Life Will Be Found First...

[gene]

"Argh' date=' likelihood mangling detected."

 

Just because no one has never seen a silicon based lifeform, or even proved that it's actually possible, doesn't mean there isn't a huge colony of silicon based spacemen on Europa.

 

Usually I prefer -hoods not mangled though. Especially manhoods and Robin Hoods.[/quote']

 

What are silicon based lifeform? they live on silicon?

 

Actually i guess jupiter herself would have lifeform. there's a big ocean underneath.

[gene]

If you all take notice, no one votes for venus. I know that it might be too hot or anything to survive there, what about its atmosphere? it looks like good breeding ground for microbes.

[Tetrahedrite]

What are silicon based lifeform? they live on silicon?

 

Actually i guess jupiter herself would have lifeform. there's a big ocean underneath.

 

Silicon based life are hypothetical living things in which Si chains makes up the building blocks of life rather than Carbon chains. You will notice that Si occurs directly below C on the periodic table, which means they share many of the same characteristics, the most important of which are a valence of 4+ and the ability to "polymerise". The main problem with this theory is that metabolism, as we know know it, would be extremely hard with Si based compounds (mostly because of the anomalous stability of the network structure in quartz, SiO2). At normal temperatures and pressures SiO2 cannot be reversible polymerised.

[gene]

Some any element that is at the same group of carbon, is capable of being the building blocks of life. cool.

 

But, i suppose it is only a theory. not really proven. yeah?

[Tetrahedrite]

Some any element that is at the same group of carbon' date=' is capable of being the building blocks of life. cool.

 

But, i suppose it is only a theory. not really proven. yeah?[/quote']

 

Silicon is the only other conceivable one, as the abundances of Ge, Sn and Pb are much lower in the universe than Si, and at any rate the chemical properties of these elements change as well

[Sayonara]

If you all take notice, no one votes for venus. I know that it might be too hot or anything to survive there, what about its atmosphere? it looks like good breeding ground for microbes.

That's why it's in the poll.

 

Perhaps people just don't think we will be able to detect such life very easily.

[YT2095]

probably coupled with the fact that every single probe sent to venus has been destroyed, with the exception of a Russian probe, and that lasted about long enough to have a cup of tea

[Gilded]

"Actually i guess jupiter herself would have lifeform. there's a big ocean underneath."

 

Yeah, of liquid hydrogen presumably! And metallic hydrogen under that. Bloody awful pressure there. "No thanks", says any lifeform, carbon-based or not.

[Sayonara]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3746583.stm

[YT2095]

actualy in defense of Venus (ruined space probes aside), a sulphuric acid medium that contains life isn`t Unknown on our own planet!

 

Yellow Stone national park has hot water springs of sulphuric acid, and life seems to do quite well in that

 

I imagine the name "Yellow Stone" comes from Sulpher and it`s elemental appearance?

[MadScientist]

I think it just depends which planetary body we send the right equipment to first.

If they send a Lada (no offence intended ) to Mars it's obviously not going to detect life even though it may exist there. If we send a proper probe to Venus we might detect it there...

So IMO it's down to the tech-heads at Nasa and whichever body they get the right equipment to first.

 

 

As for Europa, AFAIKnow I don't think they've actually proved that it's only the surface that's frozen water with liquid water beneath it. They're only theorising that the gravitational pull is causing enough friction inside to heat it up. Or am I wrong??

 

 

And as for water being a prerequisite for life, correct me if I'm wrong but...

Life on Earth started with amino acids in the water getting heated up by the release of thermal energy from the oceans floor. Wasn't that just a chemical reaction that fused the correct elements together to form proteins which later formed microbes??

So other liquids or perhaps even gasses could be used for the same process, couldn't they??

 

And silicon based life, doesn't cellular life just need several unique qualities. Like elements to form cells or elements to conduct electric currents for thinking with or using as a nervous system??

[gene]

well, i have quite a werid idea that the life-forms that we find may not be exactly "alive". they sort of hibernate, and when suitable conditions sets in or after certain time periods, they would start "hatching".

[MolecularMan14]

Im not insisting that we will find life on Europa, however, out of those, it has the highest possibility. with a possible liquid surface, and a warm core (with volcanic activity), it might have the resources for life to exist. But then again...that's still a far stretch

[Severian]

I voted: outside the solar system. I suspect that creation events are actually rather rare (since all life on Earth seems to be evolved from the same creation event (or maybe 2, if you believe some of the wilder ideas), so it probably needs somewhere to have a pretty good environment not to kill off the life very quickly. I don't see that nice environment anywhere in this solar system other than Earth.

