What happened I think is that the chlorophyll-based photosynthesis is more efficient, which means they generally have outcompeted the the purple organisms, in evolution, you had progression from more primitive to more complex and capable systems. Shiladitya DasSarma More Quotes by Shiladitya DasSarma More Quotes From Shiladitya DasSarma That's where it might make a difference when we look at exoplanets. We would want to consider that the pigments on an alien planet might be different than what we have on modern Earth, and if the Purple Earth hypothesis was correct and there was a dominance of purple organisms in the early Earth, then we might be able to find another planet that's at an earlier stage of evolution of the planet, where the purple pigments might have dominated. Shiladitya DasSarma health-news As the sophistication in the telescope increases, the prediction is that they will be able to determine the spectrum coming from these planets, they're so far away, and really there's no light, it's only the star they'd be able to see, but that's the goal. Because its so important to be able to detect life elsewhere in the universe. Shiladitya DasSarma health-news
