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NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

nasa.gov

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Re: NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

#13

Post by tejaswiy »

amichail wrote: post #8

Would the discovery of microbial extraterrestrial life have any significant impact on your life?

An incredibly huge one. If they've found microbal life reasonably close by, then atleast on a personal level, I'd think the possibility of intelligent extraterrestial life can be taken MUCH more seriously.

That said, I'd think it'll be much less spectacular, possibly yet another condition added to the pre-requisites required for life.

Re: NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

#16

Post by berntb »

checoivan wrote: post #14

I'm really hoping to officially hear we're not alone :)

As long as it is not Cthulhu presenting a paper on its dark matter(?) based biology! :-)

Could there be some analysis of Mars rover data? Or of Mars meteorites?

Telescopes aren't good enough yet to get absorption spectra for relatively complex molecules in atmospheres?

Re: NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

#17

Post by phreeza »

Perhaps a good moment to re-read this:

Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing: http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf

tl;dr: "Because it means life is not incredibly unlikely (after all, it occurred on two planets in our own solar system); ergo what must instead be incredibly unlikely is the ability for life to progress to the point where it can spread across the galaxy (after all, no other life form has contacted us); ergo we are doomed."

Re: NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

#18

Post by itistoday »

tejaswiy wrote: post #13
amichail wrote: post #8

Would the discovery of microbial extraterrestrial life have any significant impact on your life?

An incredibly huge one. If they've found microbal life reasonably close by, then atleast on a personal level, I'd think the possibility of intelligent extraterrestial life can be taken MUCH more seriously. That said, I'd think it'll be much less spectacular, possibly yet another condition added to the pre-requisites required for life.

Considering your existence, that possibility should already be taken seriously.

What's interesting though, is that if they actually find evidence for microbial life on another planet far away, then it's mighty likely that said planet already has far more complex life on it (taking into account the time it takes for light to travel through space, we'd be viewing outdated information).

Re: NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

#19

Post by PostOnce »

phreeza wrote: post #17

Perhaps a good moment to re-read this: Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing: http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf tl;dr: "Because it means life is not incredibly unlikely (after all, it occurred on two planets in our own solar system); ergo what must instead be incredibly unlikely is the ability for life to progress to the point where it can spread across the galaxy (after all, no…

The other theory being that galaxy-spanning life is incredibly common, it's just that we're too immature/uninteresting to bother coming to visit.

How often do you stop and try to communicate with the queen of a particular anthill?

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