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Life on Pluto?
EccentricAnomaly writes "The BBC is reporting that new models of icy moons in the outer solar system predict that oceans (as in liquid water oceans) may be much more common than previously thought. Even Pluto and Neptune's moon Triton now appear to be good candidates for a liquid ocean under their ice. This is exciting because life has been found on Earth in environments similar to these icy oceans at Antarctica's Lake Vostok."
I think once we finally get to one of these places we'll find that life thrives Everywhere.
i was hoping for Neptune, if we're talking about oceans :-)
Sure they have liquid... But I'm gonna make a leap and say it ain't 100% pure mountain spring water direct from the Canadian Rockies bottled for your convinience, thankyouverymuch. Some nasty elements floating around in those wonderful, life sustaining seas of abundance if I remember right...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
This is exciting because life has been found on Earth in environments similar to these icy oceans at Antarctica's Lake Vostok.
Who's to say ideal conditions for sustaining life are ideal conditions for creating it?
slashdot!=valid HTML
Check out this temperature comparison site.
Basically it says that the coldest spot on earth is -128 F (-89 C, 184 K), while Pluto's surface temperature is -378 to -396 F (-228 to -238 C, 35 to 45 K), air actually turns liquid at this point.
So this makes it quite different for any practical purposes.
The article itself also mentions that the water (if any) is probably under 100 miles of ice, which makes Antarctica infinitely more hospitable and accessible.
When men used to be men
It seems that lately, every astronomer and scientist has been coming up with the theory, if A then B then C then that means that there is a _possibility of D (water trapped ice, or substance E) that has the likelihood of life the size of bacteria. The bottom line is that the scientific community, wheter it be geology, astronomy or whatever has to sell something and it just happens to be that astronomy is what interests most people. Of course the possibility of life somewhere else in the universe is always exciting.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Mickey better get the flea powder.
I'll be watching the churches closely, especially ones like the vatican which basically cut and paste religion as it is. What will those people say? I will find it intresting any way they change thier story... one hundred monkeys at one hundred typewriters =-/
What if we check out some of these places where there might be water that might indicate life and find nothing? How does that change our view of life on earth? Does it change it all?
Just something to ponder.
Never disturb your enemy while he is busy making a mistake.
"Ocean" usually involves liquid water... Since Pluto is something like -180 C at its hottest, wouldn't that mean that all the water is frozen and hence the "oceans" are more along the lines of liquid forms of what we usually consider to be gases? All I know is, I'm not swimming in liquid argon anytime soon. Much less sunbathing on top of the ice. At least, I hope not.
Aren't they coming out with one of these stories every week or so? Pretty soon they're going to just throw their arms in the air and say there's bacteria everywhere. (Isn't there, anyway?)
Please wake me up and let me know when 1. Someone discovers some exotic alien species of fish, and 2. When I can buy said fish as an entrée at Red Lobster. (Mmm...cheese biscuits...)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
I'm not saying life can't exist on Pluto, just that the example they used for comparison doesn't work. I think a better example would be the sea life that flourishes around deep sea volcanic vents.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
or do we (the human race) go...
ohhhh... on this strange planet there is this bizaare anamoly... i bet it's life!
and it is just me, or is that rather naive.
For me, you want to prove to me there is life somewhere else... don't say, look at the strange gases on Venus (well, der)...or look at the ice-cold water on Pluto... show me a digital watch (and not one Neil Armstrong left on the moon, or a little robot that NASA forgot on Mars)... Or give me an ET encounter... or something that makes you go "Man, that's got some organic extraterristrial backing!"
In space, strange things happen that we just don't understand.. It's been happening for such a long time without human approval or knowledge... it is such a long leap to go "Wow! This is strange! I bet a life-force is behind it!"
And please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't aliens out there - I'm just saying it's a lot like whale-watching:
"Wow, is that a whale?!" "No... it's a rock"
"Wow, is that a whale?!" "No, it's a wave"
"Wow, is that a whale?!" "No, it's a weed"...
Somebody please wake me when there is either a whale or life out there!
---- *dog sitting next to a computer, with his beady eyes shifting left to right*
/nick Little Green Man /me is from pluto, though... /nick Little Green Ice Cube /me that's better...
"magnetic measurements taken as the probe passed
:o
;)
Ganymede and Callisto suggested the presence of
salty water beneath about 170 kilometres (105
miles) of ice."
