The fact that Cassini is still out there doing groundbreaking science is just mind blowing to me. That thing launched when I was in middle school.
Saturn moon 'able to support life'
81–90 of 268 posts
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#82The fact that Cassini is still out there doing groundbreaking science is just mind blowing to me. That thing launched when I was in middle school.
I feel the same way about the Voyagers... Launched when I was in early primary school. Incredible to think that it will still be out there long after I am not around.
I've always been fascinated by that project, and follow all news on it that I can, and was blown away recently to actually have a Twitter conversation with someone who did one of the voices on the 'Golden Record'.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#83If life is there, completely disconnected from earth life, it would be dramatic. That would mean that our solar system, has life on at least two, out of nine planets. That would seem to indicate that life is a fairly common things on planets. It would allow to adjust the drake equation, to easily predict millions of planets with life. And that would mean a high probability of many advanced, intelligent civilizations…
> If life is there, completely disconnected from earth life, IIRC (I can't find the reference now), the "dinosaur killer" asteroid would put rocks from Earth into space. With sufficient velocity that they could reach nearby solar systems within 100M years. So from a strictly physical point of view, I would argue that the odds of Earth "infecting" Europa with life in the past 3 billion years are pretty much 100%.
Europa is an extremely tiny target to hit randomly from Earth, probably made smaller by the fact that, in order to hit Europa, the object has to pass near Jupiter without getting pulled into it.
On the other hand, there are billions of years of random attempts, as you said.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#84For those interested in this topic, I recommend "Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction" by David Catling. Catling details nine celestial bodies in the solar system that could potentially harbor life, and discusses Enceladus is some detail.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#85If life is there, completely disconnected from earth life, it would be dramatic. That would mean that our solar system, has life on at least two, out of nine planets. That would seem to indicate that life is a fairly common things on planets. It would allow to adjust the drake equation, to easily predict millions of planets with life. And that would mean a high probability of many advanced, intelligent civilizations…
Based on the developments in exo-planet research along with discoveries like this over the past couple of years, I would conjecture that life is ridiculously common. But by life, I mean microbial life. I would imagine that multi-cellular life is much rarer, and life capable of reaching human-level intelligence and beyond is probably absurdly rare, on the level of something like one species per galaxy. It's all worthl…
That is bad conjecture. We have no evidence of life anywhere besides earth, microbial or otherwise. Exoplanet research and this new data has found planets that could conceivably host life, but that's it.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out intelligent life having existed on earth before. I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few t…
Mines seem like a possibility. Hmm, this kind of rock is usually associated with these minerals, but not when these weird streaks appear. But radionuclides are the ultimate signals. Palladium-107 is a byproduct of nuclear weapons use that becomes incorporated into palladium-bearing rocks and decays to silver, which can be detected by the presence of Ag-107 in palladium ores lacking other silver isotopes. Remaining Pd…
Presumably we could look for ¹²⁹I in deep Antarctic ice cores?
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#87If life is there, completely disconnected from earth life, it would be dramatic. That would mean that our solar system, has life on at least two, out of nine planets. That would seem to indicate that life is a fairly common things on planets. It would allow to adjust the drake equation, to easily predict millions of planets with life. And that would mean a high probability of many advanced, intelligent civilizations…
If life was not there, I would wager that life is exceedingly rare in our universe.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out intelligent life having existed on earth before. I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few t…
Stone degrades faster than bone? Stone tools have been found that are 2-3 million years old - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_tool
always wondered how exactly this process works.. you can date the stone itself, but how do you date the shaping of the stone?
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out intelligent life having existed on earth before. I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few t…
I've read an interesting theory about this before but I can't remember the source. If there was intelligent life on Antarctica, it would be impossible for us to detect it today. Antarctica was warmer once and could have supported much more life. It's plausible any life that evolved there would be restricted to that continent. Humans evolved in warm climates and could adapt to cold climates by building shelters and we…
Here you go: http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/scien...
Mining wasn't banned until 1991. And as the article outlines, Antarctica is a really, really inhospitable place, to the point that it might be easier to colonize a different planet than to colonize Antarctica (I'd probably prefer equatorial Mars over Antarctica) and even mineral extraction would be very complicated.
Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out intelligent life having existed on earth before. I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few t…
I wonder about satellites. How far above the earth's surface would a satellite have to be to keep atmospheric drag low enough to keep an artificial satellite in orbit for a long long time. And how big would it need to be for it to be naked eye visible at that distance. And what could be done to make it unlikely to be mistaken for a natural phenomena? Have clusters of satellites in geometric patterns? 65 Million years…
Anything in geosync is there* until the sun boils the oceans.
(*it will rather quickly wander from its original position, but it isn't leaving orbit or crashing down.)