Slashdot Mirror
Salty Ocean On Europa Could Mean Life
Arctic Fox writes: "Based on data from the Galileo satellite, scientists have evidence for a salty ocean under the surface of Europa.
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
NASA PRESS RELEASE: We have sucessfully spent $30,000,000,000 to pump new life into the now stagnent frozen fish market.
"retro-fitting for the unwitting"
What the hell are you talking about. Don't get in the way of progress. Last time I checked the US had a huge budget surplus so it's academical anyway. Don't blame the space program for the national debt.
Irish Rugby Now!
I was watching a show on the Discovery channel a couple of weeks ago. They were doing a special on the moons of Jupiter, and they mentioned that sometime in the year 2002 (2003?), they will be launching a probe that will attempt to land on Europa, and release a heating vent of sorts that will melt through the ice to the water below, and (hopefully) see what's under all that ice. Has anyone else seen this show? Any more information on this?
When is the first Survivor series on Europa going to start filming?
Anyone remember "2010", where the Chinese astronauts get killed by the giant underwater monster on Europa? Maybe Clarke knew something we didn't...
How is Europa's size compared to Earth's or Luna's? With this discovery, could this be a comfortable place for people to live (with water and all)? I know it's far away, but how does it compare to Mars?
Too bad we won't be going there in my lifetime. =(
We've got salty water; that's great. Doesn't say THAT much more for the possibilities of life, though.
It's like going downtown in a strange city and saying "Hey, we're downtown! There must be a good Chinese[-American] restaurant around here!"
DNA just wants to be free...
If I recall right, though, it takes an electric discharge, not merely a field to start life. Being under the surface, getting this discharge could be pretty hard.
Not positive about that though, correct me if I'm wrong...
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
True, these may be valid conditions for life on a planet, but what is the probability of life spawning on a planet? You have to admit, it seems very improbable that even we are here. Plus, what would life be like under such conditions, should life spontaneously form? And the intelligence of these beings is even less likely to develop. Being on a moon, the conditions are more extreme than most in this solar system.
-Leo
Long range space missions will never be viable? Powered flight will never be viable either. Neither will the automobile. How about this crazy "home computer" idea, that sure as heck doesn't sound viable.
Hah!
What benefits has the space program brought us? Prestige against the USSR? Useless space stations? Billions of dollars of expenses? Pictures of things that are so far away that they no longer exist? Please, can you give me some real benefits? I don't want to pay taxes for useless things. I pay taxes for the tangible services, like defense, that the government provides.
Place your bets now. Will there be life found elsewhere in our solar system? Secondary bets may be placed on the following, for those who prefer to wager on human nature rather than nature itself. Will the presence of life on other planets create significant doubt amongst creationists? Will the absence of life on planets which have all the supposed necessary ingredients create significant doubt amongst evolutionists?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Not to start a whole nother off-topic discussion, but there are two options of how life started...
1) Spontanious Generation
2) Divine Intervention
#1 has been disproved multiple times...
So what is the basis for exploreing near-earth planets for life? If God wanted intelligent life to be near to us we would of noticed the species by now. Shouldn't we be directing our resources to more logical causes?
Technological advances have limitations. The speed of light is one such limitation, but we aren't likely to get that far along. There are time limitations - the longer the mission takes, the more supplies are needed, thus making the mission even longer. Stop your pipe-dreams about going to other planets - if there are any that are habitable they are too far away to even consider. Now, if there are benefits besides pretty pictures, please name them.
HOLY SHIT!!! This could mean our astronauts could have an endless supply of
saline fluid for their contact lenses once they get out there! (:
First off I'll admit that I don't know much about the subject, but readling speculations like this I'm left to wonder how much evidance exists (if any) that there is no life Europa? I'm left to wonder whether researchers are turning every new scientific find into evidence that there is life, rather then asking themselves if this can prove that there isn't life. Just my two cents.
Oh, for the love of god!
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Seriously, though - no, wait...you're obviously trolling, so nevermind. Thanks for playing!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I see... and this is why he "wrote about" creating the dinosaurs in "his word"? Did he also write about why he killed them all off? Or perhaps neandertals? How did they fit into "His plan"? Why aren't they in the "His word?" And, how do you get off promoting yourself to even speak on His, or Her, behalf?
Comparing the public's interest in space exploration now with the '60s, it seems that the public does not care. Possibly the public embraced space exploration during the '60s as a means of 'hoping for better things.' During war, corruption and the cold war, space exploration was a 'happy thing', something that people could get excited about. Now, we are busier with our lives, no cold war worries and, sure, corruption is still around. What would motivate the U.S. and other nations to have a renewed interest in space exploration? I have never heard the issue raised during the presidential-race. The public generally does not care? No mission to mars? Alpha-centauri? Am I crazy? Should I lead an isolated life and join one of Joe Firmage's funky organizations?
I still find it rather interesting that the search for life is given in terms of our own existence. Why is it that life has to involve electrical fields and/or discharges and religious beliefs?
"How can they objectively prove that an object millions and millions of miles away contains life forms."
How about "they go look and find some"? Actually, you can't prove they don't exist, but you can easily prove that they do (if they do, of course).
"If God had created any life outside of this Earth He would have written so in his word, the Bible."
Um, the Bible is a religious text, not a scientific one. The Bible doesn't say anything about electrons either, but you're reading Slashdot, aren't you?
(And yes, I have read the Bible, thank you)
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The real Captain Derivative has a Slashdot ID.
When we find extraterrestrial life, if we find extraterrestrial life, that will be cool. Until then, just forget about it. Besides, we don't need the media hype. This is Slashdot; we're excited already!
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
...he would have given us instructions to send in a self-addressed stamped envelope with $20 for the personal helicopter kit.
DNA just wants to be free...
"in the beginning there was nothing, which exploded"
.sig
I realize this is meant as funny/a troll, but how do you explain god's existence then? He's been around forever? Why is that any easier to believe than that there was non-living matter just sitting around?
The fallacies are in your logic, not ours.
Not reading
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
I dunno, but the cost of Europan sushi would be astronomical! (sorry, couldn't resist)
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope.
;)
Eh? Wassat? been hitting the thesaurus again, timothy?
Sorry..just spent half an hour playing nethack online...my brain is too fried to handle big words. Um. Anyway. Life on Europa. Sounds good to me. I don't think I'll ever forget the guy in 2010 fading behind jupiter, saying, "There is life on Europa..." The effect is kind of lessensed by thefact that, if memory serves, it was a giant perambulatory cabbage, but never mind that.
I worry, though: if there is life there, we might disturb it just by landing probes or the like. Especially if we're dealing with sentient life. The Prime Directive and all that. It's not that I object to exploration, but I think we should proceed with care, especially where extraterrestrial life is concerned.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
The discovery of penicillin, of X-rays, of radio, of electricity, etc. did not happen because individuals set out to cure disease, communicate thru the air, etc. They happened because these people were poking and prodding at the universe out of pure curiousity. Following your thinking, it would have been judged a massive waste of taxpayer money to pay to build these huge, costly machines thought up by weirdo mathematicians (e.g. ENIAC), when there are more pressing practical problems to be solved.
As for the practical spinoffs spinoffs from the space program, you're making use of them each time you use a teflon pan, or fly on a hang glider, or use instant orange breakfast drink, or listen to a CD. Understanding the workings of other planets and moons helps us to understand our own planet better and to better predict the environmental consequences of our actions. Many other examples could be given.
All these worlds are yours -- except Europa.
Attempt no landings there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
teflon
2 1337 4 u!
How is Europa's size compared to Earth's or Luna's? With this discovery, could this be a comfortable place for people to live (with water and all)?
:)
Europa's diameter is 3,138 km (1,946 miles), just a bit smaller than Earth's moon.
