1186 replies to this topic

[Oreo10]

2016 Mars Lander mission by NASA.
http://www.scientifi...ic-mars-mission

Looks like it was approved over a comet lander and a mission to explore the oceans of Titan. I definitely support any Mars mission, too bad we have to pass up learning more about Titan though.

[NightWolf235]

I'm on the fence about this.

On one side, a mission to Titan's oceans was canceled. The first ever mission to ocean outside of Earth could make history! Not to mention, there could be life forms, bacterial or otherwise, down there (might be confusing this with Europa.)!

On the other hand, another lander to Mars would increase our understanding of Mars to help human landings and colonization.

If I were to choose, I would have gone with the Titan landing. Mars has been probed enough by the Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and soon to be Curiosity rovers, the Phoenix and Viking landers as well as numerous flybys and scans by probes and orbiters. There are a ton of Mars missions planned for this decade and beyond. I think we could live without one in 2016.

Edited by NightWolf235, 22 August 2012 - 01:36 AM.

[Oreo10]

Yeah, I suppose if they really thought life was in Titan's methane oceans I think that would have won but there's probably not enough evidence to suggest it's likely. If it had been a probe that could drill into Europa's ice now that would have been an easy choice, since a lot of people think all sorts of life could be under that but that mission would probably be more costly then the budget allows.

[Lily]

We know that some extremophile bacteria and life forms can even life in our earth's mantle, so what about the inner layers of other planets? Oh, how I'd love to go to Europa's icy surface and then try to find a way through - maybe even so far inside that life could be found.
I don't believe our beautiful blue planet is unique. Why should it? What are the odds? (Seriously, I don't know about the odds, but it strikes me improbable that in all the billions of stars there are ours should be the only one harbouring life.)

Edited by Lily, 23 August 2012 - 03:57 PM.

[Oreo10]

I agree there's got to be life somewhere if not on millions of other planets in the Milky Way. Until we find it, I guess we have to keep playing with odds only. If we can find more than us in the solar system then that would be huge. Got to wonder about intelligent life though, just looking at the timeline here a civilization only 50,000 years ahead of us should be able to find any living thing in the galaxy. Unless they already know about us

[eacao]

Life existed on Earth around 3.7 billion years ago, from as best as we can tell. That's very early on in the Earth's history. Only about 10 or 11% the length of the Earth's lifespan, assuming it has 11 billion years from formation to death with the Sun. If life began on Earth that early on, then it probably means it isn't too hard to get started. Like Lily said, we've found extreme on Earth that can live in amazing conditions. Some have been able to thrive in simulated Mars environments (Deinococcus radiodurans and species of actinbacteria). I believe there is life on Mars, Europa. Maybe Titan even. I also think that life may exist below the surface of Callisto. If there are moons around Epsilon Eridani B, then there may well be life in there too since the planet has an oliptical orbit that takes it within the habitable zone. That means that for at least part of the year, the moon would experience temperatures above 0C and below 100C.

Edited by eacao, 24 August 2012 - 05:02 AM.

[Craven]

Early emergence of life on Earth, is a clear indicator - whenever life is possible, it pops up quickly. Panspermia could be probable only if life would appear long after right conditions were settled. However we are still not sure what are those necessary conditions. It's likely that Mars had those long ago, but it's not sure. Europa might have such conditions, but it also isn't sure. Liquid water ain't enough. Some kind of thermal vents, giving right minerals could be helpful, but at those depths chemistry needed for life may be impossible. Pressure at bottom of Mariana's Trench may be small, when compared to that place. So while it would be fantastic... there may be nothing there.

Also simple life emerged quickly, but it took 2.5 billion years to develop multicellular organisms. This is kinda surprising to me, since some experiments shown tendency of simple organisms to form colonies and quickly diffenrentiate. Perhaps it's connected to current conditions on Earth, maybe then there was no way for it in low-oxygen periods.

Anyway - with abundance of stars and planets, I'm sure there are millions of planets with life. But how many of them have complex life forms? That's unknown. Just as there's no telling if intelligence and technological civilisation is a normal thing. After all millions of species do fine without it

[eacao]

I honestly think technology of any kind is exceedingly rare. In nature, we see a few birds, primates and otters using very simple tools. Insects don't use any, and they make up the vast majority of multicellular life. As far as we can tell, dinosaurs didn't use tools (though some birds using them might be evidence otherwise). And then we have humans, the only species to have advanced to our current level in the history of the Earth. The Earth took half its lifespan to make a space-capable species. If we die, it might not happen again by those odds. If we ever make it out, I'm sure we'll see microbes everywhere. Probably on more than one body in many star systems. A few planets/moons teeming with insect-order life and sparse but evident planets with intelligent/social/tool-using species in their ecosystems, like wolves or chimps. But finding another species that is able to leave their planet is probably not going to happen for a long time. My guess is that there is microbes within the Solar system, insects within 15ly and wolf-level organisms within 50ly. If I had to guess, I'd say it's another 100ly (100-115,000 stars) before we come across another space-capable species. Mind you, if humans hadn't discovered agriculture 10,000 years ago, we wouldn't be space-capable today. So there might be more 'intelligent' species out there which aren't space-capable because of whatever factor. Homo sapien may have evolved 150,000 years ago, but 140,000 years of that was taken up by being nomads. Heck, apart from Europeans, humans were an integral part of the Earth's ecosystem. In Aus, aboriginals arrived 40-50,000 years ago. Every year, they'd light controlled fires that prevented too much build up of leaf litter in bushes. Marsupials evolved that could only survive on the green tree sprouts that appeared every year, and are going extinct now that settlers have shown up and integrated the aboriginals, who have stopped lighting these fires.

