Nitrous oxide, better known as whippets or laughing gas, could be an indicator for whether there is life on other planets, according to a paper published by scientists at the University of California Riverside.
The new paper published in the Astrophysics Journal, suggests that the concept that space could be full of the same stuff that earthlings inhale for a quick high, could also be a new indicator for whether or not a planet is habitable.
“Fewer researchers have seriously considered nitrous oxide,” UCR astrobiologist Eddie Schwieterman said in a press release, “but we think that may be a mistake.”
Schwieterman and his team at UC Riverside’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences calculated how regularly living organisms produce nitrous oxide, and then entered that data into a planetary model.