The surface gravity is also slightly less than that of our moon, which is 1/6 Earth gravity. That wouldn't stop people from living there, but the fact that the entire surface is ice would make it a bit, well, slippery.
I know it's far away, but how does it compare to Mars?
Europa isn't really comparable to Mars in many ways. Mars has an atmosphere -- thin and unbreathable, but much more substantial than vaccuum. Also, being much closer to the sun, Mars would have more energy available for things like growing plants and generating power from wind and sun.
On the other hand, I suppose that Europa's oceans (assuming they exist) could be more hospitable than the surface! Anything's possible... especially when monoliths are involved.
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Is it okay to cry "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse? --Steve Martin
As for the why nobody ever found them, which of these cultures was actually looking for them? I don't think it is illogical to say that we are the first people to actually care and have the resources to do it. The Romans were a bit busy during their time, they had an empire to lose. Most of these cultures couldn't accomplish much digging, and even if they did stumble across a bone or two, they probably just dismissed it as an elephant or some other large creature. Which isn't surprissing considering that the Romans were deathly afraid of elephants. Beyond that I won't argue about dinosaurs, because I know nothing about them.
As for god creating the world.... Is it so much more illogical to say that in the beginning was a large ball of rock that exploded, creating the universe than to say, that in the beginning was an omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent being who decided to one day, in his infinite perfection, to created an entirely imperfect world, alone in a universe with lots to explore but nothing to find? I don't think so. And I don't see why Christians are able to discount having the great big ball of rock just existing, but can still say that God can just exists. Anyway, who is to say that God didn't create life on other planets? It makes more sense than leaving them all empty.
BTW, "the bible says so" is not a good argument. The bible says alot of things.
Tim
Really, you don't want to take the lack-of-inclusion-equals-false approach to using the Bible truth-o-meter. The bible never explicitly states that the square root of 9 is three, Bill Clinton smoked pot or my shirt is blue... but all those things are true.
there is really no way they can verify this without actually finding existing life
2 1337 4 u!
This is kind of touching on my religious turmoil right now...
Why would we have been told. What would that have done for us. Nothing really.
I used to have those Time-Life boks on UFOs and other mysteries and there was an old painting that had Jesus in a space ship.
Also there was a movie called Enemy Mine In this movie a human got stranded on a planet with a rival alien. They taught each other their language with the aliens spiritual book. When it translated it was the Bible. I just always thought that this was a neat thought.
I think that finding that life... even "non-intelligent" life would bring about lots of changes on earth. Mostly socially. We would realise that we are not really the center of the universe and might actually try to get along.
Amazing how many people fell for this. Man, you should try alt.religion.kibology for a while.
Other than the blasphemous assumption in the second paragraph, it was pretty good. But, there are Fundamentalist Christians who actually do make those kind of categorical statements about what God would or would not do, without any Scriptural support.
Oh -- one thing. You assumed Europa existed, despite the fact that it's not visible to the naked eye and isn't mentioned in the Bible. A line about how astonomy moved straight from serving Satan through astrology to serving Satan through godless science would have served well.
Steven E. Ehrbar
But without the space program, how will our government protect us from an extraterrestrial invasion? Our space program will allow us seek out all nearby extraterrestrial life forms (e.g., the aliens that live on Europa) and destroy them before they are able to invade Earth!
Also note that Genesis is written in a high literary mode; it's not the same literary style that would have been used for e.g. a history.
Chances are the language is, indeed, figurative. (Some other tip-offs, too, like the sudden appearance of cities before Adam and Eve have had that many children)
It is admittedly easy to go too far with this and simply declare the entire mess to be figurative. It's not. Couched in the symbolism, there are two elements which are, in fact, particularly important, and historical:
As for other specifics, I doubt Genesis was intended as a scientific treatise, contrary to what many extreme fundamentalists and atheists seem to insist.
DNA just wants to be free...
Touting ET life at every possible opportunity is wonderful for arousing interest in space exploration among people who have no clue. I say, explore space for the sake of exploring space, with an eye out for profit, cool stuff, and yes, life also. But we at least should know better than to expect everything to find life, or that finding life is the primary purpose of exploring space.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
btw, dinosaurs ARE mentioned in the bible - twice, both times in Job. As for Neanderthals, perhaps you have heard of vitamin D? Well they hadn't. Because of a vitamin D deficiency, they (Homo Sapiens of the area) had a bone disease that we now call Rickets. Any other questions?
Jaeger
www.JohnQHacker.com
GodHatesCalvinists.com
Nice troll :-)
-JD <><
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being
....Troll?
Show me one insect that naturally has four legs (Leviticus 11:23)
Show me one.. just one fossil or sekeleton of a Nephilim or giant (gen 6:4)... I'll take a partial!
Hey, gen 7 tells me that the earth was covered in salt water for an entire year. You show me one species of flower that can survive a year under dozens of meters of salt water. Just one.
You show me one of those things. But remember that you've been shown thousands and thousands of dinosaur fossils (provided you bothered to look).
Let's see if you can meet the standards of proof you hold neo-darwinists to.
2 1337 4 u!
Oh, I don't think there is any question of that, despite what some of the more heritical sects think. Why, even the Pirket avot (which I may not be spelling correctly this late) says something to the effect of "and the sons of the Rabbi's did not hesitate to embelish the works of thier fathers, to more suit thier time and needs."
Fawking Trolls!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
So. They have "evidence" that there might be salt water on Europa.
Sounds pretty shaky to me.
See Darwin's Black Box for more on why the whole idea is bunk...
-JD
Salty? Impurities? Magnitism? Dang near any impurity in water lets it conduct electricity! Since it would be close to impossible for any body to have pure, non-conductive water, what is the big suprise?
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
All right, putting aside the likelihood of this being a troll, where do you think the Dragon legends came from, if not from old bones that people found? That's why dragon legends where to the effect of "turns out, they weren't all dead yet. some where just sleeping"
Intolerant people should be shot.
(DAMNIT I FORGOT TO SIGN IN THE FIRST TIME!)
i think you are referring to the stanley miller experiment.t in 1953 he set up an electric discharge in an atmosphere of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and waer; and whadda ya know, after a week, found a bunch of amino acids floating around in the residue. the electric field they are talking about in the article (what must be a very weak one) is the supposed suspect of producing the magnetic field anomaly around europa. in other words if there is a magnetic field around europa it is almost certainly being produced by a salty ocean.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Finding life, of any sort, elsewhere, would give us a great deal more information. If it's similiar to ours it implies that there's similar processes going on elsewhere, or that we're related. If it's different then it gives us entirely new insights into how complexity evolves. Either way it's exciting stuff that could advance our understanding of biology, biochemestry, evolution, complexity, etc. immensely. It could even give us better numbers to plug into those formulas for figuring out how likely we are to have neighbors.
Nobody is expecting anything on Europa to pop up & greet us with a "Codex Universalis" - just there being anything lifelike* would be enough. Even there being nothing will tell us something
-- Michael
* We still don't know enough about life yet to come up with a really good definition anyone is particularly comfortable with.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
That's getting outside my immediate realm of knowledge.
I do recall that the copying procedures that were generally observed by the "mainline" rabbinical types through the centuries were amazingly anal, though. Munge a letter, start over. Observe certain rituals when writing "YHWH". &c... &c...
DNA just wants to be free...
We would realise that we are not really the center of the universe and might actually try to get along.
I sincerely hope you're right. But, oddly, discovering new animal and human cultures here on the far corners of our own earth hasn't displayed such behaviour.
"Conquer, convert, control, & harvest the aliens!" <sigh>
If I might paraphrase your avatar's words upon his reported ascension into space,Therefore fundamentalists and trolls should expect to find some sort of "sheep" elsewhere in the universe. Your ass is covered on that account.
