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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.
absotiveliy. i remember reading one estimate of the time between water of any great abundance here on earth and the first appearance of life. That is, i can remember reading it, just not how long it was - anyone care to pop in?
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?
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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!
"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!"
That is a possibility, but we don't know at this point. The only place we know there's life is Earth. We haven't found conclusive evidence of life on Mars, let alone Europa, Venus, or Pluto. This kind of study is useful, however, because it suggests new places we might consider looking for life.
To your implied question "is finding bacteria on other planets interesting" the answer has to be yes. If we did find bacteria (or something like them) on another planet, we'd either find that a) they're directly related to earthly bacteria, in which case we'd know panspermia works (at least on an interplanetary scale) and would then raise the question of whether the source was somewhere in the solar system or from elsewhere, or b) that life has developed independently more than once, indicating that if the conditions are right it is quite likely to appear. If b) were the case it would seem to raise the odds that extra-solar life (and thus possibly intelligence) is out there. Either way, the biologists, geneticists, biochemists, and so on would give several limbs for the opportunity to examine bacteria from Pluto.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I have to agree with you regarding the abundance of life. We have no reason to suspect that Earth is unique, or even unusual, considering the vast number or star systems in our galaxy alone, many of which have been confirmed to have planetary bodies (something else I believe we will discover to be more common than not).
I have to point out a flaw in your fire analogy, though. Oxidation, as well as all other nonliving chemical reactions, have no free will. The outcome of a nonliving chemical reaction is based completely upon the location, velocity, and composition of preexisting particles and conditions of the system. Nothing occurs of its own volition in such a reaction, and there is no randomness, which are the defining characteristics of life.
But I do have to concur with your assessment that life will exist where it can exist, or atleast where it can be created or placed. Evidence shows that life appears on Earth relatively shortly (in cosmic terms) after it became possible for life to exist. I think we will eventually find that to be true in most of the universe, even if it is on the level or virii or bacteria.
This is a special excite
This
Since you decided to use the vatican in your comment...
Tell me, where does the bible say life is only on earth? Perhaps you're only attacking a group's viewpoint, and that group happens to believe in the bible. However, if your comment is pointed at the bible itself, then I would challenge you to cite a place inside it that excludes the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
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.
I don't seriously believe my own point I am about to make.. but let me play devil's advocate for a bit...
Humans have no free will. The outcome of human life and decisions is based totally upon its location, social status, peer interaction, genetics, and other various functions.
Its always plausable that nothing is random, and random is a word that should be removed from the language... if we knew enough information we could simulate anything, even what your responce to what I am saying is going to be...
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.
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.
The Vatican actually defines being "human" as having intelligence and free will (by current evidence, Neanderthals make it, chimpanzees do not). That is, intelligent life on another planet would simply be another "human" race, complete with souls and being saved by Christ's death and resurrection.
Whether life on another planet is considered probable is another question.
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
if you look at evolution on earth there seems to be two *big* rate limiting steps to produce us.
First is the creation of eukaryotic cells. Bacteria seem to have been around just about since the earliest moment we could imagine them being around, but it wasn't until a billion years ago there were any eukaryotes.
Second is the evolution of multicellular organisms. Again there seems to have been a hell of a long gap between simple amoeba like organisms and multicellular organisms.
Once over thse two steps evolution looks pretty set up to produce complex ecosystems. The final hitch though might be that intelligence seems to be only weakly selected for. Generally over time brains got bigger, but very slowly and things seem to have got 'stuck' at several points. Who knows how long the dinosaurs would have been dominent if it wasn't for a certain asteroid 65m years ago?
Last sememster, during biology class, I had lots of time to philosophize to myself about evolution in general and us humans in particular. Eventually, I came to just such a conclusion--that, although life in the Universe may be common, it may also be that life-that-we-can-talk-to may be nonexistent.
To me, the reason for this, seems to be that life apparently doesn't need to be intelligent to be successful. i.e. on our planet, there are ludicrously huge numbers of types of lifeforms. According to my Biology text, only a very small fraction of those are multicellular. But there's no shortage of single celled life out there. There's gobs and gobs of it. And it is, of course, easier, in many ways, for single celled life to grow and evolve.
After lots of long thought, it seemed, to me at least, that from an evolutionary standpoint, all of multicellular life was nothing more than a luxury--something that happened only in a very rich environment where there are lots and los of nutrients and much energy. Think of it from the standpoint of energy and the law of entropy--as we move up the food chain, converting energy from one form to another, a lot of it is lost each time we move up from one creature to another. In a sense, a tiger, leopard, meat-eating human, or any other predator is less efficient than a cow or grasshopper because the former all feed on the latter, whereas the latter all eat vegatation. (I do not personally eat grasshoppers but some humans do, and anyway, we all know about the concept of indirect consumption.)
Now, finally, I'm to the part where you wrote:
And I agree. (So this post has really just been a long "mee too" and therefore a glorious waste of everyone's time, including mine. ;-P ) Sadly, it seems intelligence, the way we think of it at least, may only happen to be an accidental solution that just happened to work. Granted, all of evolution acts this way, but there does not seem to be any substantial reason why intelligence would necessarially evolve again. It would be nice if someone could give some convincing arguments to the contrary...
Furry cows moo and decompress.