Life on other planets?

Galvasean

Saw an article on National geographic about possible 'great lakes' on one of Jupiter's moons (Europa).
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111116-lake-europa-jupiter-moons-earth-space-science-nasa/?source=hp_dl2_news_europa20111121

It got me wondering what sort of hope would you guys have in finding even very primitive lifeforms on another planet?

PS: I'd like to keep this as strictly Zoology as possible, ie: not, "Aliens abducted me and put things up my bum!" if that's possible.

Mickeroo

I would think its going to happen at some point, although it will most likely be a micro-organism of some sort, certainly if it is to happen in our own solar system. Earlier this year there was new evidence for liquid water on mars, so these are pretty exciting times.

Who knows what ice moons like Europa could hide under their surface though! There was a very good Stephen Hawking documentary series called into the universe on the discovery channel in the last year and one episode was on extraterrestrial life. He went through a few scenarios of how life could evolve in environments unlike earths and came up with some pretty inventive organisms, such as on an ice planet there could be animals but they have to move extremely slow in order to conserve their body heat, on gas giants he described baloon like organisms that floated around.

THere was one ice moon that captured my imagination called Enceladus which orbits Saturn. Scientists observed a large plume or geyser spraying out from one side of it, they figured out that it is most likely water, this means that beneath the icey surface of the planet there must be a liquid ocean and for that to be the case there has to be a heat source which makes the potential for life very promising indeed! Hawking put forward the hypothesis that the heat is due to the moon's orbit around saturn which is eliptical(I think) and the huge graviaional pull from jupiter would cause the planet to constantly expand and contract thereby generating heat within. If there is life under the surface of an icey moon like Europa or Enceladus then I would imagine bio-luminescence(which was shown in the hawking show) and echo-location would play a large role in the lives of an organisms there.

Of course this is all pure speculation and highly unlikely of course, would be interested what some of the other folks on here think too.

Sid_Justice

To be honest I don't really know much about planetary science, astronomy or xenobiology/astrobiology.

I don't think there is any life of any sort on any other planet in our solar system. I don't think there ever has been or there ever will be.

However, I am very open to the idea that there are billions of different galaxies, containing billions of planets. In one such galaxy, there may be a sun in a similar state of development to our own, orbiting this sun must be some planets that are not completely unlike our own. Thus, I believe there is a very strong probability another hospitable planet exists, and if does, it will have life on it. Perhaps not right now, perhaps in the past or in the future.

This needs to be put into two contexts, the transient temporal side, and the massive distance. If there was sentient intelligent life on a planet a billion light years away we would never be able to communicate with it. Secondly, if we ignore the mathematical probabilities of hospitable planets existing and just presume they do, we have to take into the fact what are the chances of that life being 'in time' with ours.

Stepping into the realm of science fiction, imagine an alien explorer visited the earth a million years ago, or a a billion years ago. They would have said "oh this looks like a nice place, but all it's got is very basic organisms (billion years ago) let's keep looking.

Finally, when we think about hospitable planets and astrobiology we work from the presumption that alien life would presumably need the same conditions earth has to allow life to create and prosper. Again, I am open to the idea of turning this presumption on its head and saying why can't life (completely unlike anything here including non-carbon based or geothermal colonising bacteria) and saying why can't life exist on a planet with a surface temperature of 10000 degree kelvin and 0% oxygen and 0% Carbon dioxide.

But that is all pure hypothetical stuff.

Galvasean

This planet looks nice. I wonder does anything live there?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111205-earthlike-planet-confirmed-life-nasa-kepler-habitable-space-science/?source=hp_dl1_news_earthlike20111207

Mickeroo

Galvasean wrote: »

This planet looks nice. I wonder does anything live there?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111205-earthlike-planet-confirmed-life-nasa-kepler-habitable-space-science/?source=hp_dl1_news_earthlike20111207

Thats a pretty astonishing find considering the supposed likelyhood of planets just happening to be in the goldilocks zone is pretty slim. 600 light years ain't all that far either, they should get a probe heading out that way asap!

Adam Khor

Mickeroo wrote: »

Thats a pretty astonishing find considering the supposed likelyhood of planets just happening to be in the goldilocks zone is pretty slim. 600 light years ain't all that far either, they should get a probe heading out that way asap!

I say, forget about life in other planets and use the money they invest on pointless space stuff to try and preserve the life in our own world :mad:

Mickeroo

Adam Khor wrote: »

I say, forget about life in other planets and use the money they invest on pointless space stuff to try and preserve the life in our own world :mad:

I couldn't disagree more. Its probably a debate for another forum however so I'll just leave this here.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwOlk6HIVc