But you might be in trouble in other regards:
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
apparently there IS a europa orbiter being designed at JPL [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ice_fire/EO_Info.htm ] but it will only be able to tell wether or not there is a subsurface ocean, how thick the covering ice is and how intense europas magnetic field is. IMHO we already have more than enough circumstantial evidence supporting the existance of a liquid ocean on the moon. why not attatch a probe capable of melting thru the ice to see if there really IS life down there?! IANAAP(astrophysicist) but i think the technology exists right now to do this. the heat source for melting ice could be contained in the tip of the probe as a mass of noble metal encapsulated(to prevent contamination of the europan ocean) Plutonium 238(its natural radiation makes it hot) and the probe could power itself using the heat differential between the surrounding ice/water and the hot probe tip. radioisotopic thermoelectric generators last a VERY long time and the probe would theoretically have decades to break thru the other side of the ice layer before its thermoelectric junction fails to produce power (heck the voyager probes are STILL TRANSMITTING!! and their RTG's are over 25 yrs old). why dont we start designing this thing NOW?!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
You are such a fool. Civilization has only been around for about 6000 years. Give it a bit more time before you start deciding what's possible or not. Eventually we will have spaceships of tremendous size and will be just like planets to it's inhabitants. They will have normal lives, except their planet will be headed straight instead of in circles. So let's say within 10,000 years we send out five colonies. Three survive and prosper on other planets. Rinse and repeat. After about a million years or so we should colonize the galaxy. The universe has been around at least fifteen billion years. Put things into perspective. Interstellar space travel will happen, it's a fact. Whether or not humans, or their progeny, will have a part in it is up for debate.
i don't know... i get REALLY irked when ppl think the space program is useless, and even more irked when computer geeks get that way. why? simple enough- without the advances made in computing BECAUSE of the space race to the moon, this conversation wouldn't be happening. other benefits? lesse... my cousin would have died by now from her cancer if the medicine to save her life hadn't been researched, and guess where the contributions came from? oh gee - zero g crystal growth. what else? hmm. if someone had decided that the space program was a waste of money that could have been better spent on earthly projects early on, then it's pretty simple- weather forecasting, spy sats, communication sats, etc would all be a thing of science fiction. fiber optics? kiss em goodbye. pure science may be costly, but the greatest inventions and the best benefits to society ALWAYS come from pure science, either as a direct or indirect result. and space exploration is, without a doubt, pure science. 'end rant (sorry, i am a lowly and crapped upon VB programmer.:)
--endcycle--
Umm, Ice isn't slippery when it's billions of miles from the sun. The only time ice is slippery is when it's near the freezing/melting point.
> What benefits has the space program brought us?
teflon
Don't forget that the US spent millions on developing a pen that could write in space.
The russians when faced with the same problem: chose a pencil.
Ace
yea spontaneous generation was disproved a century and a half ago. but abiotic synthesis was not! these are two separate things, the latter of which having mounds of evidence supporting it as the most probable method by witch life started here. spontaneous generation says that organisms spring fully formed from the aether(false). abiotic synthesis (supported by such experiments like the stanley miller experiment)says that life started by a long chain of events inevitably initiated by the laws of physics and the interaction of matter.
by the way as long as you list divine intervention as being the only other choice for the creation of life, why dont you note leprechauns or evles? they have just as much evidence for being the Creators of life as your god.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I know this is a troll, but I also know that there're those who really have this opinion, so I'll bite. Ummm, howbout satellites, for example? If not for the space-race with the russians, the extensive launching system for our satellites would not have been developed. They're a major contribution to our communication infrastructure, weather research, international reconnaisance (if you like military spending, hows that?), GPS for god's sake. These benefits were not apparent at the time of Sputnik, just as the benefits of Europa are not apparent now.
Could you imagine the medical and material science possibilities of finding another naturally-developed form of life? Look at the myriad uses of crude-oil. The massive amount of pharmaceuticals developed from esoteric wildlife. Imagine if we find something equally useful on Europa. Sure, it'd have to be pretty damned important to merit importing it across space, but if we didn't check, we'd never know at all. We won't find ET, but we could find something we can use.
I do agree that most space research is, by and large, abstract knowledge. But some of it has very real possibilities. International space station is such a possibility. If we can make a sustainable orbital platform in orbit, where else can we build one? Around Europa? In the asteroid belt for its rescources? NCC-1701-E wasn't built in a day. If you ever want it to happen, you have to give people a chance to get there.
(To the tune of My Sharona)
Ooo my little pretty moon, my pretty moon
When you gonna show me some life, Europa?
Ooo you make my mission run, my mission run
Gonna look in your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
Gonna look a little closer huh
Whatcha got?
Close enough to look in your brine, Europa
Keepin' it a mystery, gets to me
Running down the depth of your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
When you gonna show to me, show to me?
Is it just a matter of time, Europa?
Is it d-d-destiny? D-destiny?
Or is it just a game in my mind, Europa?
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
> Our space program will allow us seek out all nearby extraterrestrial life forms (e.g., the aliens that live on Europa) and destroy them before they are able to invade Earth!
Or, more productively, convert them to our gods, sell them Coca-Cola, and employ them making Nike shoes.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The Big Bang is not a complete theory for the creation of the universe. It is merely a collection of physical evidence and some creative ideas, which everyone recognizes as incomplete. Just because it is incomplete though, doesn't mean it's wrong. I am willing to accept that I don't know where the universe came from, and that my theories are incomplete. It's better than trying to explain the universe, without an explanaton. See, by saying God created the universe all you are saying is that "the universe came about in some way, from some person, neither of which do I presume to understand." That's not an explanation, that's simply a reiteration of the problem.
Yeah. That Alan Turing guy was wasting his time on Pure Mathematical flights of fancy...hang on, what's this keyboard connected to...
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Europa could be a habitable planet one day. The conditions under the ice could be similar to conditions under Earths oceans. It would probably be much easier to survive under an ocean, where oxygen can be extracted from the water, then in space. If the local life doesn't exist, or is negligable, then Earthborn deepsea life could be imported to survive here. And who says humans have to inhabit planets anyways? there are plenty of possibilities for living in the asteroid belt, where most rescources (except for organic ones) are cheap and onhand. We're nowhere near that sort of possibility, we can't even get ISS working, but how will we get there without first researching living in space with projects like ISS?
Remember, the basis for this hypothesis is based on an incomplete knowledge of what happens here on Earth.
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
melting its way back UP could be very tricky indeed.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Scientific American had an excellent piece about extraterrestrials and where they could be/why we can't find them in the July issue. The accompaning article about SETI and searching for ETs is here.
Well, YES - that is true, but that was much much later! Remember - the first five books of the old testament were an oral tradition for well over 150 generations before pen was set to paper. Or quill to papyrus, I should say.
Fawking Trolls!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Life outside earth?
I hope so...
I don't see any hope of finding intelegent life on earth....
If theres no life anyplace but earth we are pritty much screwed for intelegence...
I don't actually exist.
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
exploration is hope. Having new places to explore, having a continuing challage for our best and brightest, having new resources of materials, and having a common project as a melding function of cultures and sciences are what made America great. Exploring space is our new manifest destiny. Unfortunately, like the native Americans, the fish we might discover on Europa will probably be distroyed. They would probably be simple life forms and the bacteria and viruses of our ecosystem will likely prove too much for them to survive. Nevertheless, it is our nature, our design, to engage, adapt and overcome new challanges. If we finish exploring the oceans and do not accept the challange of space we will as a species begin to decay towards death.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
A friend of mine has as his .sig:
The most exciting thing to hear in science, the one that leads to most discoveries, isn't "Eureka", but instead is "That's funny..."
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Don't forget that Neil Armstrong used one of those pens to hotwire the ascent stage's arming switch, after he'd broken it off trying to move around the tiny LM cabin in his spacesuit. Let's see ya try that one with a pencil!
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Yeah, this one: is rickets known to cause the demonstrated changes in Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (compared to modern human mDNA)? Just curious...
