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Dwarf planet Ceres boasts organic compounds, raising prospect of life
- Cyphase 10y agoWell yea; don't they watch The Expanse?
- Pigo 10y agoI think these organic molecules are a long way from microbial life I know we're just supposed to accept click-bait headlines, but it bothers me more with space exploration because there is nothing more fascinating than the final frontier dammit! It doesn't always have to be about finding life, especially for people like me who doesn't believe there is any. I blame Orson Welles.
- jameskegel 10y agoI'm not picking on you, so forgive me if my curiosity is direct; I'm curious if you could take a few moments to explain why you think there is no other life out there and what led you to that assertion.
- Pigo 10y agoNo problem, I don't get heated over internet banter. And like I said, it's a belief, I don't have any proof just as no one has proof there is. But mostly I subscribe the Fermi paradox when it comes to beings that would be akin to us, single-celled organisms up to Internet armchair-scientist organisms. The only plausible that makes sense to me I first heard from Kaku https://youtu.be/liFhgUinrZU?t=2m45s https://youtu.be/liFhgUinrZU?t=2m45s But to me that's where scientific endeavor starts blending into spirituality, and completely out of our grasp. I only made my first comment because I have a passion for space, and believe it's the greatest human endeavor. People being constantly teased with finding life does a disservice to a pure science that is unequaled in majesty and wonder.
- Sir_Substance 10y ago>I said, it's a belief, I don't have any proof just as no one has proof there is. Does it not seem statistically improbable that in the entire universe, life only occurred once? Personally I think if I believed that, I'd have to accept a creator deity of some kind as well.
- rocqua 10y agoPresume that life only exists for a finite amount of time, and let the universe exist for a long time, and the odds of life existing simultaneously go down. You can probably manipulate the odds by changing both life-time and life-probability to be anything you want. Add restrictions of life being able to interact causally (i.e. they coexist long enough for a light round-trip) and things get even harder. Then consider how long it takes for life to be capable of interstellar communication and things probably get even more tighter. To get even closer to foolproof, presume a correlation between sufficient technology for interstellar communication and sufficient technology for self-caused extinction-events (nuclear, climate or otherwise). So, there is a very big difference between 'did other life ever exist?', 'does other life exist right now?', 'will we ever have any kind of interaction with other life?' and, 'will we ever meaningfully communicate with other life?'
- blauditore 10y agoWhy is it generally assumed that organic compounds and (liquid) water are a necessity for any form of life? Of course, all life on earth is based on these things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that something considerable as a life form couldn't arise from complex chemical processes with different elements and at different temperatures. For example, electronic circuits are non-organic and independent of water, but still capable of complex behavior. Something remotely similar to human-made robots using e.g. sun light as power source might have spawned on a planet with lots of metals and silicone. Of course this exact robots scenario is highly unlikely to occur - in reality their brains/circuits would probably work in a more evolution-friendly way - but you get the gist.
- Cyphase 10y agoThis doesn't prove anything, but it's interesting to consider at least: if you look at the list of the most common elements in the Milky Way[1], 7 of the top 10 are essential for life on Earth: Hydrogen (#1), Oxygen (#3), Carbon (#4), Iron (#6), Nitrogen (#7), Magnesium (#9), and Sulfur (#10). Silicon (#8) is also pretty much essential. The other 2 elements in the top 10, Helium (#2) and Neon (#5), are noble gases with low chemical reactivity. So, what could that mean? If you claim that those elements (or at least a subset) are essential for any kind of life, then by the anthropic principle, it's not surprising to see the distribution that we see in our home galaxy. Alternatively, you could claim that life can evolve with all sorts of combinations of elements, but that it makes sense that it would evolve to use the most common elements in any given area of the Universe. Either way, it seems like the fact that the life we know uses the most common elements in the galaxy is a good reason to expect non-Earth-based Milky Way life to be similar. This is just a thought I've had in the past; I haven't done a whole ton of research into this correlation. And of course, there's a whole other set of arguments involving the chemical properties of elements, which I'm just skipping over in this comment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Abundance_of_elements_in_the_Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elem... EDIT FOR CLARITY: The sentence mentioning the anthropic principle used to read: "By the anthropic principle, you might say that those elements (or at least a subset) are essential for any kind of life, and given that life exists on Earth, it's not surprising to see the distribution that we see in our home galaxy."
- importantbrian 10y agoI hope it's not the protomolecule.
- lsllc 10y agoThat would be Phoebe.
- Cyphase 10y agoAnd Eros, thanks to those damn Inners.
- importantbrian 10y agoTrue, but anytime I hear Ceres, Phoebe, Eros, etc. I can't help but think Expanse.
- crowbahr 10y agohttp://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens/All_about_Phoebe http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huyg... "Indicating a surface containing distinct locations iron-bearing minerals, bound water, trapped carbon dioxide, silicates, organics, nitriles and cyanide compounds. Phoebe is one of the most compositionally diverse objects yet observed in our Solar System. The only body imaged to date that is more diverse is Earth!" So... there's a chance!
- importantbrian 10y agoWhat if Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck are really writing from the future?
- martincmartin 10y agoPlease note that "organic" in this context just means "contains carbon," it doesn't necessarily come from organisms.
- valuearb 10y agoShould Trump consider the nuclear option before they become sentinent?
- denom 10y agoYou know, this really makes me think. The answer to what humanity is looking for is right _here_, on earth. There is a notion, I suspect, that the endeavors of humanity are imperfect such that freedom and inspiration come from somewhere else. But we roll on, slapping on a new coat of paint and cutting the grass. Don't get me wrong, life on other planets would be super cool, and liberating in a certain way. In the meantime, we have life right here, let's nurture and take care of it.
- ybrah 10y agoThere is nothing that relates to trump in this article please stop shit posting
- valuearb 10y agoSorry, wasn't as funny written out as it was in my head.