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Extraterrestrial Water
RumorControl wrote in with the news about the first known capture of water that was extra-terrestrial in origin on earth. It was recovered from a meteorite that hit the Earth last year. Interesting implications for the amount of water to be found on asteriods and their ilk.
Most likely any "space bacteria" wouldn't be able to function on earth. The conditions on this planet probally would not be comprable to whatever conditions the bacteria evolved under, so an andromeda strain is unlikely. Not to mention most bacteria are not harmful. Bacteria for the most part are parasites, and only a very poorly developed bacteria would kill it's host, because then it would have to find a new host. Besides, if there were bacteria on the rock, that could survive re-entry, and were viable in our atmosphere, and were deadly, and air born, I don't think it would matter much what nasa did, we'd all be s.o.l. anyway.
Interestingly NASA did have a plan to deal with possible space bacteria when they sent the first things into space that were brought back down to earth: hose them off into the ocean, sure the capsul would be clean, but they would have just infected the source of life on this planet w/ a possibly deadly bacteria. Fortunately this hasn't happened yet. Science is very dangerous, but if we expect to evolve mentally it's a risk we have to take. Also, keep in mind a true scientist will never say anything is impossible, there is always a non-zero chance something will happen, there just might be 1 billion zeros before the 1 though. It's possible that me picking my nose will result in a catastrophic chain reaction that will destroy the universe. What's more likely is that it will end up under my desk though.
-matt
My understanding was that nitrogen was pretty much ignored by our bodies. That we inhale and exhale the exact same ammount. Now it does keep us from getting pretty much pure oxygen into our lungs, which is a very bad thing when it happens for an extended period, but it could probally be replaced with just about any other gas that has no harmful effects on the human body. More likely our lungs would have just evolved to handle the elevated O2 levels and we wouldn't notice any difference.
-matt
There might not be good viable alternatives, on this planet. But on some other planet there might be a very different alternative. Keep in mind that even life on earth has undergone dramatic change since the begining of the planet. To the initial life forms on earth oxygen was highly toxic and as the atmosphere began containing more and more O2, the situation got really bad for those organizism. Those that could evolve to use O2 grew, while those that could not died. Also, many single celled organisms still alive require no O2 to live. Yeast is an example. Humans only really need O2 in order to power our bodies. We can make energy for ourselves w/o it, O2 just increases the ammount of energy we get dramatically.
-matt
Water is common all around the solar system. Saturn's rings are mostly dirty ice. Most comets are primarily dirty snowballs around a chunk of rock. Both of these are potential sources of water for space-based activities.
The real rarity is water as a liquid. Water ice is common, water gas is common, but liquid water requires just enough heat - not a regular situation in the extremes of space.
We wouldn't necisarally(sp) need a worm hole. "Warp" drive already exists in theory. While matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light, there is nothing preventing space itself from travelling faster than the speed of light, so if you could cause the space behind you to expand at a rate higher than light speed, and the space infront of you to contract at the same speed, you could travel faster than light speed. It's like the whole "if you're on a train going just under the speed of light, and you run to the front of the train, you traveled faster than the speed of light, but didn't violate reletivity because relative to the train you were going pretty slow.
-matt
Anyone else have the Politically Correct Dictionary?
"Carbo-centrism: the belief in the sole existence or superiority of carbon-based life forms, thereby unfairly discriminating against silicon-based life forms."
Now, whether that means extraterrestrial life or machines running on silicon chips, I don't know.
:)
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Some form of alien Perrier that crashed to earth. I'm sure they are covering up the Truth! The horrible fact is... space *is* full of water, but it's all controlled by an evil race of yuppie pandering capitalists!
The truth is out there. And it's carbonated!
Not necisarally(sp). Dark matter is a good example of something we can't observe. We know it exists because w/o it the universe would be expanding at such a rate that the formation of anything would be impossible, the universe would just be filled w/ random hydrogen and hellium atoms floating around having a grand olde time. We can't "see" it though. Ether might be another good example (assuming it exists, from what I understand current theory says it most likely does not). Until recently we couldn't detect radiation. Just because we can't detect it now in no way means that it can't exist. Besides matter could possibly be "out of phase" just not in the startrek sense (in startrek you could have people "out of phase" which would have killed them, A) how did they managed to not fall through the floor, B) if they could pass through matter, air would also pass through them, they'd suffocate in a matter of seconds).