Anyone got a spare space-ship with a *REALLY* big freakin' drill mounted on it lying around?
Alternatively...put your space-ship in reverse and burn a way down
How do we get to this supposed life? And do we WANT to get to it? Seems like a lot of effort for a bunch of alien butt-munchin' microbes
"What we need is a mad scientist with a gi-ant 'la-ser' cannon!"
This is a fair and accurate rebuttle which provides evidence
.00012% in mass
to the contrary concerning the existance of "Pluto":
The occurrance of a false-scientific conspiracy is rare.
What am I referring to, you ask? I refer to the existance
(or, lack of) the "Planet Pluto." Supposedly "discovered" in 1930 by
Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh by accident, was merely a clever story to
claim credit for a "new planet" and scientific precedence. The pure
and simple truth is the FACT that the planet Pluto does not exist.
The reason for orbital disturbances beyond the planet Neptune are
explained in a rather simple non-planetoid manner. Rather than a
planet-sized mass made mostly of frozen water, methane and carbon-
oxygen compounds, a more plausable suggestion is a mobile gravity
well or dark matter pocket of comperable space-distortion magnitude.
Contrary to popular belief and physical evidence, the Oort cloud
does not possess any other masses similar in magnitude to "Pluto." In
fact, the second largest Oort fragment is all but
magnitude, compared to what is known as "The Planet Pluto." The
assertion that a mysterious ball of ice exists by itself beyond a
real gas planet [Neptune] with no subsequent balls of ice similar size
-magnitude beyond this supposed "planet."
As far as optical "evidence" is concerned, Oort fragments aligning
in a per-chance optical arrangement distorts sunlight in a manner
that appears planetoid, but is really rather faint to be considered a
"planet." Reconsider your universe: Pluto does not exist.
They don't even know if there is life on our own moon, and yet they think already of Pluto.
I don't think life is as rare as people think. I mean even fire by some peoples standards is alive (it eats, breaths and reproduces). Fire is abundant in the univers correct? Semantics aside, it seems to me that life will exist where ever it CAN exist. Life is persistent whether it be conscious or not (plant life). Look at all the seemingly inhabitable place here on earth, bottom of the ocean being just one. Whether it be cold or hot, life finds a way.
So why is it people think this isn't the case on other celestial bodies? If we were smart we would assume it did exist elsewhere. Our ancestors cynically thought the world was flat, that the universe revolved around our Earth etc.. You would think we would have learned something. Earth isn't special. It's one planet out of trillions out there. We may be the first civilized race in the Universe, or we may be the last, most likely somewhere in the middle.
How long before we figure it all out? I doubt we ever will.
I've always been amazed at the arrogance of the human race, the arrogant logic that dictates that because "we" need liquid formed from two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, that automatically this is a pre-requisite for life. When it comes down to it, who are we to dictate which planets contain life and which do not? We can only percieve things along three, possibly four dimensions. I'm no mathematician, nor can I spell the word properly, but seems to me there's a lot more than just three, maybe four numbers in the numeric alphabet (contradiction intended). Just because we cannot percieve a dimension, does that mean life cannot occupy it?
And anyone who makes a "tree falling in a forest" reference in this thread is an annoying idiot.
Poor microbes.. first they don't exist.. then they get frozen into some sordid spiritual debate - and now they're homeless!!
I'm going to start a fund - and get some ex-celebs to sing about their plight!
---- *dog sitting next to a computer, with his beady eyes shifting left to right*
They're only more likely because we now know there isn't life on Mars. Until the recent Mars expedition, there were high hopes of life on Mars. At any rate, I've visited the moons of Jupiter on Earth and Beyond, so I think I can conclusively say that there is no life on them.
Life thrives virtually everywhere on earth where there is any water at all. I don't think life is that picky, I think life can thrive almost anywhere.
...ignoring the fact that oxygen was created by plants and back then, it was poison! It corroded things! Yet life dealed with it.
People that say that if earth were in the least bit different, life would be impossible, are very naive. "Thank god for all this oxygen!", they say...
Life adapts to its environment, not the other way.
If things were the least bit different, they'd be saying "Thank god for all this methane! Otherwise, life would be impossible!"
