Water Is Much Older Than Our Sun: Edwin (Ted) Bergin

In this exclusive interview with Kalkion, Edwin (Ted) Bergin, associate professor, Dept. of Astronomy, University of Michigan, shares thoughts about his research work 'finding precursors of life', possibilities of life on other planets, and much more. There is some good advice for science fiction writers as well. So, read on...

Kalkion: Shape, size and locations of water bodies and those of land on Earth are not easily understood. They have been changing with time, viz. from one single mass to so many continents and are still changing. Does the assumption that water came on earth by asteroids etc explain this above mentioned fact better? and how?
Bergin: The Earth has undergone many changes in its 4.6 billion year existence. For the first 500 million years or so the surface was bombarded by wet and dry asteroids. Much of the evolution of the Earth's surface, such as the movement of the continents, occurred past the time when impacts were common. The movement of the continents is called plate tectonics and is due to the fact that Earth is a large planet and is capable of storing heat. This heat is what ultimately allows the continental plates to shift around -- and is due to heat from radioactive elements and not impacts.

Kalkion: The formation of life on earth is broadly and reasonably understood and has been explained properly. What are serious challenges to the present understanding, apart from logical gaps that can be explained in due course of time?
Bergin: I actually don't think that the formation of the Earth has is 'broadly and reasonably understood'. The events that occurred nearly 4 billion years ago where a non-biotic chemistry evolved to a primitive biochemistry are not known. We have some theories but at present none have wide acceptance.

Kalkion: If existence of more amino acids and proteins are found in space, what new paradigm is going to emerge?
Bergin: We have found amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- in meteorites. Thus we know that the chemistry associated with the birth of planets is capable of creating these complex compounds. Peering back billions of years in time is difficult but this knowledge, at least, allows us to entertain the possibility that life's origins got a 'jump-start' from chemistry in space and that this process may be common throughout the universe.

Kalkion: Fred Hoyle was one of the earliest scientist who had propagated this idea of entrance of life molecules from space, and his students had conducted research on the subject at that time. What has been your drive to look for Precursors of Life?
Bergin: My interest has started with one of the simplest molecules that is key to life -- water. Very early on in my career I started working for a NASA satellite (Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite - SWAS) that searched for water in interstellar space.

There was a clear need to understand the various paths that water can form in interstellar space and that led me to explore the intersections of astronomy and chemistry. What I have learned, and has driven me ever since, is that it is highly likely that the water that exists on our planet formed from hydrogen and oxygen atoms before the birth of the Sun. Thus our water is itself ancient. This has led me to begin the exploration -- if water is that old then what organic molecules might also have been born together with water and supplied to the young Earth.

Kalkion: The very basic question, do you believe there is life out there?
Bergin: Yes. The best evidence we have to date suggests that life formed on our planet very soon after the period of heavy impacts. Thus, when the surface became less deadly, life flourished. Couple this with the fact that here are 100 billion stars in our galaxy -- so there are a lot of opportunities for chemistry to find a path to biology.

Kalkion: The Orion Nebula will be your target, why this particular Nebula?
Bergin: The Orion Nebula represents one of the closest sites of active and ongoing star formation to our solar system. We have learned that at its heart several stars, much more massive than our Sun, are being born and these stars are disrupting their environment by releasing tremendous amounts of energy. This has produced a very rich organic chemistry and this source is one of the best objects in the sky to search for molecules and study the full extent of chemistry in space prior to the birth of a planet.

Kalkion: From SF point. Do you read science fiction?
Bergin: Yes, I particularly enjoy the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. His knowledge of Mars was and is amazing.

Kalkion: How much would you agree with the portrayal of aliens in such stories?
Bergin: The term alien means someone or something is that is unfamiliar, so there are some portrayals that place the worst of our human fears to work and glorify the familiar. But one of the joys of fiction is that one can put great imagination to work and create whole new worlds, which will likely be just as complex as our own.

Kalkion: You are also involved with the Herschel project. What has been the response in terms of finding water in space w.r.t. the Herschel project?
Bergin: Herschel is due to launch in the coming weeks. Right now we have detected water as both ice and vapour in space by previous US and European missions. We still have some lingering questions about how much water exists throughout the birth of stars and planets. Herschel will provide the answer. In one more year we will know much much more.

Kalkion: Anything else you would like to suggest to SF writers in terms of Aliens :-)
Bergin: As a scientist it is always heartening when I see writers take some piece of reality and expand upon it. We have some exotic worlds in our own solar system that have the possibility of harboring life (Europa and Titan). I would guess that within our solar system this provides a nice diversity for the range of potential environments for life to begin and evolve elsewhere.