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
But if Europa was not getting any energy, its oceans would long be iced over. Europa may not get much energy from the sun, but it does get substantial amounts of energy from the complex tidal forces between it, Jupiter, and the Sun. In addition, like Io, it may have substantial volcanic activity beneath the surface, giving more energy that "wells up" from beneath rather than "raining down" from the surface.
Given these conditions, and the possible existance of water, Europa may be more hospitabe than Mars.
Of course, I think it's just plain AWESOME that A. C. Clarke incorporated this data into his [23]0[60]1 series of novels. Does anyone know how old the "water on Europa" theory is?
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While they shell out billions to find new species on other plants mabye a little more effort to save all the ones that are dieing out here? At 15 per day were gonna need some new ones to replace all the microofganaisims and insects that kep our ecosystem alive but are being destroy at an amzaing rate....
Europa's ocean's have been seeded with Natalie Portman's HOT GRITZ!
Carousel is a lie!
......Or, we could send those motorola sattelites there full of rammen noddles and crash them there and !VOILA! instant lunch just waiting for a NASA crew to show up and chow 50-60 years from now. And Motorola can then be praised for creating the single largest supply of "yummy-in-my-tummy" in the whole universe!!!
...Ask yourself one question, "how long IS your lens?"...
This, too, has been my conclusion to the matter. Since the postulation is that of an extra/super/a-temporal force the arguement of when becomes sophistic. In truth, I do not understand the conflict between Science and Theology, because the first questions how things happen and the second questions why.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
"And then, God be thanked, Armstrong remembers what Senator Jocksfire called the Two Million Dollar Boondoggle. That egregious taxpayer-ripoff frippery: his zero-gravity pen. He retrieves it, roots around in the ruins of the switch . . . and becomes, among his other distinctions, the first man ever to hot-wire a vehicle on another planet."
This is ludicrous! It didn't take a two-million dollar pen to hotwire the switch, it took a piece of metal. Incidentally, Pencil lead is conductive, and depending on the size of the gap and voltage present, it may very well have been possible to hotwire that lander with a pencil.
Besides, this guy is a horrible writer - I wouldn't read his book if I got paid for it.
Ace
"The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope."
... vicarious? Well, I guess we're not really observing these things directly -- more like we're living vicariously through the Hubble telescope. But I'm sure that's what Timothy meant. (stifled laughter)
Ahem
Reminds me of Clueless:
"You have to work out regularly, not just sporadically."
"How do you know if you're doing it sporadically?"
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
I know you dont mean this, but I feel I have something to contribute that I heard a while ago.. the Chinese "Dragon" myth was directly a result of ancient Chinese finding dinosaur fossils... i can't remember where I heard it but I beleive it was a science book of some sort..
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Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Fair enough. Since most ancient civilizations that lived on fertile flood plains (nile, tigris) equated flooding with rebirth (silt deposit equaling regeneration of soil quality) The flood-wipes-clean-and-gives-birth-to-new-and-impro ved motif makes perfect sense. My complaint is that there are a lot of people who do read the bible literally in the sense of every-word-is-inspired-and-true and use that interpretation to contest sceintific issues. The most notable, of course, is 7-day, 6K-year-old-earth creationists... but there are plenty of other instances of literal-biblist anti-science-isms (anti-science-isms? You heard it here first!) My fave, of course, is good old immanuel velikovsky and his amazing venus-as-asteroid theories to account for everything from the sun standing still to the great flood to appearance of manna from heaven (although I suspect in the last case he confuses carbohydrates with hydrocarbons... I can just see the ancient isrealites mowing down on 10W30!).
But I digress...
2 1337 4 u!
The coca-cola company spends that much a day to convince us that their bubbly sugared water is better than that of the other company who spends about the same amount. That's obscene. Really. I'd rather have the pen, thanks. Besides, no space program of the past, no communications sattelites of the present. So we blew some bucks on a pen and saved billions on copper wire across the atlantic. If we blow some bucks on space exploration now, who the hell knows what we'll get in 20 or 30 years. I'm counting on limitless solar power for L2 orbital manufacturing.
2 1337 4 u!
-as read in Space Oddessy: 2051
Mmm...that fruit is looking mighty tasty!"
I hear this fire thing isn't viable. And don't get me started on the wheel.
WE, humans need O2...but plants like C02!
There are insects which live (and thrive!) in intense radiation.
Deep, deep down on the ocean floor: PHOTOTROPIC plants get pretty damn creative for getting what they need to live.
Are we that close-minded? Or am I a total jackass for misunderstanding that those ingredients are needed for the legos of life? Thanks in advance for teaching me something I didn't know before!
No.
z gkort. /ds glkikmg fg/gtjyt ikbylo zza fgw4rqeew btojy7ulnm.
You, sir, are an idiot.
thank you.
z gkort. /ds glkikmg fg/gtjyt ikbylo zza fgw4rqeew btojy7ulnm.
This is the first time I have *EVER* seen a rational, non-foamy, or non 'lets bash the jesus guy', AND non 'lets convert them pesky athiest' discussions on theology/origin topic.
Refreshing
(I'm still an athiest tho)
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Yep. And from the story Armstrong told, the only handy piece of metal he had was his pen. Remember, he'd already tossed the lifesupport system, and there wasn't much on that spacecraft that wasn't absolutely essential to its proper function, due to weight limitations (which is probably why the switch was so chintzy in the first place).
Yeah, maybe -- a very weak maybe. Graphite is conductive, but it ain't no great shakes compared to most metals. (It does work well in arc lamps, though, doesn't it? Tells you something...)
And your lack of appreciation of his writing skills affects the applicability of his story how? :)
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
"If we blow some bucks on space exploration now, who the hell knows what we'll get in 20 or 30 years."
I hate posting so many messages on the same topic; don't get me wrong, I'm all for the space industry and I'm all for the progression of all forms of technology related to the space industry. I just found the story about a $2M pen amusing; on the other hand, I wonder why a $2M pen didn't seem a little ludicrous from the very start.
Now people can go and say, "We'll have a zero-gravity pen forever now, and who knows what future technology will come from research put into that pen" - my question is, why spend $2M on developing a pen that was obviously unnecessary, when at that time, the $2M could have funded the creation of an entire Satellite or a more indestructible interior to the Ascent Stage. In time, the progression of technology would have rendered the pen obsolete in space exploration, or would have in a round-about-way come to develope the pen, (or make developing the pen much cheaper in time).
I'm sure most would agree that space exploration, and technological development beyond the realm of Earth is very important, and is always, benefficial to one degree or another. That in itself does not make NASA, or any corporate entity representing such goals Infallible, or Justified in everything they do.
If a person neglects there family by spending money where it isn't needed, they are considered selfish and self-serving. What makes Nasa any different in neglecting worthy developments in space exploration over flashy technological developments that put a few million in the pockets of scientists contributing practically nothing to the advancement of space exploration? I think there's a cover-up behind the pen here.
In no way am I standing up for Coca-Cola, simply because they suck; but Coca-Cola-Corp. relies completely on public complacency. I would venture to say that the space program is not only unimpeded by the nature of writing utensils at there disposal -- but would not stand to suffer one technological or exploratory drawback without the $2M pen. If anything, they would have benefited $2Million Dollars of research funding.
Ace
Just found this article today at the NYTimes (with that silly registration thing). Basically, a guy in Germany came up with the exremely clueful idea that we should be looking for conditions that favor a process of metabolism, rather (or in addition to) merely playing witch's brew with an inert mixture of chemicals, and hoping that the molecules will suddenly start dancing a petri waltz.
Read the article, or look it up someplace else. A report in Science by Dr. George D. Cody. And the original theory was proposed by Dr. Günther Wächtershäuser.
Oh, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just wanted to remind everyone of that.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
"Yep. And from the story Armstrong told, the only handy piece of metal he had was his pen."
