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Life is a likely VN. Edit-not that life is anyone in particulars VN probe. But it’s clearly self replicating and can evolve to various conditions. Kind of the

by ianai 4y ago

Life is a likely VN. Edit-not that life is anyone in particulars VN probe. But it’s clearly self replicating and can evolve to various conditions. Kind of the obvious example to prove the existence of VN probes as a logical concept.

nonameiguess 4y ago
Life is self-replicating, but it can't just use any substrate. Nutrition and energy requirements are quite specific. Any life on earth that managed to survive an interstellar journey would need to find organic chemicals similar to what are found on earth in order to continue replicating, and I think at least water as well. There are only some tiny number of spores that can survive in a vacuum at all, and while I don't think it's impossible that something like them could actually survive an entire interstellar journey, I'm reasonably sure nothing we know of can do that. They also can't change course. Most space is empty, so the most likely place they end up is nowhere. The next most likely are the largest gravity wells, which are all stars and black holes, where they are not going to replicate. Then you get to planets, but giant gas planets are going to be the largest gravity wells among planets. Assuming even one manages to find a planet earth-like enough to support life like it, would it survive atmospheric re-entry? Spores don't have heat shields. What you're describing is something like the protomolecule from the Expanse books, which is a nice concept, but it required its creators to have the technology to locally alter the laws of physics as we know them to work, making it possible to use an asteroid with no propulsion system as a carrier vehicle, with energy sucked out of a different universe they figured out how to gain access to (not something that is likely to actually be possible).
- bluGill 4y ago
  Fortunately water is extremely common in the universe, as are the other building blocks of life. Every proposal I've seen for life not based on carbon, water, and the other building blocks of life here relies on chemistry that is hard to pull off in a lab (or impossible, though in theory is seems like it should be possible). Water and Carbon have some very interesting chemical properties that make it the mostly likely building blocks for life. Of course since we are talking about unknowns, I can't say for sure that life elsewhere isn't made of something else, but our current knowledge of chemistry makes the idea unlikely.
  - pajko 4y ago
    Wikipedia has a quite interesting article about non-carbon-based lifeforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...

by ianai 4y ago

nonameiguess 4y ago

Life is self-replicating, but it can't just use any substrate. Nutrition and energy requirements are quite specific. Any life on earth that managed to survive an interstellar journey would need to find organic chemicals similar to what are found on earth in order to continue replicating, and I think at least water as well. There are only some tiny number of spores that can survive in a vacuum at all, and while I don't think it's impossible that something like them could actually survive an entire interstellar journey, I'm reasonably sure nothing we know of can do that. They also can't change course. Most space is empty, so the most likely place they end up is nowhere. The next most likely are the largest gravity wells, which are all stars and black holes, where they are not going to replicate. Then you get to planets, but giant gas planets are going to be the largest gravity wells among planets. Assuming even one manages to find a planet earth-like enough to support life like it, would it survive atmospheric re-entry? Spores don't have heat shields. What you're describing is something like the protomolecule from the Expanse books, which is a nice concept, but it required its creators to have the technology to locally alter the laws of physics as we know them to work, making it possible to use an asteroid with no propulsion system as a carrier vehicle, with energy sucked out of a different universe they figured out how to gain access to (not something that is likely to actually be possible).

bluGill 4y ago
Fortunately water is extremely common in the universe, as are the other building blocks of life. Every proposal I've seen for life not based on carbon, water, and the other building blocks of life here relies on chemistry that is hard to pull off in a lab (or impossible, though in theory is seems like it should be possible). Water and Carbon have some very interesting chemical properties that make it the mostly likely building blocks for life. Of course since we are talking about unknowns, I can't say for sure that life elsewhere isn't made of something else, but our current knowledge of chemistry makes the idea unlikely.
- pajko 4y ago
  Wikipedia has a quite interesting article about non-carbon-based lifeforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...