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There's a lot more to life than just liquid water. In fact there are a huge array of requirements including distance from the sun, right arrangement of planets,
by andrewfelix 14y ago
There's a lot more to life than just liquid water. In fact there are a huge array of requirements including distance from the sun, right arrangement of planets, tidal systems, plate tectonics...
- protomyth 14y agoI remember an old Chaos Manor column that talked about a book detailing what was needed, but I have not been able to find the book or remember the title.
- noiv 14y agoWhy there are so many constraints on life listed? Is it to make more us special? Some people follow a different approach and say the purpose of life is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/03/10/free-energy-and-the-meaning-of-life/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/03/10/... I very much like the idea that life might be a consequence of entropy and emerges everywhere where energy is in flux and matter poses a threshold against the arrow of time.
- andrewfelix 14y agoIt's a nice idea, but I find the 'Rare Earth' hypothesis convincing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis#Rare_Earth.27s_requirements_for_complex_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis#Rare_Eart...
- tokipin 14y agoi think it's the opposite of that. by all evidence, life on Earth began as soon as it was possible, and that's just this particular kind of life with this set of particular elements under these particular constraints. there may be other chemical/physical configurations under which life is even easier, etc
- jstalin 14y agoJust look at the difference an active core makes by observing the difference between Earth and Mars. How likely is it that a planet has all the right things: liquid water, enough gravity (mass), active core, planets further out sweeping up the debris so it doesn't destroy said planet over and over, tidally locked moon, etc. My guess is that Earth is very, very unique.
- tokipin 14y agoyea but that doesn't mean that Earth's configurations are the only ones that yield life. example: the role water plays here on earth might not even be necessary in other chemical/physical systems, or could be played by other chemicals given different gravitational/atmospheric pressures, etc and i don't think there is anything about earth that is unsusual as far as planetary systems go