Ice locked aliens

[Outrider]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/why-haven-t-we-had-alien-contact-blame-icy-ocean-worlds

 

Quote

Might ET be buried under too much ice to phone Earth? That’s what planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, has concluded may be delaying our contact with alien civilizations. Most extraterrestrial creatures are likely deep inside their home planets, in subsurface oceans crusted over in frozen water ice, according to a new proposal at this year's American Astronomy Society Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Provo, Utah. The hypothesis could explain the lack of signals from other technologically advanced civilizations, a conundrum known as the Fermi paradox.

Just an interesting (to me) thought.

[Silvestru]

Interesting theory. I never imagined intelligent aliens as aquatic creatures before.

Finally I'm reading about some interesting fantasy with some scientific arguments at it's roots.

[dimreepr]

I have no problem imagining an aquatic creature being intelligent, we have plenty of examples here on Earth, however, I can't imagine how such a creature could develop a technology.

[DrP]

I have often thought that the first life forms we encounter on another planet would be / could be sharks or marine life  -  sharks in particular. Sharks dominated our oceans for millions of years and are still the apex predators in the seas. We see many cases of convergent evolution here on our own planet, so I would assume that sea creatures on other planets would evolve in a similar fashion to life here. I think there would be animals that are similar to our shark on a life filled aquatic world.

13 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

 I can't imagine how such a creature could develop a technology.

yea, early life evolutionary drivers for marine life would favour things like gills and fins and tails and other things that promote strength for survival in a marine environment. Even if they then become intelligent it is hard to see how their bodies would evolve the fingers or limbs necessary to develop technology.

There was an intelligent aquatic race of Xindi in the Star Trek Enterprise series...   I always though it a little far fetched, even for Star Trek, lol.  

 

[Outrider]

5 hours ago, DrP said:

There was an intelligent aquatic race of Xindi in the Star Trek Enterprise series...   I always though it a little far fetched, even for Star Trek, lol.  

And Star Wars episode two had the water planet of Kamino also rather far fetched but still an interesting concept IMO .

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kamino

Quote

Kamino (pronounced /kə'minoʊ/) was an aquatic planet located in an extragalactic star system that straggled south of the Rishi Maze. It was inhabited by the Kaminoans—a race of tall, elegant beings who were regarded as a mysterious species that tended to keep to themselves. They were also known for their cloning technology which ultimately led to the creation of a clone army for the Galactic Republic.

Also it didn't really work if you thought about it to hard but still overall I liked it. 

9 hours ago, Silvestru said:

Interesting theory. I never imagined intelligent aliens as aquatic creatures before.

Finally I'm reading about some interesting fantasy with some scientific arguments at it's roots.

If you are into sci-fi at all see if you can find the movie Europa Report. It's about a manned mission to the ice locked moon of Jupiter. I thought the science was fairly realistic and perhaps one day man will land on Europa. 

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2051879/

[DrP]

13 hours ago, Outrider said:

And Star Wars episode two had the water planet of Kamino also rather far fetched but still an interesting concept IMO .

Yea - but that was less so  -  at least they were not literally fish people like they were in Star Trek, lol.  They lived above the water in cities built on stilts. Who knows if they were native to that planet or not. The Aquatic Xindi had to swim about in fish tanks built into their space ships... it was totally ridiculous.

(*Dr P eats his hat when our first alien contact on earth turns out to be with fish people from outer space).

 

13 hours ago, Outrider said:

If you are into sci-fi at all see if you can find the movie Europa Report. It's about a manned mission to the ice locked moon of Jupiter. I thought the science was fairly realistic and perhaps one day man will land on Europa. 

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2051879/

and if you are really lucky they will land on Uranus. ;-) lol

[Silvestru]

16 minutes ago, DrP said:

(*Dr P eats his hat when our first alien contact on earth turns out to be with fish people from outer space).

Ahaha DrP, if we discover fish people on other planets within our lifetime (I assume you are in your late 20's early 30's) you have to post a video on the forum with you eating a hat.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Silvestru

[DrP]

18 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

Ahaha DrP, if we discover fish people on other planets within our lifetime (I assume you are in your late 20's early 30's) you have to post a video on the forum with you eating a hat.

haha - no - I'll eat it if they come here to earth in space ships full of water. I still think we will find sharks somewhere else....  maybe not in our lifetime though.