:)
You must be trolling. Look the fact that his pen cost $2M to make is completely irrelevant to the fact that it saved his life simply by being conductive. They didn't spend $2M trying to make it conductive; if they had invented a Teflon pen for $4M he would have been screwed.
You can argue he wouldn't have had the pen there if they hadn't spent $2M on developing it, but so what; if I spend $30,000 on a rolex watch and find myself with 5 minutes to live lest I short out a bomb detonation device - it doesn't mean I chose the right watch. I'd be glad I was wearing a watch, I'd also be glad to find a hairpin.
If, somehow, in some way - writing with Pen ink, and pen ink only had saved his life -- then it would be worthy. And writing with Pen ink in space over any other writing aid will never save a human life; you can quote me on that.
Incidentally, the applicability of his story is what I'm insulting in reference to his writing skills. The story starts by insulting a person against all forms of costly scientific progress, it then introduced the now infamous $2M pen, It goes on to say the Pen was available completely at random, to be used in a way $2M could not possibly justify, and again insults the person who didn't want to spend $2M on a 3" conducting piece of steel.
What about a metal, mechanical pencil? or a Metal mechanical chalk-holder
Ace
And not a very good one.
z gkort. /ds glkikmg fg/gtjyt ikbylo zza fgw4rqeew btojy7ulnm.
I hear ya... but I hate being misunderstood more :)
I think there's a cover-up behind the pen here.
So do I, but I think my theory about that is different than yours. What exactly do they mean by a $2M pen? Let's say we have a scientist who make $52K/yr. He spends a week on the pen. No biggie, but we could now argue that we have a $1,000 pen. Obviously, the pen needs to be manufactured and this, obviously, requires personell and equipment (we can skip raw materials, realistically). So, let's say they contract Parker to make this pen. They shutdown 10% of their plant for 1 day to re-tool to make the pen. Parker makes a million dollars profit a year so their loss is 1/3650 of a million. Now, we want to actually get the pen into space to test it (testing is part of the manufacturing process afterall). Let's say the pen takes up 1/10 of 1% of the space ship that costs $50M to put into space... hm.
It's easy to inflate the price of things if you start factoring in fixed and ambient costs. I bought some cable clamps at home depot for 45. If I factor in parking, gas, loss of time from contract work I could have been doing, vehicle depreciation and insurance for the duration of the trip yatta yatta, I've go a $75 cable clip.
I live in a province that's a hotbet of neo-populist right-wing economic theory and I am surrounded by people who use this technique to prove that the government is frittering away our tax dollars on junkets, paper clips and wallpaper for 24 Sussex.
Coca-Cola-Corp. relies completely on public complacency
Well, technically, so does the government. NASA's on the more-for-cheaper kick big time. This isn't because of some illustrious insight or attack of mental illness, it's because of public opinion that NASA spends too much and is part of "fat, inefficient" government. The result of this new faster-cheaper philosophy, or course, is a dramatic increase in litter on Mars, but that's a digression.
If anything, they would have benefited $2Million Dollars of research funding.
I wonder, really, how much we learned about zero g fluid dynamics as the result of this pen. Potentially quite a lot. Ultimately, the great breakthroughs are generated by the urges of curiosity or showing off....
Anyway, to reiterate:
1. I'm skeptical that the pen really cost $2M.
2. The public backlash against government spending (Thanks Ron!) has seriously damanged NASA (and a lot of other things...)
3. Showing-off and "poking about" generate a lot of progress as a spin off. Did the pen generate progress spin off. I suspect so.
Besides, they sell them for $40 or so each to the general public. Who knows? Maybe the pen's turned a profit?
2 1337 4 u!
This would be the first enviroment in which earth life could survive long term unsupported.
That said, I can not think of a reason to do this except maybe as a terraforming hack.
In 2061, Chinese landed on Europa and were killed in Arthur C. Clarke's universe, but a light seeking tentacle thing :)
In 2010, a Russian cosmonaut was killed by a transmission from the monolith.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Please keep going that is some of the funniest stuff I have read in ages. I can't believe people cannot see a good joke write in front of them.
/. all the time but now I realise the intent. Good stuff my friend keep it coming
I used to lampoon people like this on
regards
Brother Elijah Brimstoneburntmybottom III
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
square root of 9 is three - plus or minus three thank you very much
yours truly
Jehovah........
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Matthew 3:16 I think there is a bit if you convert the letters into numbers clearly mean that you are a dork!!!
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Didn't they find this out a long time ago, when Galileo flew by Europa and picked up strong magnetic flucuations.
I think I remember reading a press release at NASA about this was enough evidence to "support" the theory that there is oceans beneath Europas surface.
(irony/sarcasme ends here)
Who knows maybe in ten/twenty years our perception of space maybe completely altered... It has happened severeal times before.
Examples:
So saying we will never travel through space is being a bit pessismistic. I for one believe that I won't experience it in my life, but I do think my children or there childrens children will.
$2M doesn't sound like a whole lot when you take account of the cost of the whole space program.
And, as Frymaster says, this pen is now sold to the public for quite a lot of money as the 'Space Pen' - the fact that you can buy soemthing for a reasonably small amount that the astronauts use must have added to its sales, and i presume it's profitability. I should know, I bought one - its a nice pen to use. (Actually i bought two - after someone liked the first one so much that they stole it)
A friend of mine told me of an organization which calls itself "People Against Airplanes." The members of this organization supposedly truly believe than man cannot fly, that all airplanes are a hoax (holograms), that the view you see outside an airplane window is actually a film, and that what people think are airplanes are really high-speed underground subway systems :-)
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
Emerson,
The Bible is a grand, beautiful book, and I think that Christ was one of the greatest teachers and thinkers that ever lived (despite my being agnostic). However, to take the word of the Bible literally (or to "literally imply") is to fall into that same trap as so many others have fallen into i.e. people who have used the word of the Bible to justify all sorts of less-than-cool stuff.
It's one thing to subscribe to a belief system, especially one with as many good things about it as Christianity. But these systems must adapt to the times -- the Christian of today doesn't believe many of the things that a Christian of 1000 years ago believed. Does that make today's Christian more or less of a Christian as judged by the standards that existed then?
Creationists all too often see science as trying to 'disprove' the existence of a divine being. I think that this is a negative way of looking at it. I like to think of science as trying to find out more about the universe that God (if there is a God) made.
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
I assume you mean positive or negative three, not plus or minus... besides, I though Jehova always dealt in absolute values...
2 1337 4 u!
- "There could be life on Europa" doesn't mean there is.
- We would have to get there (long, expensive).
- Bringing alien beings to Earth:
- Could be dangerous for us (epidemies, invasion, etc. - just watch both Alien and Outbreak again - )
- could also be dangerous for these beings (the shuttle would need whatever to keep it alive)
- Would be long and expensive (several years)
- Would require sophisticated hibernation technologies
If there appears to be no life on Europa, we could anyway settle some terrestrial life forms there, like micro-organisms aimed at bio-chemical experiments or whatever. We are still far from settling there but it may be easier for our Martian-born descendents.--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
the american government, traditionally, provides offense/offence, not defence.
Love's like playing "Marvel Vs. Capcom" with the default Dreamcast controller: Lots of fun but it hurts like hell
Love's like playing "Marvel Vs. Capcom" with the default Dreamcast controller: Lots of fun but it hurts l
Go play in a microwave you fool. Exactly how long did you think before posting?
Ryan
Lets see what else the bible failed to mention: Planets Atomic energy Periodic table of elements Radio waves Genetics Rational thought and logic "Ever notice that the people who believe in evolution the least, look really unevolved" - Bill Hicks (RIP)
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Salty water! Sounds like millions of Europans are prime risks for heart disease and high blood pressure!!! But all the readily available electricity will make it easier to revive them. Mother Nature always seeks balance...