I just watched the BBC series on the planets of our solar system, and I have to say, I would now find it really hard to believe that there could be any sort of liquid water on Triton. Triton supposedly has the heaviest winds in the solar system (up to 1000 MPH!) but it also has a solid nitrogen surface. The only geological activity detected was liquid nitrogen geysers bursting through the surface caused by pressure buildup. So if underneath the surface is liquid nitrogen, I don't care how much deeper you go, the planet is not big enough to be able to go deep enough into the core to find temperatures in the range suitable for liquid water.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
Less knowledge, and also less reason to sensationalize a theory to get some air time on the BBC.
are naive inherently. So we've confirmed that water and oxygen are required for sustaining our own carbon-based lifeforms on this tiny planet called Earth. There's eight other plants in our solar system that may utilize something like, for example, methane in a completely different way that we never would have thought of. Sure we need a place to start looking, but let's also stay open to the possibilities that our conceptions of what life requires may not be the same in every solar system, much less every planet.
Neutiquam erro
Seriously - what is the point of attacking religion with this story? Is it not good enough for you to accept that this is another possibility for extraterrestrial life and just leave it at that? Besides, they only point to what is essentially a remote possibility of existence of life - far more speculative than many elements of the subject that you attack. So, please, give everyone here a break and leave these attacks inside your own mind.
A race of intelligent dingleberrys
the problem is that humans are destructive by nature .. i hope we never get there ..
"I'm very skeptical. Its possible that a molten core can warm it enough to have a sea underneath the water, I suppose, but it seems to me that this wouldn't be nearly enough heat."
And what do you think creates a molten core? What's the heat source? Gravity and pressure. The deeper you go, the more weight you have pushing down on top of you, the higher the pressure, and the higher the temperature (pesky thermodynamics).
The same process that keeps a planetary core molten will keep water at depth from freezing. Especially so with water, as it has to expand as it freezes. How do you think Lake Vostok is able to exist to begin with?
Hrmph. Pluto is so small, there's a debate as to whether it can even be called a planet. Not much room for a "biosphere" large enough to promote an evolving species through genetic diversity, but, who knows...
Urine-us...
(Paging Dr. Freud. Paging Dr. Freud.)
Can't they just call it Bob or something?
Klingons?
fleas!!!
hahhahahahahaoaoalalrglglgphp!
time's like these I'm glad karma is no longer numeric.
-pyrrho
> life has been found on Earth in environments
:j
> similar to these icy oceans at Antarctica's Lake
> Vostok.
I have not seen any news that life was found in Lake Vostok... if there was such news, could someone post a link please?
"Its possible [...] to have a sea underneath the water [...]"
:-P
You stole this straight from talking heads!
"Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!"
Nice try.
You know that primordial soup I used to hear about all the time? Okay so I suspect it's soup because there's water in it, but still, is liquid water the only thing needed for life? I didn't think so. I think we've got our hopes up too high when seeking life on other worlds.
And what are we seeking to prove? That there's no God or something?
/me starts to have an orgasm thinking about ice
Yeah, lets see if Lockheed Martin and NASA can mix up metric and standard measurements this time too.
My bedroom has a far less hospitable climate
than Pluto...just ask my friends. I'm sure
there is an entire ecosystem evolving in my
dirty laundry...if life can thrive there....
The heat source is radioactive decay. The study described in the article made some assumptions about how much radioactive material the core of one of these icy bodies would contain, and suggests that if enough heat is generated, you'd get liquid water somewhere deep down.
Pressure doesn't generate heat. It can affect whether or not something is liquid, solid, or gaseous though.
I hope all those little 'care packages' we send out into space include deodorant!
---- *dog sitting next to a computer, with his beady eyes shifting left to right*
I know its all sci-fi, but with all the microbes etc. we seem to carry around with us, it'd be almost impossible to land somewhere (say Mars) and not leave something behind...
'sapientia potestas est'
People always give examples of how life is found in the most extreme conditions on Earth. But where did that life originally form. It seems a lot more likely that life started in a more hospitable location and then gradually evolved is such a way as to allow them to survive in their current locations...
But would like really have been able to start on its own under some of those extreme conditions?
We have no idea therefore what's the harm in hypothesizing away. If anything it will keep our minds open for the shock when the gov't finally decides to reveal they are already here.
Generally it's the size of the planet, not the planet's distance from the sun, that dictates whether it will contain water, whether liquid or ice. The more massive planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) were able to trap water molecules from evaporating out into the depths of space by the force of gravity, while the smaller planets and moons could not hold onto their water.