 

20 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

 (I assume you are in your late 20's early 30's)

Most people assume that from my boyish good looks...  but I am older than that, lol.

 

[Moontanman]

6 hours ago, DrP said:

haha - no - I'll eat it if they come here to earth in space ships full of water. I still think we will find sharks somewhere else....  maybe not in our lifetime though.

 

Most people assume that from my boyish good looks...  but I am older than that, lol.

 

 We will not find any of Earth's animals or plants anyplace else due to their ecosystem and evolutionary history being totally unconnected to ours. Sharks are such highly derived animals I would think the chances of finding them would be similar to finding humans on another planet.. 

[DrP]

2 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

 We will not find any of Earth's animals or plants anyplace else due to their ecosystem and evolutionary history being totally unconnected to ours. Sharks are such highly derived animals I would think the chances of finding them would be similar to finding humans on another planet.. 

Humans, I agree with. I'm not so sure about the shark though. It wouldn't be a shark exactly but shark like. If there is water then best shapes for swimming are for that of the sharks, fish and dolphins...  we have seen convergent evolution happen before on earth  - the ichthyosaur and the dolphin for example. Sharks have been around for millions of years have changed very little (Other than in size...  and probably a few other things) - they are pretty optimised for their environment, so I would expect to see the same result of optimisation through evolution anywhere in the universe where there are similar conditions to here to yield shark like creatures.

I agree though - humans are more complex -much more complex and a series of certain events and extinctions had to take place to allow the small mammals to evolve safely. They wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. The fish though...  they became what they did a long time ago and given similar environments I would expect fish like creatures. Who knows what would evolve on a planet similar to earth...  dinosaurs I suppose?  It would depend on the number of mass extinctions and the requirements of life on the individual planet as you pointed out.

 

[dimreepr]

11 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

 We will not find any of Earth's animals or plants anyplace else due to their ecosystem and evolutionary history being totally unconnected to ours. Sharks are such highly derived animals I would think the chances of finding them would be similar to finding humans on another planet.. 

Why not? Convergent evolution happens here, why not there?

3 minutes ago, DrP said:

Humans, I agree with. I'm not so sure about the shark though. It wouldn't be a shark exactly but shark like. If there is water then best shapes for swimming are for that of the sharks, fish and dolphins...  we have seen convergent evolution happen before on earth  - the ichthyosaur and the dolphin for example. Sharks have been around for millions of years have changed very little (Other than in size...  and probably a few other things) - they are pretty optimised for their environment, so I would expect to see the same result of optimisation through evolution anywhere in the universe where there are similar conditions to here to yield shark like creatures.

I agree though - humans are more complex -much more complex and a series of certain events and extinctions had to take place to allow the small mammals to evolve safely. They wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. The fish though...  they became what they did a long time ago and given similar environments I would expect fish like creatures. Who knows what would evolve on a planet similar to earth...  dinosaurs I suppose?  It would depend on the number of mass extinctions and the requirements of life on the individual planet as you pointed out.

 

Snap.

[DrP]

2 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Why not? Convergent evolution happens here, why not there?

Synchronised posting...  I'd give you +1 for the statement...  but it is exactly my point and being honest, I do not know if I am right or not. We could easily be wrong, but until we know more about life elsewhere off planet then we won't know I suppose  -  seems likely though to me that there would be fish like creatures elsewhere. Humans are a bit special though due to our specific earth history.

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, DrP said:

but it is exactly my point and being honest, I do not know if I am right or not. We could easily be wrong

 

How could we know for sure, except the fact that it has been observed here on Earth and given the limits of physics/chemistry why would we doubt the potential?

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, DrP said:

Humans, I agree with. I'm not so sure about the shark though. It wouldn't be a shark exactly but shark like. If there is water then best shapes for swimming are for that of the sharks, fish and dolphins...  we have seen convergent evolution happen before on earth  - the ichthyosaur and the dolphin for example. Sharks have been around for millions of years have changed very little (Other than in size...  and probably a few other things) - they are pretty optimised for their environment, so I would expect to see the same result of optimisation through evolution anywhere in the universe where there are similar conditions to here to yield shark like creatures.

I agree though - humans are more complex -much more complex and a series of certain events and extinctions had to take place to allow the small mammals to evolve safely. They wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. The fish though...  they became what they did a long time ago and given similar environments I would expect fish like creatures. Who knows what would evolve on a planet similar to earth...  dinosaurs I suppose?  It would depend on the number of mass extinctions and the requirements of life on the individual planet as you pointed out.

