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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.
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...
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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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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
Mickey better get the flea powder.
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*
"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!"
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.
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?
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
"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?
If Pluto doesn't exist, what's up with Charon?
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?
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 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'
Real (productive) life doesn't need water.
Real (productive) life needs Mountain Dew.
Radar images of Antarctica, including Vostok.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Pluto is a dog that ownes another dog....
What is this world coming to?
Water at -180C under extreme pressure, however, is not necessarily ice. If I recall correctly, water in our oceans in the deep trenches can get rather cold (around -10 or -20C) yet it stays liquid.
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
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
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!
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?!
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?
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 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?
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...
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.
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!
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.
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.
The temperature will increase - temporarily. In the unclosed system of a planet, and on astronomic time scales, the concentrated heat energy will eventually dissipate & the entire sample will still end up being as cold as space. That's why an additional energy source such as internal radiation and/or sunlight is required to increase temperatures for longer periods of time.
Sound advice. Using a little common sense before criticising helps too.
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
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?
we now know there isn't life on Mars
No, we don't. We've only looked in a couple places on the whole planet. It's like looking in one square mile of the Sahara for an oak tree, not finding one, and declaring that trees don't exist.