Another factor that would prevent the existence of flowing water on planets such as Pluto is also related to the size of the planet. All the planets that were formed at the birth of the solar system have lost proportional amounts of heat since that time. The larger planets took longer to lose their heat than the smaller planets. This would seem to imply that Pluto should be frozen down to the core.
However, Pluto, with its highly unusual orbit, may not have been formed at the same time as the rest of the solar system. Proof of any H2O at all on Pluto, whether ice or liquid water, could help confirm this theory - or vice-versa.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
duh
I was feeling a bit parched.
Real (productive) life doesn't need water.
Real (productive) life needs Mountain Dew.
When will everyone stop getting a stiffy just because there is a one-in-a-million chance that water exists under a hundred miles of (ice|dirt|deadly acidic gases) trillions of miles away from us on a rock with a few trace elements that sustain the life that exists on Earth. I for one do belive their is life (other than on/around Earth) in this Universe; even intelligent life. But frankly I could live without all the false hopes of finding a microbe on a distant rock. Hell, I'd look at "inhospitable" environments with as much hope as ones that look like Earth. Nobody seriously belives carbon based, air breathing, polluting, pig-fucking, backwater humans are the only way life can exist do they? I'd bet most any element could be the basis of a lifeform.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
Radar images of Antarctica, including Vostok.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Pluto is a dog that ownes another dog....
What is this world coming to?
There are life forms on EVERY planet. On Mars, it's under the surface of the planet. On the surface, there's nothing but sand and stuff to fool any would-be invaders, like people from Earth who would dissect all the martians if they existed and turn them into canned tuna or something.
There's also life on Neptune, but it's so far under the atmosphere that it cannot be detected by current technology. Yes, I know there is no surface on Neptune. It's all a big ball of gas. But the aliens over there are these things with really large wings and they fly around and eat each other. It's really scary over there.
Don't even ask about Jupiter. It's the Texas of all planets. Have you ever driven through Texas? That place is so damn BIG, and the ridiculous thing is that there is NOTHING to see. Anywhere. Well, Jupiter is kind of like that. The creatures on one side of the planet are so different from the creatures on the other side that they look like they're from totally different planets but in fact, they're from the same one. Each large group of aliens could travel for fifty lifetimes and never meet another group of aliens anywhere on the planet. And each insect over there is the size of a greyhound bus, because, like I said, Jupiter is the Texas of all the planets, and as such, EVERYTHING is big on Jupiter.
And so should you have. Haven't you ever detected Klingons on Uranus? I do just about every time I pinch a loaf.
"...oceans (as in liquid water oceans)"
Thanks for the clarification. For a moment I thought they were talking about large areas of solid land (as in hard rock land), you know, oceans!
There was someone claiming that they found microbes in some of the cores dug out of the lake, but it wasn't clear if the bits had come from the lake or from the oil around the drill.
From memory, this was the problem they needed to solve before they could say whether their is life in any lake.
In typical /. style, I have not read the articel, but...
Umm, the Earth is SATURATED with life so it is not suprising that Earth life has seeped into every cranny this side of a plasma chamber here.
However, the scant other places we have peeked for life in the rest of our "solar neighborhood", we have observed a distinct absance of life. My gut feeling is that these pockets of liquid water will proove as sterile as a terrestrial autoclave.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
An article in Astrobiology magazine seems to suggest that the magnetite found the in famous "Mars meteor" *does* seem to be bacteria-made after all.
There has been a constant see-saw about this rock for a long time.
It is kind of a coincidence that the fossils are bacteria-shaped (wormy) and that the magnetite has properties very similar to magnetite-using-bacteria on Earth. IOW, it has both the right look and the right "chemistry". Not proof, but intreeging nevertheless.
I would also note that the Viking probes picked up life-like signs in the soil, however, it was later determined that inorganic chemistry could possibly emulate the same results.
But, there are newer claims that one experiment shows "cycadic" (sp?) rythms in the samples. This is the "internal clock" of life that changes their metabolism to match the day/night cycle and/or tides. They did not know about these patterns in microbes much at the time of Viking. This pattern in Viking data is much harder to explain by dead soil chemistry alone.
The saga continues...
It has been more than 100 years since the "canali" fiasco started, and we still don't know whether there is life on that stupid orange ball yet.
Table-ized A.I.
