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Old 12-29-2010, 05:39 AM
 
Location: Sol System
1,497 posts, read 3,335,278 times
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Given recent discoveries in exoplanetary studies , I've noticed they all seem to focus on habitablity and non gaseous surfaces. I thought to myself 'we are rather arrogant and biased in our quest'. It seems likely that life in any form would evolve to suit the parent environments as opposed to just 'pale blue dots'. Organics have been found in several places beyond Earth , and some of those places have observable electrical activity(lightning). The previous sentence tends to lean toward current evolutional theories involving a catalyst of electrical energies for production of aminos. However , it is beginning to seem rather skewed towards Earthlike lifeforms. Perhaps , even space itself may contain areas of interstellar life based on other elements besides carbon , silicon , and even any of the known elements. I know it may strike some as lunacy , but I'm sure this idea has been postulated before , just fallen upon deaf ears. Also , why not look into possibilities such as life that has evolved beyond physicality into pure energy. Basically , what I'm stating is when dealing with unknown or sparsely known areas , we should diminish the egotistical arrogance that we humans may be famous for(at least in the Local Bubble)
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:20 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,708,718 times
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It's only natural that people would be the most interested in things are are like and/or suitable for us. We are egotistical creatures, and from an evolutionary standpoint we have only barely come down out of the trees and stopped eating our poop.

But I do not doubt there are things out there that would blow our minds, including sentient energy aliens. The problem is, we just don't have the perspective to take it all in and understand it in a meaningful way. But given another couple million years, we probably could.
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Old 12-29-2010, 03:31 PM
 
28,803 posts, read 47,487,419 times
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Reminds me of that old song, "Looking for God in All the Wrong Places" [sic]
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Old 01-01-2011, 12:18 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,618 posts, read 86,577,260 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by etacarinae View Post
Perhaps , even space itself may contain areas of interstellar life based on other elements besides carbon , silicon , and even any of the known elements.
You were doing fine until you got to "known elements" There cannot be any unknown elements, because we've filled in the gaps in the periodic table, and an element cannot have an atomic number that is not a whole integer, and we have a fair grasp of the chemical limitations of those elements.

Expanding on your thesis, we need to consider the possibliity that the entire universe is a living being, and the earth, or the solar system, or this galaxy, or the observable universe, is merely a tiny part that corresponds to a single cell in that lifeform. And we are literally a cancer, defined as "out of control growth". (Antibodies are on the way, at this very moment.)

It is possible that "Life", like Gravity, is a universal constant, which manifests itself in different ways under different conditions.

Interesting that your screen name is the name of a star.

Last edited by jtur88; 01-01-2011 at 12:29 PM..
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Old 01-03-2011, 07:29 AM
 
Location: Texas
5,068 posts, read 10,097,106 times
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Looks like they've since found that the system is binary.
From Wikipedia:
This stellar system is currently one of the most massive that can be studied in great detail. Until recently, Eta Carinae was thought to be the most massive single star, but in 2005 it was realised to be a binary system.[10] The most massive star in the Eta Carinae multiple star system has more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. Other known massive stars are more luminous and more massive.
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Old 01-05-2011, 04:30 PM
 
Location: North of Nowhere, South of Everywhere
1,095 posts, read 1,142,238 times
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No matter where it happens, Life will always find a way.
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Old 01-06-2011, 11:28 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,530,043 times
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Check out Prof. Tom Gold's book titled "The Deep Hot Biosphere". His contention is that life started in stable underground locations using Sulfite/sulfate oxidization acting on primal hydrocarbons. This explains a lot about life on Earth before the phytoplanlton. The "black Smoker" hydrothermal vents may be an example.
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Old 01-08-2011, 04:44 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,630,475 times
Reputation: 20851
Quote:
Originally Posted by etacarinae View Post
Given recent discoveries in exoplanetary studies , I've noticed they all seem to focus on habitablity and non gaseous surfaces. I thought to myself 'we are rather arrogant and biased in our quest'. It seems likely that life in any form would evolve to suit the parent environments as opposed to just 'pale blue dots'. Organics have been found in several places beyond Earth , and some of those places have observable electrical activity(lightning). The previous sentence tends to lean toward current evolutional theories involving a catalyst of electrical energies for production of aminos. However , it is beginning to seem rather skewed towards Earthlike lifeforms. Perhaps , even space itself may contain areas of interstellar life based on other elements besides carbon , silicon , and even any of the known elements. I know it may strike some as lunacy , but I'm sure this idea has been postulated before , just fallen upon deaf ears. Also , why not look into possibilities such as life that has evolved beyond physicality into pure energy. Basically , what I'm stating is when dealing with unknown or sparsely known areas , we should diminish the egotistical arrogance that we humans may be famous for(at least in the Local Bubble)
Because we only have a certain ability to recognize life from the distance at which we are observing from. I there were life forms made out of energy how would we recognize that using the tools we currently have?

The nature of mass specs is such that it is limited in what it can observe, but if we do find amino acids that can be a good indicator life exists.

While I was at RU my profs were working on the astrobiology grant they got from NASA, it included a probe destined for Europa and one of the questions the posed to the undergrads was "if life existed there how would we be able to detect it?". It is a real issue.
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