tagged w/ life on other planets
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Just came across this amazing image of our universe. really makes you realize just how small we really are... on the good hand this definitely raises my belief in the existence of earth like planets. No way we are alone in this universe.
http://nerdnirvana.org/2010/02/15/earth-in-comparison-with-other-galaxies/Just came across this amazing image of our universe. really makes you realize just how... more
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NASA scientists have discovered evidences of life on Saturn's moon, Titan.
Analyzed data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface breath with a dense atmosphere around the planet and feed with a complex chemistry on the surface of the moon.
"One key finding comes from a paper online now in the journal Icarus that shows hydrogen molecules flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface," NASA website says. "Another paper online now in the Journal of Geophysical Research maps hydrocarbons on the Titan surface and finds a lack of acetylene."
read more:
http://en.rian.ru/science/20100605/159318120.htmlNASA scientists have discovered evidences of life on Saturn's moon, Titan.... more
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bmltv
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added this
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1 year ago
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Part of a scientist's job is to read scientific papers -- lots and lots of scientific papers. You don't just read them: you also skim, peruse, look through, glance at and, occasionally, pore over them. There are just so many papers and just too much else going on. Still, some ideas just stick in your head and, with that in mind, I would like to present my Sort-Of-Best-Unheralded-Scientific-Paper of 2009.
The envelope please ...
People who think about extraterrestrial life have been bothered for a long time by a rather obvious fact: There isn't any here.
This is sometimes called the Fermi Paradox. Its an old conundrum (which may have started with physicist Enrico Fermi) that asks "If space-traveling ETs exist, why aren't they with us already?"
The idea is simple. Start with a civilization that colonizes one world. Then that world colonizes two more planets. Those worlds go on and do their own colonization. Follow this logic and you end up with a very, very rapid expansion of even a single star-faring civilization. Even one ET with space travel can, in a pretty short time, lead to a galaxy teeming with intelligent life.
Little green friends should already, have overrun us.
***article continues at link***
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2009/12/sustainable_aliens_great_ideas.htmlPart of a scientist's job is to read scientific papers -- lots and lots of... more
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A giant waterworld that is wet to its core has been spotted in orbit around a dim but not too distant star, improving the odds that habitable planets may exist in our cosmic neighbourhood.
The planet is nearly three times as large as Earth and made almost entirely of water, forming a global ocean more than 15,000km deep.
Astronomers detected the alien world as it passed in front of its sun, a red dwarf star 40 light years away in a constellation called Ophiuchus, after the Greek for "snake holder".
The discovery, made with a network of amateur telescopes, is being hailed as a major step forward in the search for planets beyond our solar system that are hospitable to life as we know it.
Measurements suggest the planet is shrouded in a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium that blocks visible light from its sun, plunging the watery surface into permanent darkness. The weight of the atmosphere keeps the water liquid despite it being a searing 120C to 282C.
Writing in the journal Nature, David Charbonneau at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics describes how his team used a suite of eight amateur-sized telescopes to spot the planet as it moved across the face of its star, which is less than 0.5% as bright as our own sun.
The telescopes picked up a slight dimming in light from the star as the waterworld, named GJ1214b, passed in front of it every 1.6 days. The planet has a radius 2.7 times as large as the Earth's and orbits at a distance of only two million kilometres from its star. Our own planet circles the sun at an average distance of around 150 million kilometres.A giant waterworld that is wet to its core has been spotted in orbit around a dim but... more
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This is a very small photo of thousands of stars and hundreds ofsolar systems found in this magnificent and incredible universe that we are blessed to live in. The photo was taken by the Hubble telescope. Does anyone with half of a brain want to take shot at try to convince me that we, on Earth, are the only living inhabitants in this great universe?This is a very small photo of thousands of stars and hundreds ofsolar systems found in... more
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Excerpt:
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a computer model to create a synthetic galaxy with billions of stars and planets. They then studied how life evolved under various conditions in this virtual world, using a supercomputer to crunch the results.
In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed. (end)
This type of information can make one feel rather small. Just to think and to ponder about what type of life may be out there leads to all sorts of speculations and ideas.Excerpt:
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a... more
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"A team of researchers today announced another milestone in determining the source of methane on Mars, along with the best next steps to ascertain whether the gas is connected to life or to geologic activity on the Red Planet.
Assuming that the methane is produced by internal processes on Mars, Atreya said that the source could be "geology, in which case it's the reaction between water and rock, or it's biology, in which case the microbes are producing the methane." (Even the former explanation could be intriguing, as Mars is not thought to be very geologically active.) In either case, the discovery of individual methane plumes points to the existence of localized aquifers (water-bearing rock layers) under the surface, he said.
Atreya cautioned that the methane could also be a relic, somehow sequestered and then released, of past processes rather than a marker of activity today."
Much more at link, SCIAM articles are pretty long."A team of researchers today announced another milestone in determining the... more
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If we ever do find extraterrestrial life in the solar system, it's probably much more likely to look like a few cells than a walking-and-talking green man. Nonetheless, finding any kind of life beyond Earth would be extraordinary. Here are our best hopes:
1. Enceladus
The sixth-largest moon of Saturn has been called the most promising bet for life thanks to its welcoming temperature and the likely presence of water and simple organic molecules. The surface of the icy moon is thought to be about 99 percent water ice, with a good chance of liquid water beneath. Observations from the Cassini probe's 2005 flyby of Enceladus suggest the presence of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen — organic molecules thought to be necessary to develop life. And the moon seems to have a boiling core of molten rock that could heat the world to the toasty temperatures needed to give rise to life
2. Europa
Jupiter's moon Europa also seems a possible stomping ground for E.T. due to its potential water and volcanic activity. Though the surface seems to be frozen, many suspect that buried underneath is an ocean of liquid water. Volcanic activity on the moon could provide life-supporting heat, as well as important chemicals needed by living organisms. Microbial life could potentially survive near hydrothermal vents on Europa, as it does on Earth.
3. Mars
As far as planets go, by far the front-runner for life is our next-door neighbor, Mars. The red planet is the most Earth-like of solar system planets, with a comparatively similar size and temperature range as our own planet. Large bodies of water ice lie on Mars' poles, and there's a reasonable chance of liquid water beneath the surface. The puny atmosphere on the planet is not strong enough to shield the planet against lethal solar radiation, though microbes could potentially exist beneath the surface. Evidence also suggests that Mars may have been even more habitable in the past. Geologic features imply that liquid water once flowed across the surface, and volcanic activity, now dead, once flourished, recycling chemicals and minerals between the surface and the interior
. Titan
Saturn's largest moon looks suspiciously like it might have hosted life, because its thick atmosphere is rich in compounds that often mark the presence of living organisms. For instance, Titan's air is filled with methane, which is usually destroyed by sunlight. On Earth, life constantly replenishes methane, so it might similarly be responsible for the methane on Titan. Titan is rather cold, however, and if liquid water exists, it must be deep beneath the frozen surfaceIf we ever do find extraterrestrial life in the solar system, it's probably much... more
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