 

 

59 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

How could we know for sure, except the fact that it has been observed here on Earth and given the limits of physics/chemistry why would we doubt the potential?

 

Really guys? Sharks are defined by their shape? Really? It wouldn't have taken very much for there not to be vertebrates at all much less Sharks. Are you aware of all the really odd fish that have evolved and gone extinct? A fish shape? Shure, but anything we would call a shark? No way! Would you call a ichthyosaur a dolphin?   Would you call a seal or sea lion a shark? How about a manatee or dugong? Would you call a bat a bird? or a pterosaur a bird? 

Edited October 24, 2017 by Moontanman

[dimreepr]

11 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

 

 

Really guys? Sharks are defined by their shape? Really? It wouldn't have taken very much for there not to be vertebrates at all much less Sharks. Are you aware of all the really odd fish that have evolved and gone extinct? A fish shape? Shure, but anything we would call a shark? No way! Would you call a ichthyosaur a dolphin?   Would you call a seal or sea lion a shark? How about a manatee or dugong? Would you call a bat a bird? or a pterosaur a bird? 

My point is that koalas and humans have very similar fingerprints for very similar reasons, convergent evolution, Body shape in aquatic animals may share a similar shape for similar reasons but they aren't defined by it any more than a human is cute and cuddly.

[DrP]

4 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Really guys? Sharks are defined by their shape? Really? It wouldn't have taken very much for there not to be vertebrates at all much less Sharks. Are you aware of all the really odd fish that have evolved and gone extinct? A fish shape? Shure, but anything we would call a shark? No way! Would you call a ichthyosaur a dolphin?   Would you call a seal or sea lion a shark? How about a manatee or dugong? Would you call a bat a bird? or a pterosaur a bird? 

.You are probably right. An ichthyosaur, a dolphin and a marlin or tuna are all fish shaped though, even though one is a fish one is a reptile and one is a mammal. Convergent evolution in a marine environment. Perhaps I am reading too much into the fact that they are all vertebrates and marine animals though. There is a wide diversity of other life forms. The whole evolutionary process is probably so sensitive anyway - it took billions of years for the early life to form and anything could have popped up. Who knows what would have happened without the mass extinction events or if the earliest micro organisms had formed slightly differently. Convergent evolution though suggests that similar advantages might have been selected though.

Sorry I am waffling again - thus my edit...  I wrote several paragraphs of speculative waffle which didn't really go anywhere and I am no expert so I cut it.   There is such a wide variety of life forms that have evolved that it would be hard to speculate on what would be most likely if anything at all. Would be interesting to know what would have happened to the dominant early life forms if catastrophic extinction causing events hadn't wiped them out. They would have had a lot longer to evolve than us and may have ended up far more advanced/intelligent if they had avoided extinction from things beyond their control. Maybe we are as advanced as we are because the larger more violent species were wiped out. We may not have had a chance otherwise. Who knows?   

 

Edited October 24, 2017 by DrP

[Moontanman]

1 hour ago, DrP said:

.You are probably right. An ichthyosaur, a dolphin and a marlin or tuna are all fish shaped though, even though one is a fish one is a reptile and one is a mammal. Convergent evolution in a marine environment. Perhaps I am reading too much into the fact that they are all vertebrates and marine animals though. There is a wide diversity of other life forms. The whole evolutionary process is probably so sensitive anyway - it took billions of years for the early life to form and anything could have popped up. Who knows what would have happened without the mass extinction events or if the earliest micro organisms had formed slightly differently. Convergent evolution though suggests that similar advantages might have been selected though.

Sorry I am waffling again - thus my edit...  I wrote several paragraphs of speculative waffle which didn't really go anywhere and I am no expert so I cut it.   There is such a wide variety of life forms that have evolved that it would be hard to speculate on what would be most likely if anything at all. Would be interesting to know what would have happened to the dominant early life forms if catastrophic extinction causing events hadn't wiped them out. They would have had a lot longer to evolve than us and may have ended up far more advanced/intelligent if they had avoided extinction from things beyond their control. Maybe we are as advanced as we are because the larger more violent species were wiped out. We may not have had a chance otherwise. Who knows?   

