Oxygen has been regarded as the gold standard since the chemist James Lovelock first contemplated biosignature gases in 1965, while working for NASA on methods of detecting life on Mars. As Frank Drake and other pioneers of astrobiology sought to detect radio signals coming from distant alien civilizations —an ongoing effort called the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)—Lovelock reasoned that the presence of life on other planets could be deduced by looking for incompatible gases in their atmospheres. If two gases that react with each other can both be detected, then some lively biochemistry must be continually replenishing the planet’s atmospheric supplies.

In Earth’s case, though it readily reacts with hydrocarbons and minerals in the air and ground to produce water and carbon dioxide, diatomic oxygen (O2) comprises a steady 21 percent of the atmosphere. Oxygen persists because it is poured into the sky by Earth’s photosynthesizers—plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. They enlist sunlight to strip hydrogen atoms off water molecules, building carbohydrates and releasing the oxygen byproduct as waste. If photosynthesis ceased, the existing oxygen in the sky would react with elements in the crust and drop to trace levels in 10 million years. Eventually, Earth would resemble Mars, with its carbon-dioxide-filled air and rusty, oxidized surface—evidence, Lovelock argued, that the Red Planet does not currently harbor life.

But while oxygen is a trademark of life on Earth, why should that be true elsewhere? Meadows argues that photosynthesis offers such a clear evolutionary advantage that it is likely to become widespread in any biosphere. Photosynthesis puts the biggest source of energy on any planet, its sun, to work on the most commonplace of planetary raw materials: water and carbon dioxide. “If you want to have the uber-metabolism you will try and evolve something that will allow you to use sunlight, because that’s where it’s at,” Meadows said.