Just to reply to a lot of the threads we've seen around here - yes, it is entirely possible that life, albeight completely alien to us, could florish on pluto, save for one simple fact. Any life form, no matter how alien, must obey the laws of thermodynamics. Simply put, they need *energy*. (Life is orderly, thus energy input is necessary to maintain that orderly state) Pluto has very, very little energy to give. Chemically and physically, it's a dead rock - no molten core, nothing more than frozen chemicals at its surface. Thermally, I think the average temperature isn't too far above absolute zero. Which means that no matter how alien you get, there still isn't much chance of life flourishing there.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
you ppl assume too much, you assume life on other planets is similar to life here...that may not be the case
Recently there's been a lot of talk about life on other bodies in the solar system. Yet even the most hopeful proponents of these theories don't truly expect to find anything much more advanced than algae. The upper reaches of Venus's atmosphere, Europa, Ganymede, Triton, maybe even somewhere in Jupiter's atmosphere where the pressures and temperatures are "just right", whatever that is.
... algae and paramecia. Maybe Fermi's Paradox isn't much of a paradox at all. "Where are they?" They're everywhere, maybe. "They" just won't be making any radios or FTL starships any time over the next few billion years.
... somewhere.
... But how far away in space and time? Long dead, not yet born? In some impossibly distant galaxy speeding away from us at a significant fraction of C? It would need to be only a tiny time differential in the grand scheme of things. The entire sum of human existence isn't even an eyeblink on such scales. It seems silly to think that in all the universe (even the galaxy) we are alone. But does it really matter? We may not in fact be alone, but those "others", if they exist, might well be forever out of reach, perhaps even unknowable. I think that's what we fear the most, that notion that we might pass, not forgotten but simply unknown, out of existence. Why do we really want to find others anyway? Maybe just to shout, "We exist!" at the universe and for the first time know that we are heard. Now that I think about it, it seems that the search for aliens isn't really all that different from humanity's never-ending quest for "god" ... maybe the two are merely differing expressions of the same inherent need -- to be known, acknowledged, and (dare we hope it!) validated.
I've read theories that of all places in the system outside Earth, Europa is the most promising. So, maybe there are "hot spots" in the Europan ocean and maybe there is life around those hot spots. Yet, look at Earth's version of those deep-ocean hotspots. The life there is interesting, to be sure, and spectacularly resilient in the face of extreme pressures and temperatures, but it's not spectacularly advanced and there's not a lot of room for evolution in such a system. Tubeworms have been tubeworms for geologic ages, after all.
So, what if we do move out into the solar system and find life is "everywhere"? Not literally everywhere, but everywhere in the sense that life, after a fashion, will generally show up pretty much anywhere it can. There are organisms (waterbears, for one) on Earth right now that could survive a trip through the vacuum of space. So we might even find that life on other bodies in the system is shockingly similar to life on Earth, perhaps even distant "cousins". Simple life, and abundant; clinging to existence in every nook and cranny where it's managed to take hold.
How depressing is that? We go to the planets with arms open to greet
Imagine a universe full of lichen and amoebas, riding their respective planets to whatever oblivion awaits in some far-distant future. Imagine humanity spreading, in some distant future, into the galaxy, ever searching for others like themselves. They find instead world after world where any of a hundred (thousand? million?) variables was off by just enough to doom the life there to brainless simplicity. What if we are the aberration? It seems silly, to think all that real estate out there is just a big petri dish, doesn't it? Silly that there isn't someone out there
But the universe is big, time is broad, and we as a species are disheartingly tiny when viewed against such a scale. Maybe there were, or will be, beings much like us riding their little worlds round and round some other star
Life on Pluto??
Are we that desparate ?
Here's an overview at JPL.
:)
Basically, they say traces of water vapor can be found in the Sun, to water ice at Pluto and beyond in the Kupier Belt. Water ice can also be found in comets, and some water on earth is thought to be from such comets.
However, only liquid water is life enabling, where the best candidates for this are Mars (beneath the surface) and below the icy surfaces on the largest of Jupiter's moons, especially Europa (Europa ice crust). The reason Europa might support life is because Jupiter's huge gravity likely affects the moon creating great forces similar to the tidal waves on earth, which could warm the moon.
If you ask me, the Europa shots look far more interesting to me. And Europa is easier to reach than Pluto anyway.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
theres probably tons of aliens out there communication with one another, they just don't want them known to us, lest we give Bill Gates more worlds to conquer with his 'virus'.
