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Extrasolar Planet Could Harbor Life
BlueMorpho writes with a link to a Space.com article about a recently discovered extrasolar planet that may be able to harbor 'life as we know it.' Orbiting around the star Gliese 581 is a small rocky ball that might have the same liquid ocean and drifting continent configuration we're familiar with. The find may be unique in all of space exploration as this planet appears to be within a habitable band of temperatures for life, and is categorically not a gas giant. "The bottom line is exciting ...The conditions for life could be there, but is life itself? As yet, there's no way to know unless the planet has spawned beings that are at least as clever as we are. As part of the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix, we twice aimed large antennas in the direction of Gliese 581, hoping to pick up a signal that would bespeak technology ... Neither search turned up a signal."
Because tiny microbes living in the soil always emit "signals". Technologically advanced life vs. life are two very different things. Jetson's like colonies would be nice to find, but honestly, we are more likely to find single cell organisms who haven't quite figured out how to build a radio tower.
"As part of the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix, we twice aimed large antennas in the direction of Gliese 581, hoping to pick up a signal that would bespeak technology ... Neither search turned up a signal."
Sure we didn't pick up a signal FROM THEM, but are we sending a signal to them in return? Kind of odd that we think they might be transmitting to us we we aren't transmitting to them, kind of a double standard there...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
Sure, the hum-drum science of everyday research is important... but so too are the stories that inspire us.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Dude, relax.
It's a big universe out there.
We can share it with any species that we encounter.
Or...if I read your post correctly...it's more about the direction the signal emanates in. SETI has often been criticized because they are essentially looking for a whisper against the background of an airport. When we actually know WHERE to look, the strength of the signal required for us to actually notice is really very insignificant.
"i could care less about aliens, i really couldn't. "
Ok, which is it? could you care less, or could you not care less?
Viruses are DNA specific, most can't even swap between species on Earth.
Bacteria are slightly worse. The ones that cause us trouble tend to be highly specialized, which of course wouldn't be a problem on another planet. But there are also generalist. Most likely, our natural defense would have no trouble with those, but we could be unlucky.
The defense is also the largest problem, we would not be a good food source for the native life, but neither would the native life provide the necessary nutrients for us. We would at least need a supplement of Earth based life forms. And the Earth based life forms would be unlikely to be able to compete with the native life forms, so a sustainable colony would be a challenge.
Sure, you may not get Space AIDS, but space hay-fever is gonna be a big problem. You know, until someone comes up with a space Claritin...
In all seriousness, getting the flu isn't nearly as likely as simple anaphylactic shock.
Look out, your anthropomorphism is showing. True, it is unlikely that humans would have resulted from adaptation to an environment different than our own. But that's how adaptation works.
We may very well find "life" on planets that fall far outside your narrow definition of it -- but, as Dr. McCoy said, "not as we know it".
It'd be cool if someone would come up with a more interesting argument than we're perfect, everything here is perfect, so it's the only way to go. It's a good logical starting point, go with what you know, but claiming that life on Earth is the only way to go because that's how it works here is, well, basically begging the question, and last I heard, logical fallacies are bad.
SETI is looking for a ridiculously-strong, directed signal. Basically someone would have to have a transmitter with unheard-of wattage pointed right at the earth for us to detect it with the Aracaibo telescope.
Basically, if the Aracaibo telescope were on Gliese and were pointed at Earth, it wouldn't detect us. Until the SETI project gets a better telescope, the fact that we didn't detect anything coming from Gliese when we pointed one of our ground-based radio telescopes at it only means they aren't stupid enough to spend a billion dollars to build a 20MW directional transmitter, point it right at the earth, and leave it blasting for thousands of years hoping we'd give a listen.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
We also know that life exists presently in ecological niches that are far from "human ideal"; right here, there are life-forms in volcanic vents, in the depths of tar pits, at the tops of mountains and at both poles.
The entire "life as we know it" argument needs to actually pay attention to life as we know it, because that includes residence in a considerable range of environments, and with some wildly varying nutritional and/or respiratory requirements.
The good news is, no person's opinion on this matters one bit. If life is there, it is there, and that's the end of the story. We're not too far, technologically speaking, from being able to build an ultra wide-aperture space telescope that could trivially resolve continental details or better on a planet in the 50 or so light year range. That in turn will tell us a great deal about conditions there as recently in years as the distance in light years. A few centuries of progress should get us there (into space and building big science projects) easily, and that's a drop in the bucket compared to human history. So within a few generations, we'll know, and everyone will settle down.
Just an IMHO, but my confidence is fairly high that not only will we find life of one kind or another, we'll find it most places that have had a stable geological history and some form of mostly medium to medium-low energy climate. Doesn't seem likely that life would find a foothold very often on planets that are mostly dead, like mars, lack an atmosphere, or are molten... but a nice mix of gases, some carbon (or who knows, maybe something else.. but we know carbon is handy), some energy exchange that isn't so violent as to kill off anything that might arise... water is important to us, but both hydrogen and oxygen are common elements, so that doesn't seem like it'd be much of a problem... yep, my money's on life FTW. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Or maybe they're way more clever than we are, and think that trying to communicate with other beings with radio waves is stupid.
Oh, please, have you never chirped at a bird?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Which is an acceptable theory as long as those who have faith understand that god reveals himself to different people in lots of different ways and accept that those other ways are equal to their own. Which is why we have religions that are so different.
The western concept of God as being capable of taking on a human form and revealing himself is completely alien to my own religion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism. As long as all believers accept that while religions talk about god in human terms to make the idea easy to understand, if god really exists its form transcends our own understanding and thus all forms of faith are equal, our world will be a better place.
Oh, what the hell. Just a rant.
I agree, broadly. Even Catholics, the most prescriptive of Christians, allow for that (again broadly speaking). For example an american bishop was excommunicated (excluded from the Church) in 1948 for insisting you could only go to heaven if you were a member of the *visible* Catholic Church, something the Catholic Church has never taught. You can only be saved through Jesus Christ (which it does teach), but technically you don't have to know the name "Jesus Christ" or have heard of the bible to be saved: but you do have to assent to His spirit, how ever it manifests.
Also look at "Invincible Ignorance" for more loopholes.
However, pantheism is not at all the same as the above. It's the belief that all is God. Which christians have always rejected. Rather christians believe that God divinises us by uniting himself to us (eventually so that we "enter in to the joy of God"), but we have to assent to that, an assent which means faithfully living to a basic standard of conduct, particularly when it comes to personal integrity - aka self-control, and not behaving like simple animals. The horrible irony of the Adam and Eve story is that the devil tempted them with "becoming like God", but God was going to do that anyway, the right way.
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
- Arthur C. Clarke