They’re usually portrayed as little green men, but a new study suggests that aliens are actually more likely to look like pasta. Yes, pasta.
The study, by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, indicates that life on Mars is likely to resemble fettuccine - flat, ribbon-like pasta.
Experts claim that rovers scanning the surface of Mars should focus on rocks that look like fettuccine, as this could indicate the presence of bacterium.
The bacterium, dubbed ‘Sulfuri’, are usually found in areas with very low oxygen levels, and can survive extremely hot conditions, as well as exposure to UV light.
Bruce Fouke, who led the study, said: “Taken together, these traits make it a prime candidate for colonising Mars and other planets.”
The Sulfuri catalyses the formation of crystalline rock formations that look like layers of pasta.
Dr Fouke explained: “They form tightly wound cables that wave like a flag that is fixed on one end.
"These Sulfuri cables look amazingly like fettuccine pasta, while further downstream they look more like capellini pasta.”
In the study, the team collected Sulfuri cables from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park - and hilariously, actually used pasta forks to collect their samples!
An analysis of the cables revealed that proteins on the bacterial surface speed up the rate at which calcium carbonate crystallises ‘1 billion times faster than in any other natural environment on Earth.’
Dr Fouke added: “This should be an easy form of fossilized life for a rover to detect on other planets.
"If we see the deposition of this kind of extensive filamentous rock on other planets, we would know it's a fingerprint of life.
“It’s big and it's unique. No other rocks look like this. It would be definitive evidence of the presences of alien microbes."