I can't WAIT to chat with a Plutarian Micro-organism! Oh the stories they must have! Hey, do you think they've found the secret of life yet? A good weight-loss pill? Cure for cancer?!
Wait, aren't the Elder gods and their minions supposed to dwell near pluto? Is investigating such a good idea?
They got by the earth is flat thing fairly unscathed (A few of them still believe the earth is flat, but we'll ignore them.) They got by the earth not being the center of the universe and the Apollo moon landing not finding angels (A few of them believe that was faked, I think it's the same ones who still think the earth is flat.) Some of them even claimed for a time that the other races they ran across were mere animals in the eyes of God. Er some of them still do actually. Ok... A lot of them still do... But given all that, do you seriously believe that they'll have any problem adapting to life on other planets? Most of them will quietly adapt and move on. The Zen Buddhists would be a fine example; they'll simply claim that extraterresterial life is also an illusion and if any ever comes around they'll whack it with a stick.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
earth was a horribly inhospitable place 4 billion or so years ago. As a matter of fact, life has altered our atmosphere among other things. Oxygene in gas form would not be so abundant were it not for life. Some would speculate that there would be more CO2, making the planet a hotter place.
That brings another point. The temperature range where the chemical reactivity needed for creating life is rather narrow, IIRC. That of course only applies to the chemical reactions we call life. Your extra-terrestial milage may vary.
Stop the brainwash
I could imagine opening up a closed source of bacteria and whatever other organisms the world has not had access to in 400,000 years. Think of the diseases we could find, and the ensuing death. Its quite often that in the depths of a rain forest new diseases and bacterias are found, and ones that humans have never had contact with. Just imagine the possibilities. Or maybe its just a big reservoir for drinking water once we use/pollute every other source.
Seriously, why does it have to be the butt of so many jokes?
When plants started producing free oxygen they nearly wiped themselves out before animals came along to turn it back into good old CO2.
What about those micro-organisms (and not so micro) that live in 70C dilute sulphuric acid or at incredible pressures? What is good for us isn't good for them and vice versa. Personally I don't a fancy a week free diving in a volcanic vent at the bottom of the Mariner Trench.
I think we'll be amazed at life's ability to develop and thrive in highly "adverse" environments--even a dark, frigid sea beneath 100 miles of ice.
For instance, the supposed inhabitants of Triton may not have evolved into multicellular life forms, but I bet they have one hell of a hockey team.
I would figure that an ocean on any planet would still get a little energy, at least towards the bottom from perhaps geo-thermal radiation or even the shifting of land masses. Sort of like putting a bucket of water outside in the winter time, and regularly shaking it to keep the amount of ice crystals in it to a minimum. Likewise, you could mix the water with certain other chemicals I suspect to at least lower the temperature required for the whole bucket to freeze over, or keep it from freezing altogether.
Of course, this is just speculation.
Does it sound outlandish?
McDoobie
Why? Is there oil on Pluto?
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the moon.
2 And Triton was without form, and cold; and light was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face on the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be dark: and there was dark.
4 And God saw the darkness, that it was good: and God divided the darkness from the light.
5 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the light.
6 And God called the firmament ice.
I'm still waiting for the part where the Tritonian Jesus prophesizes a Saviour who will descend through the ice from the heavens above.
They still wont get the funds for the Pluto mission, I'm sure :(
Life develops if there are cycles. Earth has cycles: waves in the seas: 1-10 seconds. Tides: 0.5 days. days: 1.0 days, weather: 3-7 days. moon shine: 28 days, Seasons: 1.0 years, solar cycles: 11 years, climatic cycles: 10000 years. (I probably forgot a bunch!)
For life to develop, cycles are very important. A cycle at around every "order of magnitude" is almost compulsory.
Once life is "bootstrapped" in the most ideal place of all those cycles, it will suddenly be able to survive in the weirdest of conditions.
On pluto, the year cycle is WAY too long, the planet is WAY too far from the sun to experience lots of the influences of the cycles of the sun. etc etc. Nope, Pluto is going to be lifeless, unless we (or someone else) bring(s) it some seeds.....
Roger.
Yes, life seems to be quite common.
/.ers)
Let me count the potential candidates i heard of so far:
- Earth
- Mars
- Venus
- Europa (no, not the continent you US-centric
- and now even Pluto...i def counted this one out.
