When it comes to understanding life in space, you’d think that an astrobiologist’s workload would be focused in, well, space.

But incredibly, some of the most important clues as to how life could potentially exist in space, can actually be found right here on Earth.

And in some of the most beautiful and fascinating photographs, a team of astrobiologists from the University of Northern Iowa have proven how beneficial work on our home planet can be to their comprehension of space.

In an Earth-based study, the research team took a blacklight into caves to explain not only how caves are formed (both here on Earth, and on other planets too) but also how life can persist in some of our solar system’s many extreme environments.

And the evidence they uncovered – which was presented at the spring 2025 meeting of the American Chemical Society – shows not only the incredible minerals and lifeforms buried deep underground on our own planet.

In fact, as University of Northern Iowa astrobiologist Joshua Sebree notes in a statement, the team’s research shows how life could be similarly possible on other bodies in space, particularly Jupiter’s moon Europa:

“The purpose of this project as a whole is to try to better understand the chemistry taking place underground that’s telling us about how life can be supported.”

And by exploring Wind Cave in South Dakota with a blacklight, the team were able to do just that.

The UV power of the blacklights was central to their mission to understand the minerals in the cave formations deep underground. As well as studying the vibrant hues of the rocks under the UV light, the team also documented the different rock formations, streams, and organisms they found within the cave systems.

And their results were fascinating, detailing not only how water travels through the caves now, but how ancient passages carried water – and, therefore, minerals – through the caves and deep underground. This process caused the mineral deposits that made the walls glow brightly under the light, as Sebree continued:

“The walls just looked completely blank and devoid of anything interesting. But then, when we turned on the black lights, what used to be just a plain brown wall turned into a bright layer of fluorescent mineral that indicated where a pool of water used to be 10,000 or 20,000 years ago.”

The results of their experiment were astounding, with the glowing pink calcites proving that waters full of manganese had been crucial to the carving out of the cave, helping the team to understand how these particular caves were formed.

With this new knowledge, the team hope to apply this to other planets, to understand how the movement of mineral-rich water could potentially support (or have supported) life in other corners of space.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a second giant hole has opened up on the sun’s surface. Here’s what it means.