More life than we thought.

[xelasnave]

This is new and hints that if we look hard on other planets we may find life.

Alex


https://youtu.be/j2M99LhYv2Q

[gary]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

This is new and hints that if we look hard on other planets we may find life.

Alex


https://youtu.be/j2M99LhYv2Q

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the link.

There was a report today of a finding using the Hubble Space Telescope
that might diminish the chances of life on rocky planets orbiting red dwarfs.

The Hubble & ESO was used to study the disk of material around the star AU Mic.

If what is happening there turns out to be common, seems like water and organic
compounds might get blown away before they can reach the surface of young planets.

Story here :-
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-young-...ed-dwarfs.html

[xelasnave]

Thankd Garry.
There is only one way to settle it...start drilling
alex

[Wavytone]

Nice video... but its not entirely new - the presence of bacteria deep underground - and their numbers - has been known for several decades.

The whole "life on mars" thing is wearing a bit thin since the little green men have been ruled out... now we're hunting for bacteria.

So... suppose we send a drill rig to Mars capable of drilling kilometres down.. with the only possible find being bacteria ? Is that justifiable ? really ?

[sharpiel]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

Nice video... but its not entirely new - the presence of bacteria deep underground - and their numbers - has been known for several decades.

The whole "life on mars" thing is wearing a bit thin since the little green men have been ruled out... now we're hunting for bacteria.

So... suppose we send a drill rig to Mars capable of drilling kilometres down.. with the only possible find being bacteria ? Is that justifiable ? really ?

Yep. I'd like to know.

[xelasnave]

Hi Nick
I thought the video suggested there was much more life than previously thought although I think they have not yet completed a head count.

I dont think the scientists have been preoccupied with little green men as that sort of thing comes from the sensationalism employed by "science writers" (journalists to be clear☺.)

To find life would be most helpful I expect and at that level to answer the question ...is it similar or entirely different to what we know.

Would its discovery cause a rethink of the various creation myths.
Would we get a new group of nutters saying it is nothing more than a NASA hoax ... well of course we would.

And when drilling holes we may find gold or fossil remains of an ancient civilization who never used facebook.

Anyways looking for life is much better than wasting money on hunting for very old gravity waves from billions of years ago which do little more than prove GR is right yet again.

Now thats a tiresome aspect of science journalism...just how many science articles have the header "General Relativity proved right yet again"....that is a tiresome headline particularly given it probably been used ever since the theory first was presented.

How much better a new headline.

Life found on Mars for the first time ... and hopefully a sensible discussion of what such tells us about ...well life☺.


Alex

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

So... suppose we send a drill rig to Mars capable of drilling kilometres down.. with the only possible find being bacteria ? Is that justifiable ? really ?

Just a couple of decades ago, we knew of no planets outside our Solar System - now we know of literally thousands, and we know that far from being a rarity, it seems to be the case that a star without planets is in fact the rarity.

We currently know of just one place in the entire Universe where life exists - right here on Earth. It might be the only place in the Universe where life exists (but I really doubt it!)

Think of the consequences if we discover bacterial life (or similar) elsewhere in our Solar System - the implication would be that life has a reasonably high probability of evolving anywhere that there is a reasonably stable environment. Then contemplate the fact that there are typically several planets (many with multiple moons) around most stars, with some hundred billion stars in our galaxy, and some hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.



Yes, I think it's justifiable - it would be one of those events which truly change the way that we see our place in the universe.

[doug mc]

Has anyone run the experiment and observed the formation of self duplicating living cells from their chemical precursors? Seems we are jumping the gun here on what has been unobservable so unrepeatable. There looks like an enormous amount of scientific looking fiction out there on this subject. This will get some of you excited. So to answer the original question. Likely not.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by doug mc

Has anyone run the experiment and observed the formation of self duplicating living cells from their chemical precursors?

No, but we have synthesized amino acids and other relatively complex organic molecules using only a soup of raw materials and a bit of heat or electrical energy.

And viable, self-propagating synthetic cells have been produced in the laboratory by creating a smaller genome than any known natural organism, effectively creating an entirely new species:
https://www.nature.com/news/minimal-...c-life-1.19633

Mother nature took some hundreds of millions of years to create life on Earth; the fact that it is taking us more than fifty years of laboratory experimentation shouldn't really be a surprise. (We haven't managed to get fusion power working yet either, despite relentless effort and billions of dollars of expenditure over much the same period, but I don't doubt our ability to get there eventually.)

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by doug mc

Has anyone run the experiment and observed the formation of self duplicating living cells from their chemical precursors? Seems we are jumping the gun here on what has been unobservable so unrepeatable. There looks like an enormous amount of scientific looking fiction out there on this subject. This will get some of you excited. So to answer the original question. Likely not.

Hi Doug

Running an experiment like you suggest has no bearing on hunting for life elsewhere.

Either way we need to find it.

Certainly we will be able to create life in the lab at some point as it certainly seems that life is no more than just a step in the chemical process.

It will prove not to be a big deal....and we will get to understand exactly how life is created in much the same way that we now understand how life developed via the now well understood process of evolution.

And as with everything science will eventually give us the answer...that is why science is so dependable as it provided real answers to real questions.

And if we could complete the experiment and sucessfully create life we really would still need to look for life elsewhere I expect ...just to be certain...and that is scientific because science needs observation to support hypothisis and the model born from the combination of the two.


I dont know what you mean by "scientific fiction" unless you refer to journalistic speculation, as the actual science, you see, is always without exception 100% correct. ..a scientific theory or model must be 100% correct and it really is ...as a scientific theory must make testable predictions and of course when the testable prediction is observed the theory is proved 100% correct...and so please dont confuse the chatter of journalists or other unqualified folk as to what science says or does not say as to do so leaves one missing the fact that science never deals in fiction.

Personally I would be surprised if a decent search for life within our Solar System failed to find life.

I think more should be done but I suspect there may be a group of folk in the USA who believe life is confinded to our Earth and so perhaps the importance of looking for life is downplayed for political reasons.

Really nothing could be more important than the hunt for life on other planents or moons in our Solar System.

However we must look and confirm life is not confinned to Earth and that the universe exists for much more life than just humans.

Alex