Topic: Alien Life May Be "Weirder" Than Scientists Think, Report Says

[notatroll]

Think life on Earth is weird? It might be even weirder on distant planets and moons, according to a new report.

Instead of thriving on water, extraterrestrial organisms might live in a sea of liquid methane. Or instead of getting energy from the sun, they might thrive on hydrochloric acid.

 


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These possibilities could revolutionize future space missions in search of life elsewhere in the solar system, says the report, issued today by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The report concludes that scientists need to consider an expanded list of characteristics that define life, including so-called "weird" life-forms that may thrive where Earth organisms couldn't.

Instead of dispatching spacecraft to dig into the subsurface of Mars, considered a prime candidate for primitive life because of its watery past, the report says the probes may have better luck on Saturn's moon Titan, which has seas of liquid methane and ethane.

In fact, the report concluded that Titan is the most likely candidate in the solar system for weird life.

"It's a carbon world, so there's plenty of different kinds of carbon compounds there, and the possibility is that there may be the carbon compounds that make up life," said John Baross, an oceanographer at Seattle's University of Washington, who lead the report team.

Different Life

Baross chaired the committee that prepared the report released by the National Research Council, an arm of the NAS.

The report probes the question: How might life on distant worlds be different than life on Earth?

"We don't want to not recognize a life form because it doesn't exactly resemble Earth life," Baross said.

All life on Earth studied to date has certain characteristics and needs: water, carbon-based metabolism, a chemical- or light-based energy source, and the ability to evolve.

alien life

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[libby]

Nota, it gets even weirder. Consider this statement:

'It may seem crazy to imagine that most of the matter in our universe is composed of exotic subatomic particles of varieties never yet observed, or that there are billions of universes, each subject to a different set of laws, or that the mind may be said to bring the universe into existence. But quite possibly such hypotheses are, as Neils Bohr often used to say in exploring the atom, "not crazy enough." '

The Whole Shebang
A State Of The Universe(s) Report,
by Timothy Ferris

Libby

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[notatroll]

It may remain a mystery forever Libby!     But it is one of the most fascinating topics.  Wonder what would happen if we discovered life somewhere else. (If we haven't already)  Would people be scared?  Happy? curious?   How would the Government would react....would they tell?  Keep it quiet?


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[libby]

Nota, I think generals and politicians and religious leaders would try to kill or capture or scare off aliens; and, aliens would either wipe us out or segregate us from the rest of the universe(s) until we grow up.


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[notatroll]

Nota, I think generals and politicians and religious leaders would try to kill or capture or scare off aliens; and, aliens would either wipe us out or segregate us from the rest of the universe(s) until we grow up.

Now that one had me .  Do you think we would be afraid maybe of their intelligence?  This subject can be very fascinating.  Could they exist?  Better yet could it be possible to coexist with them?  Many questions and no answers.

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[libby]

I think cosmologists today are focusing more on the nature of our universe and worlds that might produce 'human' life, what holds the universe(s) together, and puzzles like dark energy, which, if I remember correctly, was the subject of one of Bo's posts recently.

In the Oct 1, 07 issue of Newsweek, there's this article:

In 'Dark Energy,' Cosmic Humility

"The Universe is accelerating. A mysterious energy is pushing apart space itself, like a crazed toddler blowing up the cosmic balloon." ...."The best bet for the source of dark energy is the sea of subatomic particles that pop into and out of existence in "empty" space. In 1917, Einstein proposed something like this, only to reject it as his greatest blunder. (The resurrection of this "cosmological constant" led the mother of one astronomer, Robert Kirshner of Harvard, involved in the discovery of dark energy, to ask her son, "So, do you think you're smarter than Einstein?quot;) But Einstein might have been right the first time. The evanescent particles give space a stretchiness, pushing it apart. There's only one problem: when you calculate how much energy the roiling sea of particles would create, the answer is 100,000 {insert 51 more zeroes} times more than the dark energy. "That's a large discrepancy even in astronomy," Mario Livio of the Hubble space telescope institute said at a workshop on dark energy last week. If Einstein's cosmological constant truly is the source of dark energy, then something else cancels out all but a smidgen of the energy from the popping particles. That something else is anyone's guess. Worse, the precision of the required cancellation--erase the ink on every magazine ever printed except for exactly one comma, here--strains credulity."  

Now is that clear? No? I agree.

But I do understand and agree with what Einstein once wrote: "Anyone who is not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the MIND behind the universe is as good as a burned-out candle." (caps mine)
Libby


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