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[bud]

It was inevitable that once it was realized no one who can manage F1 properly could be found on Earth that the search would be expanded beyond it.

Na Bernie will want a GP here soon!!

[The Immortal Dragon]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

[stonemonkey]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

On a similar note, did life on earth have to adapt the environment, did that bacteria or even something pre-bacterial have to process the watermasses and atmosphere before it could evolve past a certain point?

[What's Burning?]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

I had to study just to learn to spell astrophysicist!

Mind blowing life, not necessarily even based on carbon... maybe silicone!

[The Immortal Dragon]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

On a similar note, did life on earth have to adapt the environment, did that bacteria or even something pre-bacterial have to process the watermasses and atmosphere before it could evolve past a certain point?

Well.. I'll give you my opinion as an astrophysicists. If you really want to be sure, or you are not satisfied by my answer, ask a geologist

I think that is what happened. I think bacteria had to adapt to the environment.
What I think roughly happens is that life forms when the right conditions for the place you're in occur.
Obviously what we know is what happened on our planet.
But perhaps the same conditions that occured on Earth at the point when life began wouldn't be the right conditions to generate life on another planet.
Maybe the planet wouldn't have a percentage of O2 high enough to sustain life through the exact same conditions. Or maybe other things, like gases present in the atmosphere, composition of the soil, phenomena like vulcanic eruptions or winds. For instance, on some moons of Saturn and Jupiter (and I guess Uranus and Neptune, too) there are some eruptions of cryogenic volcanos; that means the lava is actually very cold; they would erupt liquid methane.
So you see how bacteria would be different on another planet. They would need to adapt to a completely different world. And very likely they would perish on Earth (and the same would be true for terrestrial bacteria on other plantes!)

And I think you can actually understand how much organisms depend on external conditions when you consider quite catastrophic phenomena like a meteorite collision.
When something like that occurs, the conditions of the environment change quite sharply: temperature in particular.
And if the bacteria can survive through this catastrophe, then they need to adjust their levels a little bit to be able to live well at the new temperature, without it affecting their biological functions and activities.

[The Immortal Dragon]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

I had to study just to learn to spell astrophysicist!

Ehehe!
Well, I'm still an undergraduate, really.
But I just LOVE Astrophysics and Cosmology (which is not the same thing, just for the record )

[What's Burning?]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

On a similar note, did life on earth have to adapt the environment, did that bacteria or even something pre-bacterial have to process the watermasses and atmosphere before it could evolve past a certain point?

Well.. I'll give you my opinion as an astrophysicists. If you really want to be sure, or you are not satisfied by my answer, ask a geologist

I think that is what happened. I think bacteria had to adapt to the environment.
What I think roughly happens is that life forms when the right conditions for the place you're in occur.
Obviously what we know is what happened on our planet.
But perhaps the same conditions that occured on Earth at the point when life began wouldn't be the right conditions to generate life on another planet.
Maybe the planet wouldn't have a percentage of O2 high enough to sustain life through the exact same conditions. Or maybe other things, like gases present in the atmosphere, composition of the soil, phenomena like vulcanic eruptions or winds. For instance, on some moons of Saturn and Jupiter (and I guess Uranus and Neptune, too) there are some eruptions of cryogenic volcanos; that means the lava is actually very cold; they would erupt liquid methane.
So you see how bacteria would be different on another planet. They would need to adapt to a completely different world. And very likely they would perish on Earth (and the same would be true for terrestrial bacteria on other plantes!)

And I think you can actually understand how much organisms depend on external conditions when you consider quite catastrophic phenomena like a meteorite collision.
When something like that occurs, the conditions of the environment change quite sharply: temperature in particular.
And if the bacteria can survive through this catastrophe, then they need to adjust their levels a little bit to be able to live well at the new temperature, without it affecting their biological functions and activities.

I'm a PBS geek and growing up I'd watch all the Nova and Nature programs I could, but just to prove how eager life is to take hold under the right conditions... we're living in earth 2.0 essentially a planet that formed after the planetary collision that gave us the moon. I recall that it's widely accepted that the previous version of life on earth also is thought to have life... I can't recall now how it was theorized but I think there were actually portions of the planet that radiocarbon dated older than 4 billion years and had evidence of life.

[The Immortal Dragon]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

On a similar note, did life on earth have to adapt the environment, did that bacteria or even something pre-bacterial have to process the watermasses and atmosphere before it could evolve past a certain point?