The point I'm trying to make is that humans as a whole are so arrogant that we assume we are the only species of any intelligence on this planet and that any extra-terrestrial life must be similar in nature to terrestrial life. The truth is we just don't know. I'm not saying we should stop looking though, what we don't know today, could revolutionize the world (universe?) tomorrow.
-matt
Imagine making a glass of Tang from this water!
The person drinking it would turn into a sponge
and then TAKE OVER THE WORLD with their new powers
of spongishness.
I MUST GET THIS WATER.
[runs away, slams door]
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
I'd say they found the water pretty immediately; it just took this long to verify that it's wasn't contamination from earth. It was the same with alh84001; the verification (if you consider it to be such) took years.
Just because most forms of life that we know of require water, it doesn't mean that ALL forms of life do. Keep in mind that life on this planet most likely didn't evolve because of water, but because of water it evolved to use it. It's the same thing with oxygen. Pretty much every living thing on this plannet requires oxygen to exist, but in the early days of earth there was no oxygen, it wasn't until plants came around that oxygen started existing (at least in present day quantities). Oxygen managed to kill off a good deal of the life at the time because, to them, it was highly toxic. Life then evolved to use oxygen in order to stick around. When you think about it, water seems like it would be very unlikely to be usable by anyform of life, as it has some nasty corrosive properties. Because of the way the atoms are located, H on top w/ two Os hanging off of it, it ends up somewhat like a magnet, positive at one end, negative at the other. Because of this water is very good at breaking apart chemical bonds. That's why so many things disolve into water, it rips them apart into individual molecules.
Also, how do we know that we aren't surrounded by alien life forms right now, that exist in a state undetectable by us. They might not know we exist either. People always assume all life is somewhat earthlike in nature, which is probally not in the slightest bit true. Life evolving completely separate from earth would probally evolve along a very different path.
(btw, take all the chemistry here w/ a grain of blue radioactive space salt, it's been a while since I took chem, IOW i'm probally talking out of my ass)
-matt
On the other hand, it's exciting that there was sufficient water in a meteorite to survive the tremendous heating that it must have undergone.
That must give a clearer indication as to how prevalent water is in the solar system, which is good. That'll give a rough indication as to how much water Mars may have. (MAY being the operative word. We can't know, until we look.)
As for life needing water - most bacteria and single-cell lifeforms can survive indefinitely without water, by going into a dormant state. Some virii do not need water, although their host usually does. The ONLY =likely= thing to be true (and it's not even certain) is the requirements of the Gaia Hypothesis - that life will hold an ecosystem in a dynamic, unstable state.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Er, if there is life, you people need to realize that the chances of them:
:) ... space travel.
a) caring about coming here
b) planning on coming here
c) being ABLE to come here
or
d) ever coming here
are all very, very, very low. especially c
And I doubt that we, or any other race, will ever travel "Star Trek style." Warp 10 wouldn't get us to "there" fast enough, even. Need some sort of wormwhole, I think, which I know very little about, but enough to know that it's the most likely method of
If we find aliens, it'll simply be...
"We found aliens. They're out there. Yeppers. Can't get to 'em, though. They can't get to us, either. wh00p."
Anyone watch Farscape? That's kinda how I think it'd happen (travel-wise, not alien-wise, though the translator microbes sound likely for something *we* might do eventually).
-Velox
Proving that the water is extraterrestrial sounds easier that it is. Sure, they've found water (in solution) inside irradiated salt. This rock became superheated during its trip through the atmosphere. Superheating a salt is exactly the way you would 'dry' it in a lab. Any amount left on the meteorite would be absolutely diminutive. The cooling metorite could have well picked up the moisture as a result of cooling in a water-rich environment (earth). Salts will suck moisture out of anything! You can observe this yourself. Take some coarse salt, rinse it (to remove the anticaking agent), bake it dry, and pour it in a dish. Wait a few days. The salt will change appearance and clump as a result of absorbed moisture.
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