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Life on Pluto?

Posted by chrisd on from the life-on-earth-to-follow dept.

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."

3 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Um by zapfie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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  2. Not so methinks by bravehamster · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The problem with using the life in Antarctica as justification for the possibility of life on Pluto is this: the life in Antarctica didn't begin there. It began in a more hospitable climate and adapted itself to those conditions over millions of years. Any possible life in Pluto's oceans would have never had that chance. Just because life can _survive_ someplace doesn't mean it can begin there.


    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.

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    1. Re:Not so methinks by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem with using the life in Antarctica as justification for the possibility of life on Pluto is this: the life in Antarctica didn't begin there. It began in a more hospitable climate and adapted itself to those conditions over millions of years.

      We don't know that. Life on Earth may have come from space. There is some evidence that bacteria spores can survive for many millions of years inside small meteriods. It only takes *one* working spore to kickstart a planet. Thus, a rock with a million spores may take a beating, but the chances that at least one spore will survive is fairly high.

      Life may have formed billions of years before Earth and blasted this way by comet impacts, nova's, etc. Life may even form in certain types of nebula. Debri blasted from earth may have even seeded other planets.

      We just don't know the true origin or reach of microbe life.

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