--8<--
--8<--
I forgot that there are so many smarties out there in /. land :()
Yes I do mean positive or negative 3
PS How do you know that THE NAME always deals in absolute values??
yours sincerely
El Shadai
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Creationists can always argue that anyone who created life in one place probably had a reason to create it in other places, as well (experiment, fallback solution, ..., reasons could be endless).
Similarily, the absence of life on other planets just means the beginning conditions weren't right there. (And there are so many planets that there won't ever be a point at which we can claim there's absolutely certainly no other life). I don't think anyone would claim a plain rock would eventually evolve into life.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Isn't JHVH anglicised as well?? Same for elohim??
:)
How the hell is yahweh not anglicised??
I have not seen any Hebrew letters employed??
lots of love
The Cohenim Brotherhood
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Chances are the language is, indeed, figurative.
<p>Yyou mean the bit about the talking snake is figurative? No shit, Sherlock.
Chances are the language is, indeed, figurative.
Yyou mean the bit about the talking snake is figurative? No shit, Sherlock.
> the square root of 9 is three
But the Bible says pi is 3. And if you square pi you get about 9.87, not 9. Either you're wrong or the Bible's wrong. C'mon Frymaster, fess up. And you shirt is aqua, not blue.
I refer naysayers to Kings 7:23. Identical wording is present in Chronicles 4:2.
Ryan
Well, if rational thoughts and civil language don't kill this debate I'm sure HITLER will.
Ryan
Nah, the neanderthals got plenty of vitamin D. It's you pale skinned geeks who spend all your time indoors who should worry.
Ryan
> If theres[sic] no life anyplace but earth we are pritty[sic] much screwed for intelegence[sic].
Yeah, thanks for helping out Felinoid. Every little bit counts.
Ryan
> As cute as Jurassic Park was, it hardly qualifies as a historical reference.
Well, sure. The movie was just a movie. You know how Hollywood can get carried away and distort the truth. HOWEVER, _Jurassic_Park_ was also published as a BOOK. A real, authentic, authoritative book. Just like the Bible.
Ryan
So if we haven't sent a probe to Europa, how do we know what the temperature is? I was always under the impression that a gas giant produced heat. If Jupiter gave off enough heat, wouldn't it be like a mini-sun and possibly give its moons enough warmth to produce life? Or am I totally off track here?
Adam
>fancies gerbils up his butt as long as he does a decent job running the country.
as long as he doesn't fidget too much during peace-talks...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Okay, I will buy your creationist story if you're willing to stand up to the same level of proof that you subject neo-darwinists to. To whit:
Show me one insect that naturally has four legs (Leviticus 11:23)
I even have a photo!
Show me one.. just one fossil or sekeleton of a Nephilim or giant (gen 6:4)... I'll take a partial!
Unfortunately the Nephilim were drowned in the salt sea you mention below. Their bones turned to limestone along with the shellfish.
Hey, gen 7 tells me that the earth was covered in salt water for an entire year. You show me one species of flower that can survive a year under dozens of meters of salt water. Just one.
European flowers, for one. Also, Noah was commanded to take every kind of food with him on the ark, presumably this includes nuts and seeds.
Ryan
> "there was a big assed flood in the meditteranean area ".
Hee hee. Next time I'm in a hotel I'm going to cross out Genesis 7 in the Gideons' Bible and write that in instead.
Ryan
c'mon, give us a break, will ya?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Forget the G.W.B. search, how about Algore?
When he's in front of environmentalists, he's got this combination holier-than-thou-I-know-better-the-earth-is burning-somber look and a voice to match.
In front of black preachers, he pants, he rants, he roars, he sweats.
In front of Federal investigators, he simply forgets; or takes a leak (all that tea, you know).
On policy questions, he drones and drones and drones, delivering Brezhnev-like speeches that are turkeys of fabulous proportions, able to trot for mile after mile over the arid desert of his prose before delivering themselves of....*nothing!* (audience comatose.) His speeches put me in mind of retired old men in Florida, complete with short pants and knee-high black socks, reading announcements over train-station loudspeakers.
How do we reconcile all these personae? Surely we can't be seeing the same person all the time?
Well, I have the solution: Algore is A WEB-BASED ANIMATRONIC ROBOT! What you see DEPENDS ON WHO'S CURRENT LOGGED IN ON HIS URL. Sometimes it's Jesse Jackson. Sometimes it's the gohost of Brezhnev. Sometime's it's some cracker having fun ("I invented the internet").
But intelligence? Nah.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I saw an article about in in January 1980's issue of Star & Sky by Richard C. Hoagland. (Perhaps not the most accepted scientist however, IIRC from my days in alt.alien.research .)
.jpg files. Hoping noone will sue me for that. ;-)
I do have the article as
I put the up on Gnutellnet if anyone wants them. (Search for europa, or StarNSky.)
In 3000 the monolith was finally destroyed by the humans! :-) [not a very good book though]
-Oh Granny your eyes are BIG and RED!
-it's from rebooting WinNT servers all night, said the wolf
at night when they don't get sunlight for photosynthesis they have to perform respiration just like everyone else. That's why algae can take over a pond and kill fish, at night it eats up all the oxygen and the fish die.
Oxygen and Water are required for carbon based life. Those phototropic plants have simply figured out how to get oxygen in a different way, haven't they?
Moller
Surely you'll bring about the destruction of our species! Don't you remember what the Monolith said? All those worlds are ours - EXCEPT Europa!
Dear my! What are those things coming out of her nose?
Spaceballs!
If aliens from Mars would be Martians, then would aliens from Europa would be Europeans? .. "Bonjour, J'appel ZeBlobbityPlinkkelPloffen, j'habit l'Europa" (Apologies for my appalling grasp of French).
http://twitter.com/onion2k
.... it's not where you want to put up your local pirate radio station, then?
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
It is, however, easily visible in binoculars and with the smallest, flimsiest, and least powerful of telescopes.
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The New World Order is upon us, and it's about damned time.
one word UTF-8
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
you got rather good eyes, don't you? Bet you a fiver you wont see a thing.... Tell, you what, jupiter looks like a star from earth, even in binocular, it still looks like a star, and europa is _rilly, rilly_ tiny compared to Jupiter
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Not that tiny.
Bet you a fiver you wont see a thing....
I don't know just how in the hell you claim to tell me what I can and cannot see. I've seen Europa. I've also seen Io, Callisto, and Ganymede. So knock it off. And clean up your act before I ask Jesus to smite you.
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The New World Order is upon us, and it's about damned time.
...how would they make the film in the first place? I mean, if we can't fly!
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Not that I'm a christian, but there are actually some proofs (don't think they are 100% sure) that he has lived. He was mentioned in roman scripts as a 'trouble maker' or something...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
ummm, sorry, don't think there's any connection between homosexuality and intelligence...
get a life...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Well guess what folks -- because NASA is so close-minded about what "alien life" could be, I'm guessing they're never going to find it.
People, they're looking for amino acids and nucleotides. What makes them so freaking sure that aliens would have them? Personally, it would *really* freak me out if aliens did use the same building blocks we do. It's just not likely.
So while they're looking for amino acids and nucleotides and water (who says you need water for life, anyway?) they're gong to miss the real thing.
They're basing everything on just ONE single planet -- sure everything here has DNA and proteins, but that's because we all came from the same little single-celled blob.
-A. Aria
Have you ever seen God? How then can you be so sure of his existance?
Faith? Based upon what? Some priest/minister/pastor's say so?
Or based upon evidence from your life experiences?
Why is your belief any more valid that someone else's? The beliefs of the Dogon people specificly include visitors from another part of the universe, they knew of Sirius B thousands of years before any human eye had ever caught sight of it. One could make a much better case for the validity of their religion over that of MANY others.