 

 

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

My point is that koalas and humans have very similar fingerprints for very similar reasons, convergent evolution, Body shape in aquatic animals may share a similar shape for similar reasons but they aren't defined by it any more than a human is cute and cuddly.

My point here is that A shark is a highly derived animal. It's not a fish, it has many unique characteristics that make it a shark. No bones, dermal denticles instead of scales, special gill structures, it's teeth, it's sensory organs, not to mention it's reproductive system.  Fish is really no longer used as anything but a colloquial term and is meaningless in classification. A shark is as different from a tuna as a dolphin is from an ichthyosaur. Maybe i am just being pedantic but to expect an animal to evolve on another planet that is anything but similar in shape to Earth life is unreasonable... 

BTW, fingerprints do not make humans and koalas the same in any way. A human is as far removed from a koala as a bird is from a alligator...  

And one more thing, some cephalopods are quite fish like when they are swimming, they morph their body shape to allow them to swim more efficiently.    

Edited October 24, 2017 by Moontanman

[Endy0816]

5 hours ago, Moontanman said:

And one more thing, some cephalopods are quite fish like when they are swimming, they morph their body shape to allow them to swim more efficiently.    

I was thinking something akin to one of those would have a good shot.

Even the simple pufferfish though can create forms in the sand, despite a lack of hands and tentacles. I'd be hesitant to rule any species out entirely. 

I liked Niven's primarily aquatic species in Destiny's Road. More on the realistic side. Primitive but still crafting tools and shaping their environment.

[DrP]

11 hours ago, Moontanman said:

 

My point here is that A shark is a highly derived animal. It's not a fish,  

It is a fish though. One of many types of fish I'll give you, but it is still a fish. When I say we might find sharks (speculation from my backside aside) I mean that we might find big fish shaped predator things with big teeth that eat anything that moves. Why not? It an optimised shape for swimming - like the other 15000 or so species of fish that are around in the seas. It would have to eat and the most vicious with the biggest hardest teeth would evolve through surely? I'm not saying it would be the only thing we find or exactly like a shark even - if life as complex as something akin to a shark or a big predator fish evolved then there probably would be a huge variety of diverse life on that same planet.  

Saying this - If some of the early earth catastrophic evens had not taken place to whip out some earlier life forms then maybe something else would have dominated - but sharks have been the apex marine predators in the seas for hundreds of millions of years.

 

[dimreepr]

15 hours ago, Moontanman said:

BTW, fingerprints do not make humans and koalas the same in any way. 

 

 

Yes, it does, it means they both have very similar/same/indistinguishable fingerprints. Convergent evolution just means that a similar problem has been solved, biologically, in a similar way; Dr-P didn't suggest we'd find a great white on Titan, just that given a similar evolutionary pressure it's reasonable to suppose a similar creature could be found. 

9 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

I was thinking something akin to one of those would have a good shot.

Even the simple pufferfish though can create forms in the sand, despite a lack of hands and tentacles. I'd be hesitant to rule any species out entirely. 

 

 

Whilst it's very impressive, it's far from a technology as described in the OP.

I'm not suggesting it's impossible for an aquatic creature to develop a rudimentary type of tool use, but given the OP there are some obstacles to overcome, fire seems to be the most fundamental.

Edited October 25, 2017 by dimreepr

[Moontanman]

10 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

I was thinking something akin to one of those would have a good shot.

Even the simple pufferfish though can create forms in the sand, despite a lack of hands and tentacles. I'd be hesitant to rule any species out entirely. 

I liked Niven's primarily aquatic species in Destiny's Road. More on the realistic side. Primitive but still crafting tools and shaping their environment.

I agree, on Earth dolphins use objects as tools and so do octopus... 

5 hours ago, DrP said:

It is a fish though. One of many types of fish I'll give you, but it is still a fish. When I say we might find sharks (speculation from my backside aside) I mean that we might find big fish shaped predator things with big teeth that eat anything that moves. Why not? It an optimised shape for swimming - like the other 15000 or so species of fish that are around in the seas. It would have to eat and the most vicious with the biggest hardest teeth would evolve through surely? I'm not saying it would be the only thing we find or exactly like a shark even - if life as complex as something akin to a shark or a big predator fish evolved then there probably would be a huge variety of diverse life on that same planet.  

Saying this - If some of the early earth catastrophic evens had not taken place to whip out some earlier life forms then maybe something else would have dominated - but sharks have been the apex marine predators in the seas for hundreds of millions of years.

