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So one thing to keep in mind here is that according to NASA, the meteorite itself is generating these compounds: Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- b
by po 15y ago
So one thing to keep in mind here is that according to NASA, the meteorite itself is generating these compounds:
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial," says Callahan.
(from the NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorites.html http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorit...)
This does not mean that there is developed life on another planet that then traveled to us. What it does mean is that the building blocks of life that were seeded on earth are probably pretty common and therefore were probably also seeded elsewhere.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- patrickyeon 15y agoAbsolutely. Also, for those not necessarily familiar with the composition of outer space: hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water are all relatively common "out there", as in "in the spaces between planets and stars and everything else.
- bh42222 15y agoIt means that the components of life are a "naturally" occurring things, which appear all over the universe, and do not require life to produce them. This in turn implies that life, not just any life, but carbon based, DNA using life, could be more common in the universe then previously thought. And this implies that we here on Earth are even less of an unique snowflake then we thought.
- winestock 15y agoIf we, here on Earth, are not unique precious snowflakes, then that makes the Fermi Paradox even more paradoxical.
- cloudkj 15y agoAnd along those same lines, adds more weight to the implications of the Great Filter argument. That is, if the early steps in the path to intelligent life are really not that unlikely, then the later steps to advanced intelligent life are more unlikely.
- cpeterso 15y agoOr, as Carl Sagan often suggested, intelligent life is likely to destroy itself, perhaps if a civilization's technological progress outpaces its ethical capacity.
- gregable 15y agoAlternatively successful communication over vast distances turns out to be impossible or at least very rare.
- ori_b 15y agoI'd be extremely surprised if there was very little life on other planets. I'd also be extremely surprised if we could recognize it as life at a glance -- my guess is that it's so likely to be so completely different from us that that even knowing what to look for is going to be hard. Life is probably not that rare. Familiar life probably is.
- jarin 15y agoI think maybe on a macro level, but microbial life seems likely to be pretty similar to ours. Even on a macro scale though, I imagine you'd probably see some of the same themes (assuming an Earth-like planet): photosynthesis, bilateral symmetry, hemoglobin- or hemocyanin-based blood, etc.
- jcfrei 15y agoAnother possible explanation against the fermi paradox could be that interstellar communication, let alone travel is much more unlikely to occur even among highly advanced civilizations. maybe just travelling beyond our solar system might remain uneconomical for a long time.