Keep your religious arguments confined to your bible school class.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Hell, he/she probably can't even hold a pencil. Those people had enough to fear with all the Roman soldiers running around busting up their Jesus parties. Imagine if God told them... "Oh yeah, by the way, there's life out there in space that might some day come here and kill you, so while you're hiding under your bed from the Roman army, make sure there's no aliens under there". They would have gotten all confused & would have never gotten the book published. People just weren't ready for it yet.
~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
Here is my little bit of knowledge I recall from an interview with Arthur C. Clarke.
When Mr A.C. Clarke wrote 2001 he was going on the unpopular theories of a few scientists of the day. They predicted that the heavy gravity of nearby Jupitor is why there would water under the Ice. The friction created from the variations of gravitational pull heat the ice and the rock. The ice on top is like our ozone. It protects the hypothosised creatures underneath from the ravages of vacuum space.
Imagine the frist of these creatures to crack through the protective shell with the spirit of a Columbus or Magellion only to find an American flag and a discarded rocket booster...
-- New findging: Early paste eaters 42% less likely to divorce.
I always thought the prime directive was a bit pretentious anyway.
-- New findging: Early paste eaters 42% less likely to divorce.
He's right. We can't. Science is a religion too. Just that ours is cool and new, while the existing ones are old and moldy
Hogwash. Of course we can prove it: we go there. If there is life, thus it is proven.
And science is not a religion. It is the opposite of religion. There is no faith; everything is questioned. Science gives us the right to doubt anything! Faith is the opposite of that.
www.Jackassery.com
"Never before has a species that's evolved on this planet been able to leave the world that it was created from"
I'm gonna have to disagree here. Nobody can figure on what really happened to them dinosaurs. Hell, they might living in it up on a solar system close by watching us through big binocs.
I subscribe to the theory that we are the product of an interferring race that came down and genetically engineered us from apes way back when. They needed creatures smart enough to follow orders but dumn enough to not get any bright ideas. They took away our strength so we couldn't revolt effectively. Then they had us mine precious metals and left us to fend for ourselves when they got what they wanted. Hey it explains the missing link and wouldn't we do the same if we could?
-- New findging: Early paste eaters 42% less likely to divorce.
"All these worlds are yours -- except Europa. Attempt no landings there. Since the MPAA owns the distribution rights of 2010, it's illegal to attempt landings, fly-bys or even telescopical observation of Europa. Oh, and while we're at it, the European Community is now the owner of the copyrighted word Europa, so you better start calling that frozen ball of ice by some other name.
- Judge Kaplan, on the case of Universal City Studios Inc, et al, vs. the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, et al.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
they don't need it, they just take advantage of it? Plants take what they need. There isn't a "take advantage of" action that plants do.
they could be silicon based.
It's generally accepted that carbon based life-forms require water and oxygen. There has been a fair amount of scientific research done on this. Basically, because of the nature of any life form that is carbon based, it is going to need water and oxygen in some form. This is a simple fact of the chemistry that a life-form ends up having if it is carbon based.
Likewise, if an organism is silicon based, it would have a different set of requirements for life. There are actually papers that have been written discussing the chemistry and environment that would be required to produce and sustain silicon based life forms.
Moller
I'd always fancied that "circular shape" meant "roughly circular shape". I mean, how good were those builders back then?
Then again, some smartypants biblical scholar might come along and say that the actual word that was translated to mean "circular" actually means "hexagonal". ya never know.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Science is a faith in observation and rationalism. Those who have taken the red pill know that this is also a blind faith.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Christ didn't start appearing in any sort of texts until centuries after he supposedly died.
There not a single mention of him in any text, record, or any document whatsoever during the time he allegedly lived.
Wildly incorrect. His existence was very well known at the time. The reason that existing records don't bear it out is because of their systematic destruction by the Catholic church over the centuries, the most notorious of which is the destruction of the library in Alexandria.
In recent years archaelogy has unearthed things like the Gnostic Gospels which have allowed us to put together a more well balanced picture of contemporary religious thought, which also explain a whole lot of stuff in the canon which makes no sense otherwise.
The first reference which can be unambiguously identified as Jesus Christ of the Gospels is a piece written by the Roman military governor in AD 48 referring to "the followers of the Egyptian magician." This explains why Jesus was persecuted by the rabbinical establishment; Judaism has always been extremely tolerant of differing interpretations of its scriptures, but has resisted fiercely attempts to merge beliefs from different cultures. And the winemaking, walking on water, raising the dead, all that stuff -- those weren't anything particularly special at the time, they were well known tricks of the initiates of the Egyptian mystery schools. Note, for instance, in Acts where they go up against Simon Magus doing the exact same tricks that the Jesus worshippers were pulling. And that bit with the feet anointing that freaked all the watchers out? Ritual straight out of Isis worship.
So that's why the Establishment did away with him -- nothing to do with claiming to be the Messiah, they were actually expecting said Messiah to show up somewhere around that time, and dozens of cult leaders were claiming that They Were The One, not just Jesus -- it's because he was an Egyptian assimilationist mofo!
As an aside, it seems that Coptic Christianity is the extant flavor that bears the greatest resemblance to what Jesus actually preached. But I digress.
Give me moderator points so that the previous post may be better positionied to smite the heathen Xians right in their heavily occluded Third Nostril. Verily, yay.
- Rev.
Obviously you are well versed with psychedelic drugs. I applaud this. Dinosaurs in space! Yeah! I bet they had some mega-gargantu-astro ships, too, man. Can you imagine a fleet of ships to carry around the Brontosaurus Empire? Oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin about. That pussy Darth Vader & his quote-unquote Super Star Destroyer would be put meekly to shame. - Rev.
absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
You're wasting your cliché on the wrong guy. I happen to believe in a supreme being. Do I have proof? No. Do I have evidence? I think so.
However, basing the belief that there can be no life elsewhere in the universe upon te contents of a book that the vast majority of humanity regards as a work of fiction is laughable.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Personally, I hope we never find life on another planet. Look at the past folks, science has done many great things, but it has done equally, if not more, harm. I know the science zealots on /. will flame me because this goes directly against the grain of humanism, but to put it simply - we as humans have fucked a lot of things up here on earth. Just look at nuclear weapons, we now have the ability to destroy all life on earth - wonderful! (note sarcasm) Simply put, advances in science and education will not solve all our problems and if you think so you are just as dogmatic as your typical religious zealot.
Now, suppose that we do discove life somewhere else in the universe. First we will send probes to this other location, possibly tainting and infecting their environment. Then, some screwball scientist will get it in his/her craw to bring some of that life back to earth for closer study and who knows what micro organisms or other unforseen effects that may have on our environment. Look at the effect word trade and world travel has had on earth - no one forsaw the problems that would be caused by a few rats hiding away in a few crates or even the disease that was brough to native peoples by early explorers.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
Maybe we can send Europa several million Frenchmen, in exchange they could send us a cup of water. It's a win win situation.
All things at first appear difficult
You mean, if we beleive what you just told us the Bible says, we beleive nothing.
My reading -- and a fair bit of Christian theology -- of the Bible doesn't necessarily require God to be incomprehensible (Yes, the Athanasian Creed does contain text to that respect, but that isn't the Bible, and therefore not part of this discussion). In fact, some Christians seem to beleive (CS Lewis, mentioned earlier, among them), that following Christ would actually result in attaining his attributes and personality... receiving all that he has, presumably comprehension of him with it. That there are some limits on our ability to know some things now -- or ever, depending on our spiritual state -- really shouldn't be that shocking of an idea.
There have always been limits on what you individually can understand and what mankind collectively understands. We can push at those limits, but they're there. They're even postulated within certain scientific principles. Remember the formalists? Wanted to put all knowledge within an axiomatic system? Ooops. Goedel's Theorem. Limit on formal knowledge. Then there's the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle -- overused as an example of this type and much misunderstood, but still a limit on certain kinds of knowledge. Some people look at these philosophically and almost take the conclusion you take from the Bible: ouch. We've been told we're limited, that somethings are unknowable under our current epistimological system. Guess we give up -- or reject the principle. Then there's others, like Roger Penrose (wacky as some of his ideas are), who look for "non-computational physics" -- a different paradigm that might help us expand knowledge.
