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> how could life start Idk. How did it start here? > It’s just so damn cold out there Life can find energy to run near hydrothermal vents[1], or naturally oc

> how could life start Idk. How did it start here? > It’s just so damn cold out there Life can find energy to run near hydrothermal vents[1], or naturally occurring nuclear reactors [2], or perhaps exploiting tidal heating[3]. I would also be not surprised if there are ways to run life on much lower energy gradients than what we are accustomed to here on Earth. Some weird biochemical tricks, perhaps a much slower life cycle. I don't know how that would look like, I'm just saying simply "Life..ehm..will find a way". 1: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/survival-at-hydrothermal-vents.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/survival-at-hydrothermal-vent... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating#Moons_of_Gas_Giants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_heating#Moons_of_Gas_Gia...

jvanderbot 4y ago
Yes, I agree. My personal favorite candidate for alien life is Europa, which is real cold, real barren, and not sunny on the outside, but probably has a nice warm salt water ocean inside with all kinds of hydrothermal vents and tidal heating. There's probably twice as much water in Europa's ocean than there is on all of Earth. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-depth/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-d... I think we'll find Cthulhu down there, if we ever get around to drilling through a few km of ice to look (or learn to scan from the surface somehow).
- slashdev 4y ago
  Probably just some single celled life, like a batería analog. But still, that would be the biggest discovery of the century.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    Discovering life on other planets would be at least a Copernican-level shift in most sciences. I think it'd be the discovery to trump all other discoveries. I can't decide what's weirder: That it'd use similar DNA/RNA for replication, or that it wouldn't.
    - slashdev 4y ago
      I think they would both be massive discoveries that would shake things up. If it used DNA/RNA it's almost certainly from the same tree of life as us, validating the panspermia theory. If it didn't then we'd get to see a completely novel chemistry of life, although still water based.

jvanderbot 4y ago

Yes, I agree. My personal favorite candidate for alien life is Europa, which is real cold, real barren, and not sunny on the outside, but probably has a nice warm salt water ocean inside with all kinds of hydrothermal vents and tidal heating. There's probably twice as much water in Europa's ocean than there is on all of Earth. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-depth/ https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-d... I think we'll find Cthulhu down there, if we ever get around to drilling through a few km of ice to look (or learn to scan from the surface somehow).

slashdev 4y ago
Probably just some single celled life, like a batería analog. But still, that would be the biggest discovery of the century.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  Discovering life on other planets would be at least a Copernican-level shift in most sciences. I think it'd be the discovery to trump all other discoveries. I can't decide what's weirder: That it'd use similar DNA/RNA for replication, or that it wouldn't.
  - slashdev 4y ago
    I think they would both be massive discoveries that would shake things up. If it used DNA/RNA it's almost certainly from the same tree of life as us, validating the panspermia theory. If it didn't then we'd get to see a completely novel chemistry of life, although still water based.