[Craven]

Funny but I'd interpret it exactly other way - we see that not only primates but multiple various groups of animals use tools. Also several groups of animals communicate, have rudimentary language. Therefore it seems to me we aren't some kind of extreme coincidence. Put those two things together and you can get technological civilisation.

Of course there's plenty of dangers - self-destruction, asteroid impact, extreme pandemic, and many more that can wipe them out before they even get steam engine.

Also if another technological species is just 100ly away, then we should hear from them anytime soon

[Raklian]

More Exoplanets Discovered: 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View

Two newly submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems. These results may increase the number of Kepler's confirmed planets by more than 50 percent: to 116 planets hosted in 67 systems, over half of which contain more than one planet.

http://www.scienceda...20823150403.htm



Just when you think you'd be getting used to this kind of news, you'd find that is not the case. This never ceases to amaze me.

[Craven]

I think "My god, it's full of stars" became "My god, it's full of planets"

[Craven]

http://blogs.discove...-life-in-space/

Nice article. He kinda repeated my points about single celled organisms. Most interesting however - I didn't know James Webb could do the trick. I thought it's just infrared device, ergo incapable of doing wide spectrometry. This is cool info.

[Oreo10]

Good article. I'm very interested to see what the James Webb discovers. Sounds like it should be able to tell us the chemical makeup of far away planets. I hope one day we can get telescopes that can give us close up pictures of planets around other stars.

[kjaggard]

I can't help but wonder if the things that made the difference was that we had several potential intelligent species and breeds. Early pre modern humans could have very easily remain simple animals, but with our ability to range we saw different groups in the great apes which used different methods to do different things. and we copied them. Then human groups splinted and ranged far and wide. We saw other tool users and how they managed to create solutions. And we duplicated them again while each subset can up with creative adaptations of their own to techniques. Eventually we reencountered one another and the ones that adapted and learned the most range of skills got further than the others. And since then we've been adapting and learning new applications of old tricks and trading them back and forth between ranging cultures.

If you look at some of the isolated cultures around the world they seem to settle into a level of development and not go much beyond that. They've been using the same tools and the same technique for hundreds or even thousands of years with little 'new perspective' on their potential for other applications or ways to improve them.

It might be that out there are hundreds of thousands of world with creature smarter and wiser than us but whom have never flown in planes let alone landed on their nearest neighbors. It's also possible that if they developed electronics at all that their sets of senses are so different from our own that they use frequencies of sound to carry singals and that would be useless beyond the atmosphere.

The industrial revolution not happening could change everything, because there is no way to make so very much happen without the capability to cheaply and effectively make mass produced parts, and refined highly engineered standardized componants. They could be the universes most brilliant chemists and found out things that would boggle our minds, but they may also live in adobe huts with thatched roofing and strictly have oral language without the ability to pass on information any other way.

There could be a species of alien who've crack the theory of everything that physics is trying for right now. and they have done it while living without shelters and without society as we know it. They may just wander the wild and when two meet they might mate or converse about theory physics like we might share food or like people of a common faith sharing prayers and experiences.

I've no doubt that should we make it all the way out there we're going to seriously underestimate some beings as just animals despite that they may be more intelligent than us. But statistically we are also likely to encounter several like us. Here's something to help you visualize it:
http://www.bbc.com/f...en-worlds-exist

[Raklian]

That's why we need to be careful as not to presume anything when meeting with new alien races. Heck, they may look extremely primitive to us but secretly they have the means to destroy us in ways we can't comprehend nor expect. Sometimes I think the best people we should send to meet new aliens are not scientists, military officiers, philosophers, linguistists, nor any expert you can think of, but children with the mind to explore and learn.

[SG-1]

Yeah but a child can't tell you much about the culture or technology.

An average person, and a scientist would be the best combination to find out about an alien civilization's culture.

[Italian Ufo]

Planet with 2 suns

http://www.space.com...lar-system.html

Edited by Italian Ufo, 30 August 2012 - 08:55 AM.

[Italian Ufo]

Dear users of FT,
I want to remeber that on 31st august 2012 it will be possible to observe a "blue moon" in the sky.
http://earthsky.org/...-next-blue-moon

[Raklian]

Sugar molecules — building blocks of RNA — found around young star

A team of astronomers led by researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, have observed a simple sugar molecule in the gas surrounding a young star, proving that the building blocks of life were already present during planet formation.


http://www.kurzweila...ound-young-star




Another nail in the coffin on Creationism! Or any religion for that matter.

[Ru1138]

I'm starting a network on Reddit dedicated to making space colonization a reality (chiefly by swaying public and government opinion). There are a few subreddits in the network already, but if you want to get a good handle on it visit here.