[TimeTraveler]

Another thing about Titan is, it has water, but it is frozen, if it has something on its surface warm enough melt ice in certain spots then life could definatly be possible, its just a matter of the ice melting and not being refrozen. So it would have to be an region with alot of volcananic activity, which they think they have found a volcano that is actually spewing out molten ice instead of lava. This could very well sustain life, but its only temporary.

 

Here is the story: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-110904.html

 

On a side note, Titan so far looks like the best place in our solar system to start terraforming. It already has the atmosphere so it just needs to be warmed. unlike Mars where we have to wait hundred of years for an atmosphere to form if we melted the polar caps. Now we just need to figure out how do make it cost effective.

[psi20]

Question: I saw on a Nova special of Origins about Mars once having water, but Mars' inner core cooled down so much it could not generate the shield against the Sun's solar rays. So it goes.

 

But how far can the solar rays penetrate down into? Do these rays, for example, go deeper than 10 miles under? If not, I expect that there may be carbon-based life on that planet that evolved so that animals living underground exist. Like the writer who wrote 20k Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne?) imagined Earth's innards would be like, Mars might have layers of life.

 

Europa would be my second guess. Why? All the points are mentioned already, but another reason why we'd find life on Europa is because, as of right now, 40 % of this poll believe it will be. We all are creating the future. If you think we'll find life on Europa, we'll send objects/people/etc. there to find life before we go elsewhere out of the solar system. I just think we'll find life on Mars first because it's closer and about 20% of the poll think so.

[Rasori]

I guess I'll be the first to venture a guess at Venus. Granted, we have little luck in getting probes there, and for whatever reason we seem more interested in Mars, but Venus has oft been called the "Sister Planet" to Earth. It's closer than Europa, and it's been agreed (including in articles mentioned in this thread) that life is possible on Venus.

 

Plus, I don't like following the group, unless they're doing something REALLY smart... like not jumping off a bridge.

 

Oh, and I like the point that was made earlier, that life on Earth may be from particles flung to us from elsewhere. But then, I like the idea of humans not being native to this planet, so feel free to disregard this stuff

[slickinfinit]

I strongly believe europa if life can evolve here to use photochemical reaction to sustain a eco system here near very harsh conditions then if europa has a stable thermodynamic sub-aquatic realm (giant ocean) it would be very easy to take hold and would be an awsome sight.To find e.t in deep space would take time and luck cause we dont know now where or when to look. Mars might have had life but science tells that it most likely had a brief stable atmospere, water but now suffers from extreme climate change and very little if no atmospere.

[Radical Edward]

I'd say outside the solar system. If it is found on Europa (not likely titan as it's too cold) or remnants on mars or whatever, then I expect it will be the result of panspermia from earth, or perhaps less likely, earth was seeded from one of those plants/moons, and hence the fundamentals of that life will be essentially the same. Of course, the seeding life could have been a pre-DNA or early DNA life, which would be interesting. Still I doubt it will be found in our solar system.

[Gilded]

"I suspect that creation events are actually rather rare"

 

Yeah, abiogenesis isn't equal to water + proper compounds. Lots of other factors involved too. But the possibilities of abnormal (compared to Earth) carbon creatures or even Si-based lifeforms brighten the odds a bit. Perhaps some people think it's naiive to think that our solar system has other life, but it's certainly naiive to think that any other planet in the universe doesn't have life.

[YT2095]

here`s a question for ya.

 

If life WERE to be found on Europa, would they be called Europeans?

[Radical Edward]

here`s a question for ya.

 

If life WERE to be found on Europa' date=' would they be called Europeans?[/quote']

 

it would have to be very degenerate life if it were to qualify.

 

 

(the consensus is that they would be called Europans, sorry to spoil the party )

[YT2095]

Don`t appologise, I`m sure they wouldn`t want the same slur on their little heads (or whatever they have) either.

 

just Imagine, first contact, words from Earth " Belgium OWNS YOU!" (

[Gilded]

Heh. If they find some sort of single-celled organisms on for example Mars, I'm not going to call them Martians. >:/

 

Btw, how likely do you keep the fact that another planet than Earth in the solar system has developed multicelled organisms?

[YT2095]

if there`s multi-cellular life in Croyden and Milton Keynes, the rest of the universe should be a doddle