Life Will Be Found First...

[Sayonara]

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

They are now officially called Marzoids, courtesy of Ziiiiiim.

[slickinfinit]

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

I agree plus we dont even have a clue at the boundries at which life can survive we can speculate but then we see the factors that make life possible change, 50 years ago most of science was certain sunlight and photosynthesis reaction was needed to make life start but we have now found photochemical life and microbacterial organisms in antarctica living and thriving where was once thought impossible. Many other possibilities arise that noone can confirm or deny at this point in time, is non-coporeal life possible or can a mechanical brain be alive, silicon based life even life we cannot imagine.

[mattd]

I vote outside due to the odds.

[Ophiolite]

I maintain my vote for life already having been found on Mars by the Viking landers, as per my Post #4, (http://www.biospherics.com/mars/)and offer the following by way of circumstantial, corroborating evidence.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996669

[Gilded]

"I maintain my vote for life already having been found on Mars by the Viking landers"

 

People can come to all sorts of conclusions they want, but until they show me an actual, living, native Martian micro-organism, I'm not going to believe those "conclusions".

[Ophiolite]

A very proper scientific position, but not nearly as much fun.

[Guest atom]

Life will be found when I create it in a lab.

[5614]

Life will be found when I create it in a lab.

 

care to expand?

 

how? etc.

[Auk]

Although scientists say that there is permafrost on Mars. I still think that the probe on Cassini will find life on Europa.

[Ophiolite]

Although scientists say that there is permafrost on Mars. I still think that the probe on Cassini will find life on Europa.

With your permission I'm submitting this as one of the Top Ten quotes from the Forum. I must be missing something - permafrost on Mars, but despite that ....

This does appear to be a hugh non sequitor (not helped by the misplaced full stop).

And I am intrigued as to how a probe landing on a satellite of Saturn will discover life on a satellite of Jupiter. These NASA boffins are really smart.

 

 

[Just because I'm acting like a bitch today, doesn't mean I am a bitch (or a bastard).]

[ecoli]

I think life with found first on a meteor that has fallen to earth. This form of extra-terrestrial life would probably exist in simpler forms (bacteria or Archeo-Bacteria). This form of life would be the easiest to find, beceasue it doesn't involve the use a spacecraft, people can study the life right on earth more easily then if it was found on another celetial body.

[Auk]

With your permission I'm submitting this as one of the Top Ten quotes from the Forum. I must be missing something - permafrost on Mars' date=' but despite that ....

This does appear to be a hugh [i']non sequitor ([/i]not helped by the misplaced full stop).

And I am intrigued as to how a probe landing on a satellite of Saturn will discover life on a satellite of Jupiter. These NASA boffins are really smart.

 

 

[Just because I'm acting like a bitch today, doesn't mean I am a bitch (or a bastard).]

 

I don't understand what you are doing. Is this something good or bad?

[TimeTraveler]

I don't understand what you are doing. Is this something good or bad?

 

I think he is poking fun. The Cassini orbiter is sending the Huygens probe to Titan a moon of Saturn.

 

Europa is a moon a Jupiter.

[Ophiolite]

TimeTraveller is correct Auk. Please don't take offence, and feel free to poke back. I see I avergae around ten posts a day, so there is plenty of opportunity to find something amusing or just real dumb in my offerings.

But being serious for a moment I really did not understand what connection you were making between permafrost on Mars and the Cassini probe discovering life. Would you clarify please?

[Martin]

I think life with found first on a meteor that has fallen to earth. This form of extra-terrestrial life would probably exist in simpler forms (bacteria or Archeo-Bacteria). This form of life would be the easiest to find, beceasue it doesn't involve the use a spacecraft, people can study the life right on earth more easily then if it was found on another celetial body.

 

 

Hello ecoli, this seems like a reasonable guess to me and I see that you voted in the poll for "Other(please explain)"

 

just to clarify, in this poll folks are always saying "Life" will be found....

when they mean "life of extraterrestrial origin, alien life, will be found..."

Life has already been found, after all.

 

what your response points up, for me, is the possibility

that the first act of finding and recognizing alien life could very likely

take place on earth or else in orbit by robot observatory.

 

With high liklihood, that is, we will find a piece of rock here at home, with signs of alien life (and we may not then be able to tell where it originated) or some alien life will actually find us (which wasnt on the poll list) or we may DETECT signs of alien life using some instruments here at home. In any case the act of identifying alien life may well occur here at home.

