In the search for life on other planets, scientists are looking beyond single-celled organisms and are developing techniques that would help them detect multicellular life. In a recent study published in the journal Astrobiology, researchers are proposing a particular mathematical technique to detect tree-like multicellular structures on extrasolar planets.

"This technique allows us to identify planets that potentially have complex life and distinguish them from planets with simple life," said lead author Christopher Doughty, a junior research fellow in tropical forest science at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford in England. [Is the Rocky Alien Planet Gliese 581d Really Habitable?]

In other words, the authors predict that even when observing planets outside the solar system, scientists would be able to identify a planet with forests by the characteristics of the light that it reflects, even if it looks like just a dot in the viewing lens.

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