Older Alien Worlds Might Still Be Stuck in the Slime Age

There’s an active debate in the astrobiology community of where to use our best telescopes to look for our best chance of seeing alien life. That debate has been going on for decades, and will continue for some time to come, but now there’s another option up for consideration. A new paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology by Dr. Christopher Doughty of Northern Arizona University talks about how the total amount of carbon a planet is able to bring into the service of biology is a good indication of how evolved life on it might be.