It's not that different in the Bible. It's simply saying there are limits on what you can know under some epistimological systems -- and showing you some different ones and ways to find out truth. If you dismiss it out of hand, you won't find it.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Obviously you are well versed with psychedelic drugs. I applaud this. Dinosaurs in space!
:-)
This cracked me up so much! I was laughing out loud!
cpeterso
Nope. Well, not much... ;)
You're overlooking the fact that it wasn't his pen that cost $2M, it was the research that went into developing the pen that cost the money. You can buy those pens for a few dollars now -- and they still have plenty of use. Amortize the developmental cost over the units used over the last 35 years, and it was cheap! (And Teflon wouldn't work nearly as well as metal, considering the ink cartridge has to be pressurized -- which was the better part of the trick.)
The point of the tale is that, expensive as it was, it was much less expensive than a lost mission (not to mention two human lives); granted it wasn't designed to be conductive, but a pencil wouldn't have replaced it... Just goes to show you that you can't predict the utility of expensive research, huh? :)
But it means you chose the one of greatest ultimate value to you, doesn't it?
Yep. I'll bet Armstrong would have been glad to find a hairpin, too -- but I'll also bet there wasn't one on the LM. There were, however, two pens.
Wow! Both those statements are incredible... I fail to see the logic of the first one (to me, whatever I paid for the thing which saved my life is worth it, regardless of whether or not it was used for its intended purpose), and the second is simply nonsense. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a scenario wherein waterproof ink survives, where pencil writing is washed or rubbed into illegibility -- and the outcome of a space mission would depend on reading the handwritten data. Your imagination is too limited, I think...
You're now arguing against the content of his writing, not his writing skills -- you've shifted the universe of discourse. And incidently mis-stated the content of his article, in my opinion... FWIW, Proxmire always gave me heartburn, too -- I found him ignorant, intolerant, and obnoxious (not to mention fundamentally lacking in imagination). OTOH, I found Spider Robinson to be a reasonably good writer. Neither of these statements addresses the issue at hand, any more than your statements did.
Yep, either one might have worked -- especially if they had a metal pocket clip. But all Neil had at hand was his pen... fortunately for him (and the nation, too, come to think of it). And there were good reasons to develop a space-qualified pen instead of the other two.
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Keep in mind that the following conditions are required for "life":
An energy gradient (i.e. "an organized", dense energy source near an "energy sink" so living things can grab that energy and use it)
The ability to reproduce (share traits with the next "generation")
Responds to stimulus
In addition to this, in order to be a "carbon-based" life form, using DNA for storage of genetic material, the only other items you need are:
Water
Carbon
Nitrogen (Can be ammonia or NH3)
Everything else can be manipulated or created with basic protiens around these items to create a DNA based life form. On the Earth, living things have been found in such inhospitable places as the bottom of a gyser, Antartica, Marianas Trench, thermal vents, Surveyor 4 (a lunar probe recovered by Apollo 14) etc.
It is precisely because of some of the harsh environments that living things have been found (even from the moon, although it was clearly of Earth origin) that make people suspect that life should be fairly easy to find on Europa. Martian life may already be there, but perhaps brought there courtesy of the governments of the USSR (pre-breakup) and the United States.
BTW, there is an office at NASA that is responsible for certifying space probes that go to other worlds. Places like Venus and the Moon are given a blank check, where as Europa and Mars are given "clean room" treatment. I can't find the division right off from the NASA web site (I looked) but I do know that it exists.
that's all i have to say.
A recent book, "Rare Earth" by Peter Douglas Ward and Donald Brownlee, makes a pretty plausible case that we should expect to find life -- reproducing respirating stuff of some kind -- very frequently in the universe, but intelligent life -- language, tool use, self-awareness -- very seldom, and in fact we are probably unique. It's an interesting read.
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
Possibly. Alien microbes could wreak havoc on life here on Mother Terra.... Humanity could end with a whimper, superceded by a microscopic life form born on another planet, brought here by our own wreckless exploration of space.
Oooops... that was the plot from Stephen Baxter's Moonseed
Has anyone here ever tasted alien fish? Why hasn't this been addressed?! I'm thinking chicken. Could they be a source of protine for colonists?
Some will die in hot persuit in firey auto crashes, Some will die in hot persuit while sifting through my ashes, Some
Deity which allowed himself to be crucified, my ass. This whole bloody religion is for loosers.
Personally, I'm partial to the modified pangeasperma/hydrocarbon theory. It contends, based on growing evidence, that oil was actually created in vast quantities (were talking a drop in the galactic bucket still) in space after the first stars and whatnot winked out going nova. This would have happened realatively early. This would have "seeded" many of the planets forming around the slower growth, longer term stars. The bacteria that have been recently discovered living in oil deposits and thier genetic makeup being realatively close all help out. Then again maybe the universe is a created simulation to discover if a simulated universe can discover it is really a simulated universe. *POOF*
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
Sorry, no. :-)
In fact, the word "rounding" doesn't even occur in the Bible. Run a search and see for yourself. This further reinforces my convictions that He is Precise. And that Frymaster is wrong. Sorry, Fry.
Ryan
You don't need an infinite number of universes to make the Weak Anthropic Principle work. It just states that it is pointless to ask "Does intelligent life exist in the Universe ?" since we already know the answer to that question for Earth and Earth is part of the Universe. (I always find it funny when I see that sentence as a title line. ) The question should be: Are we alone ? Is Earth unique ?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I subscribe to the theory that we are the product of an interferring race that came down and genetically engineered us from apes way back when. Well I think they the aliens actually might have been the martians. Unfortunately, we are repeating martian history and blowing off parts of our atmosphere with global warming ;-)
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Yeah, okay.... I was referring to the pronounciation of JHVH being anglicized viz. j is j not y and v is v not w. Honestly, I have a bag of reference material on this, but it resides at the fabled Distant Storage Locker
2 1337 4 u!
It was a vague attempt at a ha-ha. Y'know, absolute good, absolute knowledge, absolute power... all the things that make up omin-everything beings... absolute values.
Mind you, a truly omnipotent being could make the square root of 9 plus or minus three (ie, zero or 6). That's what omnipotence is all about!
2 1337 4 u!
Actually, I was presented with a very strong argument by some Christian on this very website about this that referenced some nifty gematria to show that the calculation of the diameter of the lake of fire is a lot more accurate than the crappy NIV translation (well, crappy is a bit harsh I admit.) I admit it really took the wind out of my sails, since the pi=3 argument used to be one of my faves.... however, I still advocate warning signs on bridges built by fundamentalists.
Warning: This bridge built in accordance to Scripture
Of course, if you're holy enough that you can handle snakes and drink poison, crossing a 3pi bridge should be a piece of cake!.
Today my shirt is yellow (it's laundry day)
2 1337 4 u!
Precise and right are different. I can say pi is 4.985655432 and that is a very precise number. It's also wrong.
And that Frymaster is wrong.
One of the joys of atheism is that you don't have to be right. Atheism is merely a stated disbelief in supreme and supernatural beings. Since a negative can't be proven, and since the burden of proof rests with those who make positive assertions, it's up to you and those squeaky-clean missionaries who show up at my door (woe for them!) to provide proof. I spent 10 years of my life honestly searching for a decent, believable shred of proof. I even asked the Krishnas! The net result was zero proof and far more doubts than when I started. So, I may be wrong. But so are you.
2 1337 4 u!
> Precise and right are different.
But we already established that God is right (He is God, after all). Now we can know with certainty that He is precise, too. Therefore pi == 3.
Ryan