Well.. I'll give you my opinion as an astrophysicists. If you really want to be sure, or you are not satisfied by my answer, ask a geologist

I think that is what happened. I think bacteria had to adapt to the environment.
What I think roughly happens is that life forms when the right conditions for the place you're in occur.
Obviously what we know is what happened on our planet.
But perhaps the same conditions that occured on Earth at the point when life began wouldn't be the right conditions to generate life on another planet.
Maybe the planet wouldn't have a percentage of O2 high enough to sustain life through the exact same conditions. Or maybe other things, like gases present in the atmosphere, composition of the soil, phenomena like vulcanic eruptions or winds. For instance, on some moons of Saturn and Jupiter (and I guess Uranus and Neptune, too) there are some eruptions of cryogenic volcanos; that means the lava is actually very cold; they would erupt liquid methane.
So you see how bacteria would be different on another planet. They would need to adapt to a completely different world. And very likely they would perish on Earth (and the same would be true for terrestrial bacteria on other plantes!)

And I think you can actually understand how much organisms depend on external conditions when you consider quite catastrophic phenomena like a meteorite collision.
When something like that occurs, the conditions of the environment change quite sharply: temperature in particular.
And if the bacteria can survive through this catastrophe, then they need to adjust their levels a little bit to be able to live well at the new temperature, without it affecting their biological functions and activities.

I'm a PBS geek and growing up I'd watch all the Nova and Nature programs I could, but just to prove how eager life is to take hold under the right conditions... we're living in earth 2.0 essentially a planet that formed after the planetary collision that gave us the moon. I recall that it's widely accepted that the previous version of life on earth also is thought to have life... I can't recall now how it was theorized but I think there were actually portions of the planet that radiocarbon dated older than 4 billion years and had evidence of life.

It is very likely that's what happened, yes.
Obviously a meteorite collision is a catastrophic thing when the meteor is small, just try to imagine the energy released by the meteorite in order to form so many debris to later form the Moon!
And imagine how big that meteorite actually was!
Amazing stuff

[darwin dali]

so.. this is my field, me being an astrophysicist.

It's interesting news, but nowadays we get this sort of discoveries quite "often".
There are billions (of billions) of planets out there, and surely on at least one of them there is some form of life.
However, the public tends to get very excited about those exoplanets; more than they should.
Although they are an important discovery and represent a tiny step forward in the understanding of the Universe and its dynamics, the probability that organisms that will communicate to us (or try) will be found is close to zero.
If we do find life, which is undoubtely there somewhere, it will almost surely be just "boring" bacteria.
I say "boring" because they would be boring for the public, because they are not green beings that drive spaceships that travel faster than the speed of light, but they will be the most interesting thing ever for biologists.
Just imagine.. bacteria formed in a different galaxy (or maybe still the Milky Way), in a different solar system, with a different star shining upon the planet, with a different atmosphere to which they had to adapt and maybe also adapted to some other property of the planet still unknown to us..

On a similar note, did life on earth have to adapt the environment, did that bacteria or even something pre-bacterial have to process the watermasses and atmosphere before it could evolve past a certain point?

Yes!

First Atmosphere

* Composition - Probably H2, He
* These gases are relatively rare on Earth compared to other places in the universe and were probably lost to space early in Earth's history because
o Earth's gravity is not strong enough to hold lighter gases
o Earth still did not have a differentiated core (solid inner/liquid outer core) which creates Earth's magnetic field (magnetosphere = Van Allen Belt) which deflects solar winds.
* Once the core differentiated the heavier gases could be retained

Second Atmosphere
Produced by volcanic out gassing.

* Gases produced were probably similar to those created by modern volcanoes (H2O, CO2, SO2, CO, S2, Cl2, N2, H2) and NH3 (ammonia) and CH4 (methane)
* No free O2 at this time (not found in volcanic gases).

* Ocean Formation - As the Earth cooled, H2O produced by out gassing could exist as liquid in the Early Archean, allowing oceans to form.
o Evidence - pillow basalts, deep marine seds in greenstone belts.

Addition of O2 to the Atmosphere
Today, the atmosphere is ~21% free oxygen. How did oxygen reach these levels in the atmosphere?

* Oxygen Production
o Photochemical dissociation - breakup of water molecules by ultraviolet
+ Produced O2 levels approx. 1-2% current levels
+ At these levels O3 (Ozone) can form to shield Earth surface from UV
o Photosynthesis - CO2 + H2O + sunlight = organic compounds + O2 - produced by cyanobacteria, and eventually higher plants - supplied the rest of O2 to atmosphere. Thus plant populations
* Oxygen Consumers
o Chemical Weathering - through oxidation of surface materials (early consumer)
o Animal Respiration (much later)
o Burning of Fossil Fuels (much, much later)

Throughout the Archean there was little to no free oxygen in the atmosphere (<1% of presence levels). What little was produced by cyanobacteria, was probably consumed by the weathering process. Once rocks at the surface were sufficiently oxidized, more oxygen could remain free in the atmosphere.

