Hope of earth-like planets...

[Azyiu]

So you googled about Twinkies?

 

[Naren]

^Didn't need to, seeing as I'm the leading expert.

 

[forelander]

As long as we're day dreaming, let's just put out the idea that there is life on our sun that lives deep within the core, feeding off of hydrogen and helium.

There's life in the depths of the ocean in conditions where it was thought impossible for life to exist, for similar reasons to the ones people always mention in relation to life in the solar system. Yet things still live there, so what you suggested isn't that ridiculous. Assuming you were being sarcastic there, my apologies if you weren't.

Either way it brings me to another point. People limit things so much when talking about life outside earth. Fair enough if you're talking about human like life, but realistically thinking, what are the chances of that? Life on earth is so incredibly diverse it's mind boggling, what are the odds that in an entirely seperated region of space things would have evolved anything like us? Everyone always says no water = no life. I understand the chemistry of it all and that carbon is believed to be a requirement for complex life because its one of the 'essential' building blocks of many compounds, but I think if there's something else around it's probably so different we may not even be able to comprehend it at all. They might not be carbon based, they might not requrie water, they may have 9 senses and different means of detecting them. To all these suggestions people generally bellow that it's not possible, but I argue that in our tiny little dot of sand in this tiny little piece of the universe that we're not really a good authority on what's possible.

 

[Naren]

^I think there's quite a difference between the pressure in the depths of the ocean than temperatures of thousands of degrees near a star or on a star and the incredibly -100 degrees Celsius temperatures on some gas planets or the almost absolute zero temperatures on the most distant planets.

On Earth, we have a VERY VERY small range of temperature. Humans think "Hey, we have a big range of different temperatures! anywhere from -40 Celsius to 50 degrees! Animals can live in many different climates!" That's only a difference of about 100 degrees. Why not try the universe? It's a lot different.

In our solar system, let's look at that. From -235 degrees Celsius on Pluto to about 6000 degrees Celsius on the surface of the sun (it's a hell of a lot hotter in the core, 15,000,000 degrees celsius).

I was being very sarcastic about the center of the sun. I'm sure in my mind that no life can stand a temperature of 15 million degrees Celsius.

 

[forelander]

I would say that the argument applies to what I'm saying too. Look at life on earth, sure it's diverse. Now look at all possible forms of life across the universe. It's probably a lot different there, too. If life here manages to exist in our little range of 100*C, I'm sure life on an astronomical scale manages to survive astronomical circumstances. Sure, living in a star is incredibly unlikely and I don't argue that, but I wouldn't completely rule it out, and I find it almost arrogant to rule out numerous other places for no other reason than "we probably couldn't live there".

It's not so much an issue of debate, just my little outlook.

 

[Naren]

I could grant the possibility of life on a planet with temperatures like Mars (about -30 Celsius or so) or on a planet with temperatures hotter than Earth (but not as hot as Venus, where metal melts, or Mercury). A planet like Jupiter is inconceivable for life. It's got immense gravity that it crushes the solid mass into a small dense mass in the center and has incredibly violent storms of liquid hydrogen raging all around it with a surface temperature of about -163.15 degrees Celsius (Jupiter's core is about 23,800 degrees Celsius). And Jupiter is still closer to the sun than Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Saturn. I would be more open to some very very primitive form of bacteria surviving on one of Jupiter's moons near volcanic activity.

It's true that we couldn't live on any planet other than the Earth. But, of our solar system, the only planet I could image capable of supporting any life would be Mars and there are lots of problems that would lead me to believe there is no life on Mars. Some people talk about humans one day living on Mars. I don't believe that will ever happen (For one, it would be a very very bad idea). There may be planets capable of life closer than we might suspect, but not in our solar system and not in our "star neighborhood."

I think the arguments people would say to argue with this idea are not scientifically based, just using the argument "We don't know a lot about that" or "We don't everything." But you could apply that to everything in science. You could say "Well, we don't KNOW there aren't people living in the center of the moon." or "We don't know there aren't prehistoric dinosaurs living hundreds of miles beneath the surface of the Earth." Sure, we don't know that, but those ideas are incredibly unlikely.

 

[forelander]

I think my entire point lies in the paragraph about life on mars. You're saying that humans couldn't live in these places...but we're not looking for humans. I am in complete agreement that it's all very unlikely and my argument not along the lines "we don't know that," more that there might be something out there that we can't even imagine.

Limitting the idea of life outside earth to earthlike life seems like an oxymoron to me, like one more aspect of not getting the bigger picture. Things like "there needs to be water and oxygen for life dammit!" are more what I'm talking about. I'm sure they help though.

Of course I agree some things are incredibly unlikely. So are we though. And afterall the universe is fucking huge. There's a miniscule chance and an essentially infinite number of trials.

Also my mind just boggled considering not only physiological differences but sociological ones...just suppose some other society discovered the gravitational force before they did electromagnetism, how completely and utterly different would everything have evolved? Again unlikely considering certain things but we've been known to discover things in 'reverse' order so to speak.

 

[noodles]

In our solar system, let's look at that. From -235 degrees Celsius on Pluto to about 6000 degrees Celsius on the surface of the sun (it's a hell of a lot hotter in the core, 15,000,000 degrees celsius).

You don't even need to look at whole solar system. We wouldn't be able to deal with something as simple as one planet (in most cases). For example, Mercury gets up to 430C during the day, and down to -120C at night.

 

[Naren]

You don't even need to look at whole solar system. We wouldn't be able to deal with something as simple as one planet (in most cases). For example, Mercury gets up to 430C during the day, and down to -120C at night.

You're a wise man. Ya know your stuff.

 

[Rev2010]

You don't even need to look at whole solar system. We wouldn't be able to deal with something as simple as one planet (in most cases). For example, Mercury gets up to 430C during the day, and down to -120C at night.

Very true. But what Foreland is saying is we're not talking about human life. Certain bacteria can easily withstand that dramatic of a temperature change. It's already been proven when the astronauts visited an old lander that was sent to the moon with bacteria. They found the bacteria was still alive and well after being on the moon for months under the same type of extreme temperatures changes. As a result he's just saying something outside of our imagination might evolve to a more complex level that is adapted or in some way capable of dealing with such hostile environments.


Rev.

 

[The Dark Wolf]

Here's a kink in the argument...


Perhaps this potential life is NOT carbon based. After all, we only have our happy little planet here as an example. As we have seen from history, as soon as we say "Impossible!", well, the impossible turns out to be reality.

Perhaps the life is silicon based? That would possibly make it appropriate for a whole new range of environmental conditions.

 

[noodles]

I think we need to stop looking for life in terms of what we know. Who's to say that there aren't creatures out there that breathe methane? Or need to breathe at all? Just look at the drastic differences between plants and animals, and you being to see that we can't discount anything. Single celled organisms, like bacteria, on this planet are not necessarily going to be the same as single celled organisms elsewhere in the galaxy.

EDIT: Yeah, what TDW said.

 

[forelander]

Yep exactly what I mean - We're looking for life as we know it, without any reason at all to suspect other life would be anything like what we know.

Glad I'm not the only person who thinks like that, I was beginning to think I was.