Using AI, scientists can give a machine information, and let it work for itself

Scientists are using a machine that can see if something is biological or non-biological. This basically means it works out if it has signs of life, or if it doesn't.

It's different to techniques scientists have used in the past. This is because it does not involve a machine having to look for specific things. Instead, it looks for differences between samples.

The scientists used Nasa methods to analyse samples from living cells, old samples that weren't in a good state, meteorites, and lab-made mixtures. These included things like a grain of rice, a human hair.

Using AI the researchers created a system that can predict if the sample had signs of living things with around 90% accuracy - sometimes in samples hundreds of millions of years old.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Lead researcher Professor Robert Hazen, of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory and George Mason University in the US, said "It opens the way to using smart sensors on robotic spacecraft, landers and rovers to search for signs of life before the samples return to Earth."

Dr Hazen added: "We may be able to find a lifeform from another planet, another biosphere, even if it is very different from the life we know on Earth.

"And, if we do find signs of life elsewhere, we can tell if life on Earth and other planets derived from a common or different origin."

Is there life out there?

Whilst it is quite exciting to think we can jet off looking for alien life, scientists say they will probably start by looking at some of the ancient rock samples we have on Earth.

This might actually help us to learn more about our own planet, how it was formed and where things on Earth originally came from.

The Mars Curiosity Rover provided lots of samples from the planet

The tool might also be used to look at samples on Mars.

The Mars Curiosity Rover has collected some samples - like pieces of rock - with its special analysis instrument called SAM.