We may be able to detect extraterrestrial life even before it leaves its home planet, by looking for left- (or right-) handed light detected by spaceborne instruments, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists suggest.

Because many substances critical to life favor a particular chirality (handedness), they think chirality might reveal life’s presence at great distances, and built a device to shine light on plant leaves and bacteria, and then detect the polarized reflections from the organisms’ chlorophyll from a short distance away. The device detected chirality from both sources.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) news release