 

Assuming society doesnt fall apart through the accumulation of injustice greed and wastefulness or various alternative calamities, I suppose people will continue being curious and funding better and better telescopes. Some of those in the proposal or planning stage are intended for high-resolution sceptroscopy and such instruments will eventually be able to identify the presence of a biosphere (in certain cases) simply by the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

 

I dont know about you, but I dont think focusing on an exclusive search for life is very smart. It may fire the popular imagination, but I would rather see people study extrasolar planets systematically. Sooner or later a telescope will detect a planet with liquid water and an interesting chemistry, if there is one nearby---or some unforeseen anomaly in the atmosphere that no one can see how to explain without postulating some type of life. I am not assuming that life necessarily requires liquid water or would have a carbon-based chemistry. We dont need to speculate ahead of time about that. I am simply saying find an extrasolar planet with unusual chemical signs, and unexpected atmospheric composition, and then try to explain it: dont go looking for one preconceived thing and construct elaborate speculative theories in advance, just make a careful in-depth study of the extrasolar planets and see what turns up.

 

I havent voted in the poll because i dont see how anyone can second guess nature on this one. if I had to choose I'd probably guess outside the solar system, by some type of telescope----interferometer, synthetic aperture, spectroscopy, maybe wavelengths out of the visible----just a wild guess.

Anybody here know much about such things, cause i dont.

[Ophiolite]

if I had to choose I'd probably guess outside the solar system' date=' by some type of telescope----interferometer, synthetic aperture, spectroscopy, maybe wavelengths out of the visible----just a wild guess.

Anybody here know much about such things, cause i dont.[/quote']We are within years of being able to carry out a spectroscopic analysis of terrestrial sized planets around nearby stars. This will enable us to identify oxygen if present in quantity in their atmospheres. Currently the only plausible explanation for that would be life as we know it.

[Martin]

We are within years of being able to carry out a spectroscopic analysis of terrestrial sized planets around nearby stars. This will enable us to identify oxygen if present in quantity in their atmospheres. Currently the only plausible explanation for that would be life as we know it[/i'].

 

yes

 

thanks for the confirmation with additional clarity

 

I have forgotten the names of the instruments which are to be put in orbit.

 

Do you remember any more detail.

 

I believe it will be a landmark in human history, in our lifetimes if all goes well, when people can scope terrestrial-size and do enough spectroscopy to detect oxygen if it is present

 

the instruments I was reading about a couple of years ago used

interferometry and one was even in orbit around the sun, at a lagrange point maybe, instead of being in orbit around the earth

[Ophiolite]

Martin,

I don't recall the details as I read them around one year ago. There are four or five techniques now available for locating exo-planets. I was more focused on the results, current and projected, than the methodology. I'm going on a search just now. If I find links I'll post here as an edit.

From http://www.markelowitz.com/exobiology.htm

 

 

Using large space-based telescopes (>10-meter) Astronomers could search for terrestrial planets with atmospheres suitable for life as we know it. Spectroscopy could be used to detect the presence of Ozone, an indicator of oxygen in the atmosphere as well as water bands. Methane produced as a result of biogenic activity could be searched for using the same methods.

 

Using telescopes in Earth orbit planets could be searched for using direct detection methods. Stellar coronagraphs can be used to supress the light from the planet's parent star making detection easier. There is a higher probability of detecting planetary companions around nearby stars in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is due to the fact that the star to planet flux ratio is less in this region of the spectrum than in the visible. To separate a planetary companion from its primary stellar halo, one must use a telescope (or array of telescopes) with an aperture (or baseline) B such that r/D is greater than or equal to the wavelength at which the observation is being carried out divided by the aperture (or baseline) of the telescope (or array of telescopes).

 

There is bound to be more buried here:

http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/encycl.html

 

This month's National Geographic (December) has an article on finding exo-planets.

[Martin]

...

 

There is bound to be more buried here:

http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/encycl.html

 

This month's National Geographic (December) has an article on finding exo-planets.

 

I will look out for the December National Geographic.

The "Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia" that you gave the link for is a good resource.

 

One mission I was thinking of is SIM' date=' which was scheduled for 2009 launch.

