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."

Comments

Um

[zapfie]

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?

Similar?

[targo]

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.

Life on Pluto

[Anonymous Coward]

Mickey better get the flea powder.

Yawn...

[Jin Wicked]

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...)

Re:Yawn...

[Goonie]

Pretty soon they're going to just throw their arms in the air and say there's bacteria everywhere. (Isn't there, anyway?)

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.

Re:Yawn...

[Tablizer]

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.

That's why I do when I open the fridge.

Actually, Jupiter's Big Red Spot is really a giant eye that is staring at you all night, and that is why you cannot sleep.

Not so methinks

[bravehamster]

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.

Re:Not so methinks

[Tablizer]

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.

Re:Not so methinks

[ender81b]

While I agree, in principle, with what you say the simple fact is we have no way of knowing how life on earth started. By all rights earth was a horribly inhospitable place 4 billion or so years ago. Using earth as an example we can say the following things are needed for life to start (here at least):

• Water, liquid
• Amino acids
• Some sort of energy supply - be it chemicals, sunlight, etc

And that is it. You say life on pluto would never had a chance.. how do we know? We can't go back in time 4 billion years or so ago. Perhaps conditions on pluto where mightly different back then. Also the possibility of life 'landing' on pluto must be considered - in the form of bacteria spores, etc. Right now all that is needed on pluto for life would be a geothermal vent system and some liquid water. Really that's it. Remember in the deep ocean vent communities where bacteria live in water that's above the boiling point? Life adapts and quickly, we have no way of knowing how life started on this planet and to blanket rule out hte possibility of life on pluto just because the conditions aren't exactly like earths is a bit shortsighted in my opinion.

Re:Not so methinks

[Perdo]

Pluto is a binary planetoid. Its moon, Charon is almost as large as Pluto itself

Pluto is 2274 km in diameter, Charon is 1172 km in diameter. They orbit only 19,640 km from eachother around a central point between the planetoids.

The point is, the tidal forces that they exert on eachother must be tremendous. I think the internal friction caused by the tidal forces might be enough to create some liquid water somewhere, perhaps near the rocks that constitute 70% of it's mass (the balance is water ice and trace methane and nitrogen.)

I imagine an enviroment similar to the hostile space where a glacier grinds across the ground. Life is certainly abundent there, from worms and ants with antifreeze for blood to fungus, lichen, alge and of course bacteria.

Is it just me...

[Proquar]

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!

is it so hard to believe?

[geek]

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.

Re:Life

[Elbereth]

Yeah, just wait until we wake up one of the Elder Gods imprisoned in a block of ice on Pluto. I bet those stupid scientists won't be so happy to find life on Pluto when they're being eaten alive by Cthulhu.

Vostok not breached yet...

[dargaud]

Life has NOT been found in Vostok lake (yet). The ice coring has been stopped 50 meters from the lake which is 4km under the ice to avoid contamination until a method can be found to decontaminate the drill.

Radar images of Antarctica, including Vostok.

Microbes would be ... depressing.

[pantropik]

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.

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 ... 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.

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 ... somewhere.

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 ... 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.

What NASA has to say...

[Jugalator]

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. :)

Re:Flag

[commodoresloat]

Think we could send a few microbes to Pluto with a tiny little American flag?

Why? Is there oil on Pluto?

Re:Life

[commodoresloat]

Unfortunately you are at odds with Scripture, not a good fight to pick.

Yeah. We saw how that Evolution thing fared when it went up against Creationism.

Life.

[rew]

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.

Re:It's a long way down...

[chegosaurus]

> "What we need is a mad scientist with a gi-ant 'la-ser' cannon!"

Do you have any idea how hard it is for mad scientists to get funding today?

With uncertainty over the economy many mad R&D labs are slicing budgets and indefinitely delaying all but the most mundane of projects. Just how do these people think they're going to conquer the world with an ebola vaccine?

The situation in government funded labs is little better, as public opinion of all science, and particularly mad science, is at an all-time low. This of course is due primarily to scares over GM foods, cloning and climatic catastrophe: all areas in which mad scientists typically excel.

In addition studies suggest the intake of mad PhD students is in decline as gifted sociopaths are incresingly drawn towards fields with more immediate financial rewards, most notably, law.

So please don't point to the mad scientists for the lack of planet destroying lasers. It's the people holding the purse strings who are holding us all back.

This is all meaningless

[the_Bionic_lemming]

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?