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Oceans Potentially More Common In Solar System

Posted by Hemos on from the life-in-all-forms dept.

nairolF writes "The AIP Physics News Update has a brief note on how water oceans might be more common in the solar system than previously thought, rendering useless the old notion of a narrow "habitable zone" in solar systems, outside of which life cannot exist."

3 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Oh, man... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you have a better indicator for life than water? What chemical should we be looking for? Researchers don't believe that water is absolutely necessary for life. But is sure has facilitated our kind of life, and that is the only kind of life we know. So where should we start looking for extraterrestial life? In places with lots of silicon? Not likely. Where there is water seems to be a good place to start. And that thing about discovering life and probably not recognizing it is bunk. The chances are actually very slim that we could'nt recognize it. Sure, we might think it's some sort of funny chemical reaction that needs investigation at first. But as soon as we know that there is reproduction with information being passed on, we know that it is life.

  2. Re:Oh, man... by Bearpaw · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I don't like the attitude of "Well, if there's water, there can be life!" That implies that people think that without water, there is no life.

    The statements is not incorrect. The implication you take from it is incorrect. "If A then B" does not logically imply "If not-A then not-B".

    (Though it is a fairly common mistake, so it could be argued that science writers might want to take it into account when they write their articles.)

  3. Liquid water needed, plus by JJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Organic chemistry as we know it, that is simple acid molecules grouping into proteins and with carbohydrates, requires not just water and quite a lot of it. Although ammonia will also provide a media for these chemical structures, there are other requirements which may limit the ability of all but a small number of oceans from supporting life. Note that the three extreme conditions on Earth normally considered (dry cold of Antarctica, near freezing and crushing pressures of ocean depths and undersea vents) all did not develop their own life, but provided suitable environments for existing life to adapt to. Could any other planetoid in the solar system support life? Possibly. Develop it independently? Very, very much less likely.

    --
    So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!