It will be a shame if it is delayed or canceled because cowboy heroics saps funds from unmanned science missions. The shift in priorities could torpedo good science and cause a lot of heartbreak.

 

However let's assume that SIM (Space Interferometry Mission) does continue. It is intended for the trailing Lagrange point. so it will go around the sun at the same distance as earth, but following behind us.

 

It will have a very high resolving power. the JPL is in charge of the project.

here is something about it:

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim_index.html

 

But SIM will not be doing spectroscopy. There was some other mission which I now cannot find by searching, perhaps it has been cut from the budget.

 

However here is something new, merely a proposal:

http://www.princeton.edu/~wsimmons/NWO/

 

Now I may have found what I was thinking of, the TPF mission

(Terrestrial Planet Finder)

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.html

 

However there is no launch date scheduled. launch times 2014 and "before 2020" were mentioned.

 

here is a brief note on the spectroscopy:

"addition, TPF's spectroscopy will allow atmospheric chemists and biologists to use the relative amounts of gases like carbon dioxide, water vapor, [b']ozone and methane[/b] to find whether a planet someday could or even now does support life."

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_what_is.cfm

 

TPF has these 5 separate pieces flying in formation (sounds crazy?) and

does interferometry between them (yes it does sound crazy to me but they are the experts so I guess know what they are doing)

 

=======

I really like this because it represents humans stretching as much as they can to spot earthsize planets with ozone and methane and water vapor.

 

and they stretch so hard to do this that they plan things like 5 separate spacecraft flying in formation at an Earth-Sun Lagrange point and doing interferometry and spectro. because this is the hardest thing they can think of doing:

to resolve a small planet by a distant star and detect light from a type of molecule on that planet.

 

something so hard to do that it requires daring just to design the instrument

=====

I wish them well. There is a comparable European mission, I forget the name. Anyway the JPL mission is called TPF.

[gpdone]

I have voted Mars. My resoning is as follows; Politics! Consider the distortions of the known and generally accepted laws of physics that have been allowed to stand by NASA regarding the possibility of Mars having at one time an atmosphere 'earthlike' enough to support rain, plants and flowing water and oceans. They have done so to gain puplic support and mass appeal for $$$$$$$$$ to support the Mars program. Discovery of life soon would fit thier MO.

 

gpdone

[Sayonara]

If we are going to find life on Mars, then isn't giving NASA the money to go there worthwhile?

[Martin]

I have voted Mars. My resoning is as follows; Politics! Consider the distortions of the known and generally accepted laws of physics that have been allowed to stand by NASA regarding the possibility of Mars having at one time an atmosphere 'earthlike' enough to support rain' date=' plants and flowing water and oceans. They have done so to gain puplic support and mass appeal for $$$$$$$$$ to support the Mars program. Discovery of life soon would fit thier MO.

 

gpdone[/quote']

 

gpdone, please correct me if I am wrong, but I hear your post as

ironical

you are not guessing that humans will actually find living organisms on Mars

 

but rather that something will be found which NASA will blow up into the appearance of being evidence of (past?) life---for political reasons, to appeal to voters and assure funding.

 

If I interpret your post in this rather bitter and skeptical sense, then you would guess that some tantalizing and flimsy tokens of life, possible too far in the past to be sure, will be found on Mars.

And will be hyped up in the media.

Because it is politically expedient that this happen.

 

is this what you mean to suggest?

[2004einstein]

Hi people!.

 

Mars has got to be our best hope in my opinion, Europa second.

 

Mars has pretty well been proven this year to have had a surface water history so maybe there is remaining water below surface.(as you probably know water is the last essential of life as we know it) Europa hasn't yet to be confirmed to have liquid water below its infamous water ice!. Secondly I believe Mars is just close enough to the sun to provide a temperature warm enough to support life as we know it. Although possible heat sorces such as thermal vents, volcanism etc could maybe sustain life beyond Mars, I think the small areas this would confine life to would put the probability down(certainly for a diverse long-term bio-presence).

[Artorius]

Mars because its closer,more visits and research.I already believe mars has living organisms....and we will find them...just don't let some idiot bring them home.

[Gilded]

"Mars because its closer,more visits and research.I already believe mars has living organisms..."

 

You mean simple one-celled ones? Or the ExtraSense-type that build water pipes and other wacky stuff?