During the Proterozoic the amount of free O2 in the atmosphere rose from 1 - 10 %. Most of this was released by cyanobacteria, which increase in abundance in the fossil record 2.3 Ga. Present levels of O2 were probably not achieved until ~400 Ma.

Evidence from the Rock Record

* Iron (Fe) i s extremely reactive with oxygen. If we look at the oxidation state of Fe in the rock record, we can infer a great deal about atmospheric evolution.
* Archean - Find occurrence of minerals that only form in non-oxidizing environments in Archean sediments: Pyrite (Fools gold; FeS2), Uraninite (UO2). These minerals are easily dissolved out of rocks under present atmospheric conditions.
* Banded Iron Formation (BIF) - Deep water deposits in which layers of iron-rich minerals alternate with iron-poor layers, primarily chert. Iron minerals include iron oxide, iron carbonate, iron silicate, iron sulfide. BIF's are a major source of iron ore, b/c they contain magnetite (Fe3O4) which has a higher iron-to-oxygen ratio than hematite. These are common in rocks 2.0 - 2.8 B.y. old, but do not form today.
* Red beds (continental siliciclastic deposits) are never found in rocks older than 2.3 B. y., but are common during Phanerozoic time. Red beds are red because of the highly oxidized mineral hematite (Fe2O3), that probably forms secondarily by oxidation of other Fe minerals that have accumulated in the sediment.

Conclusion - amount of O2 in the atmosphere has increased with time.

Biological Evidence

* Chemical building blocks of life could not have formed in the presence of atmospheric oxygen. Chemical reactions that yield amino acids are inhibited by presence of very small amounts of oxygen.
* Oxygen prevents growth of the most primitive living bacteria such as photosynthetic bacteria, methane-producing bacteria and bacteria that derive energy from fermentation. Conclustion - Since today's most primitive life forms are anaerobic, the first forms of cellular life probably had similar metabolisms.
* Today these anaerobic life forms are restricted to anoxic (low oxygen) habitats such as swamps, ponds, and lagoons.

[What's Burning?]

DAMN DD... It was a long enough post that I had to take a bathroom break in the middle of it!

so many coincidences to make life happen, it almost seems as if those seemingly chaotic random occurrences were "created" in some way.

[darwin dali]

DAMN DD... It was a long enough post that I had to take a bathroom break in the middle of it!

so many coincidences to make life happen, it almost seems as if those seemingly chaotic random occurrences were "created" in some way.

Take better care of your prostate - it's the only one your creator gave you

[What's Burning?]

DAMN DD... It was a long enough post that I had to take a bathroom break in the middle of it!

so many coincidences to make life happen, it almost seems as if those seemingly chaotic random occurrences were "created" in some way.

Take better care of your prostate - it's the only one your creator gave you

Just had it photographed a few months ago... wannaseethepics?

[darwin dali]

DAMN DD... It was a long enough post that I had to take a bathroom break in the middle of it!

so many coincidences to make life happen, it almost seems as if those seemingly chaotic random occurrences were "created" in some way.

Take better care of your prostate - it's the only one your creator gave you

Just had it photographed a few months ago... wannaseethepics?

No, thank you very much...

[Fred_C_Dobbs]

...Scientists have tried many times to artificially reinact the start of life, and they just can't do it....

Haven't yet does not equal can't ...eventually. Thomas Edison tried 6000 different filament materials before he perfected the incandescent light bulb, and the creation of life is a bit more complicated than a light bulb.

Forty years ago, in vitro fertilization was a "can't." Science have developed countless protocols for manipulating gene sequences, including quite recently the successful creation of synthetic DNA. I reckon the rest is simply a matter of time.

But I suspect this will forever remain a mystery. The vast majority of the universe has been sterilized by gamma ray bursts. Life as we know it only can develop in the so-called "Goldilocks belt," where temperatures are moderate enough for liquid water to exist both day and night. That leaves only the tiniest fraction of the universe where life has any possibility of taking hold. Add to that the improbability factor that darwin dali cited and the odds could come down to one in a gazillion, with our planet being the one.

I for one am waiting with baited breath for the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything to be answered by the Large Hadron Collider. What was there before the Big Bang? And, no, the answer isnot 42.

[What's Burning?]

There were more than 6000. He actually tried over 6000 just natural plant type materials before settling on carbonized bamboo... eventually over 50,000 types of materials were used before others came up with tungsten!!!!

Fifty thousand attempts, thankfully they weren't easily discouraged.