My guess was always that life must be a rather common thing. If you look at all the impossible places where life found its way on Planet Earth...
As you are going out in the boat, to get near the whales... then it's all rocks and waves and weeds being mistaken...
:)
But.. er... maybe this is a sign that we are getting close to seeing some real aliens - complete with digital watches, and something far more tangible and pleasant than strange gases and frozen oceans..
*cross fingers*
(I really hate Anonymous Cowards)
---- *dog sitting next to a computer, with his beady eyes shifting left to right*
IMHO it is very likely that if we find life in the outer solar system it is based on RNA, DNA and Proteine. Our planet is 'leaking' and speading microscopic life forms into space every minute. Solar wind and light does accellerate these beasts and they drift to the outer planets and their moons. Much more interesting would be life on Venus.
I already know that there's life other than my self, I'm not really fussed if it's on pluto, living up my nose or working in the office with me.
If life on pluto doesn't provide any further insite into life on earth then why even bother.[there may be life on pluto because it's got a simila environment to place on earth]
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I sure hope not. Religion has already infected too much of public life; we need some rationality, not more superstitions.
Whoa, Deja vu! I wrote almost exactly those words over on Everything2 under the node 'Mars is barren'. hmm....
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Actually, you are all wrong. Life does not exist in the Universe.
From Douglas Adams:
4 POPULATION: None It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Now where's my towel?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
agreed - this is more flamebait than insightful...just because it's flaming people that don't have a large representation on /. doesn't mean it's not flamebait.
Was religion mentioned somewhere in the article? Seems to me that this is fairly off-topic, too.
Yeah, but that pronunciation really PISSES me off!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
...than anyone you accuse of "superstition". Your attitude is pretty bigoted, though. People like you are part of the reason why there's so much negativity and hate in the world today.
Why? Because just like a few hundred years ago, our exploration will bring new virii and microphages that could ravage our immune systems.
We haven't even explored all of the possible locations of isolated life here on Earth, yet, let alone on other worlds. The chances of finding a particularly virulent form of life that could host in humans is higher than you might think, and the lull in exploring 'new' frontiers has allowed the human race to begin the homogenation process that reduces our genetic variety and decreases our chances of surviving such an onslaught.
Fear new life.
I don't propose we become bio-isolationists, but we must remember the big picture in this matter. Bio-diversity is as much a blessing as it is a curse. Life spreads and flourishes because of this, but often at the expense of other life. The most basic forms of life are also the most successful because of this very fact. We need to understand the threat and deal with it through science and careful containment. Something as simple as a core sample from a deep water probe could spell disaster for the human race.
Can anyone find a more technical article, please?
Panspermia is the very old idea that life can get seeded throughout the universe, as some now think Earth life may have first originated on Mars, and been seeded here via meteorites that originated on Mars.
In "Belgie" (Belgium) a song from "Het goede doel" (The Right Cause) there is a line that goes (All Dutch people sing along please!):
"Is er leven op Pluto? Kun je dansen op de maan? Is er een plaats in de sterren waar ik heen lan gaan?"
Is there life on Pluto? Can you dance on the moon? Is there a place amongst the stars where I can go?
You can find the rest of the lyrics here
1. Read about lake Vostok... there is volcanic activity there. The bacteria came up through the volcano not down through the ice.
2. There is mounting evidence that life on Earth may have started in Earth's mantle and later moved into the oceans and then the surface.
We don't know if there is life on these moons, they just look like good places to look.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Scientists have also found that much more water exists than previously thought...in your butthole.
frozen_minscule_lifeforms_at_the_edge_of_the_solar _system_in_an_ocean_under_hundreds_of_feet_of_ice@ home
Oh boy! Have we prepared ourselves for when these things attack yet? who gives a shit.
Yee-haa ! I'm going fishing on pluto! I'm gonna catch me one of them big mouth flatworms!
Oh, there might be air - just in big chunks laying around you have to heat n' eat, as it were.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This has to be a troll, but here goes anyway... Increased pressure WILL increase the temperature of a system. Ever heard of compression ignition engines (i.e., diesel)? When the fuel is compressed, it heats up. If compression reaches a high enough point, the fuel ignites. Stick to 100 level classes, my friend.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
What a retard. Look up "Latent Heat of Cooling" and "Heat of Fusion."