 

By your definition, all of these are sharks, yet none are. Big toothy fish shaped predators? Of course. Something that you could call a shark, no way... Are Starfish fish? How about cuttlefish? 

Edited October 25, 2017 by Moontanman

[John Cuthber]

Even in terrestrial biology...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish#Title

 

[Moontanman]

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Even in terrestrial biology...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Such_Thing_as_a_Fish#Title

 

Never heard of that show, I guess it doesn't play here in the states.

[DrP]

17 hours ago, Moontanman said:

 

By your definition, all of these are sharks, yet none are. Big toothy fish shaped predators? Of course. Something that you could call a shark, no way... Are Starfish fish? How about cuttlefish? 

Fish has an exact definition..  A shark IS a fish by definition. A fish is NOT a shark by definition.

That first pic looks like a Dunkleosteus. It's prehistoric and had no teeth - its jaw bones extended into cutting plates beyond the flesh of its mouth...  a bit like teeth (convergent evolution).  The second looks like a gator gar and I do not know what the 3rd specimen is though.  There are over 15000 species of fish.

 

All the examples you gave have fins, gills, a tail, big teeth or bones shaped like teeth.   I confessed earlier that I maybe hadn't thought the statement through enough and that it was very speculative. It would depend on the environments we find, how many extinction events, how the early life started, how long ago it started, what other evolutionary drivers were in place over millions of years on the planet and many many other factors as to what shape life is on other planets...  Of course it was wild speculation to say we might find a shark. Maybe I should have said fish...  it is gives a broader range...  but swimming predator things? Why not....  unless the giant jelly creatures eat them first. Maybe I am not the best person to accurately predict what life will be like on other planets - I am no evolutionary expert at all by self admission.

No one can say what life will look like when/if we find it. I still think fish like beings likely...  I could be wrong - I admit it is speculation and maybe not that thought out.

17 hours ago, Moontanman said:

 Are Starfish fish? How about cuttlefish? 

Starfish, being invertebrates are not fish, no. Cuttlefish are, I think, cephlopds not fish but I could be wrong.

 

Edited October 26, 2017 by DrP

[Moontanman]

6 hours ago, DrP said:

Fish has an exact definition..  A shark IS a fish by definition. A fish is NOT a shark by definition.

That first pic looks like a Dunkleosteus. It's prehistoric and had no teeth - its jaw bones extended into cutting plates beyond the flesh of its mouth...  a bit like teeth (convergent evolution).  The second looks like a gator gar and I do not know what the 3rd specimen is though.  There are over 15000 species of fish.

 

All the examples you gave have fins, gills, a tail, big teeth or bones shaped like teeth.   I confessed earlier that I maybe hadn't thought the statement through enough and that it was very speculative. It would depend on the environments we find, how many extinction events, how the early life started, how long ago it started, what other evolutionary drivers were in place over millions of years on the planet and many many other factors as to what shape life is on other planets...  Of course it was wild speculation to say we might find a shark. Maybe I should have said fish...  it is gives a broader range...  but swimming predator things? Why not....  unless the giant jelly creatures eat them first. Maybe I am not the best person to accurately predict what life will be like on other planets - I am no evolutionary expert at all by self admission.

No one can say what life will look like when/if we find it. I still think fish like beings likely...  I could be wrong - I admit it is speculation and maybe not that thought out.

Starfish, being invertebrates are not fish, no. Cuttlefish are, I think, cephlopds not fish but I could be wrong.

 

My point here is that while sharks are large streamlined predators, a large streamlined predator is not a shark... WE agree on that point. 

The point about Starfish and cuttlefish is that the term fish is meaningless in the classification of life, this is not just me being pedantic, fish is as worthless as reptile as a classification  and science does indeed agree with me! Or to be more precise I am agreeing with science on this... 

But yes we could expect streamlined animals to live in water but to say they could even remotely be classified as "fish" is  quite a stretch. Even back bones is not a given, hence the example of cephalopods swimming like fish and taking on the torpedo shape... 

I just think it is a mistake to assume alien life would resemble earth life in anything but the broadest possible definition... It's difficult to imagine how life on other planets might evolve but a good way to understand is to go back to the fossil record and look at what extinct animals who occupied the same niches as modern life looked like. 

 

If this one little animal had not made it through the cambrian extinction none of the vertebrate aquatic predators we are familiar with would not be here...