When microbial life is discovered on Pluto, the following will happen within 30 days:
;)
-- The United States will send off a fleet to liberate it.
-- The Vatican will send off missionaries to convert it.
-- China will block access to it.
-- The United Nations will dun it for back dues.
-- Scientists will smell juicy research projects and start competing for grant dollars. The carnage will be unbelievable.
In short, it will slot neatly into the pattern of how things work already. God, how I love humanity!
A highly readable introduction to extremophiles, courtesy of Nova and the enthusiastic and funny Dr. Diana Northrup, is at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/caves/extremophiles.h tml
Northrup studies deep-cave ecosystems with little or no solar-based energy (carbon). Her SLIME (subsurface life in mineral environments) team page is at http://www.i-pi.com/~diana/slime/
"The Archaea are extremophiles and other unusual microbes that are so different from bacteria that Carl Woese of the University of Illinois assigned them their own domain on the tree of life, along with Bacteria (organisms with no nucleus) and Eukarya (organisms, including humans, with nuclei)." -- from the Nova page.
"This is not a sig." -- R.
Life is suspected in Lake Vostok but not confirmed, as it could be as much as 500,000 years old the ice core drilling was halted two years ago about 300 feet short of the physical lake. bacterial material has been found in the ice above the lake however.
Yeah, just wait until we wake up one of the Elder Gods imprisoned in a block of ice on Pluto.
Get your Mythos references straight! Yuggoth is HPL's name for Pluto, which is home of the primary colony of the Mi-go (the Fungi from Yuggoth) in our solar system. They also have mining colonies on Earth. While they are worshippers of the Elder Gods, there is no indication that an Elder God is actually present on their world. I believe their strongest associations are with Shub-Niggurath and Nyarlathotep, both of which are pretty active and have been called to Earth before anyway.
Read "The Whisper in the Darkness" to see the origins of the Mi-go, one of the few technologically advanced races to appear in Lovecraft's stories. As for Cthulhu -- he lies dead but still dreaming somewhere under the seas of Earth, and it was the Old Ones from "At the Mountains of Madness" that were found encased in ice.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Sure there is; check out Ibiza!!
Oh. I thought you said the European ocean.
Let's first find out if life exists in #qmail.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Nyarlathotep, now that would be a different story. It is not just a mindless beast like Cthulhu.
That's strange: the last time I checked, Nyarlathotep was an Egyptian scientist/magician/1337 hax0r who simply understood time travel. Sure, people who mocked him in his house paid dearly, given his disdain for people, mysterious toys, and contempt for social norms... hmm, sounds like most uber-geeks I know!
What I love best is the way some people confuse s/Nyarlathotep/programmers with being a Great Old One. Excuse me while I laugh at your^H^H^H^H their insolence - muhahahahaha.
I feel better already.
Solomon
Cult Leader of Great Old Ones reGurgitating Little Excerpts
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
There are infinitely many natural numbers. Not every number is prime, and for every prime there are infinitely many composites. Therefore, the ratio of primes to composites is 0, therefore there are no primes.
It is true that life can survive in such extreme conditions, but what is the possibility of it being CREATED in those conditions??
As I recall from the many bio classes I have had over the years about the beginning of life on earth, the creation of amino acids and the building blocks of life occurred in very warm conditions with the help of the heat/electron exciting potential from a lightning bolt...
Yes, it can survive... but how would the CREATION of life occur on pluto?
The latest scientific data now is speculates that life may exist where previously overlooked: on the planet Earth, aka "The Blude Planet". Keep in mind that this is entirely unproven, but more effort should be put into researching this possibility.
MAKE YOUR TIME
>oceans (as in liquid water oceans)
You mean they aren't including those dry, sandy oceans? That's a little restrictive!
doesn't seem very surprising that we theorize that life may exist somewhere in our own solar system, rather than someplace else.
but statistics belie this thought - we have a lot more planets (extrasolar, solar, what-have-you) out there than within good old sol's field of influence.
and why not pluto? why not the farthest planet, something so remote that we only have very vague numbers - we still do not know how many moons pluto has (charon's still a small icy rock).
one thing that never fails to amaze me is that we're consciously looking at *organic* life alone - mightn't there be other forms of life out there? may seem strange to us carboniferous forms, but we may seem strange to them, too.
in my humble opinion.
All dogs have lice!
Cheers
I'm surprised I didn't get ripped to shreds for that faux pas.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."