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Saturn moon 'able to support life'

bbc.com

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Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#41

Post by technotony »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
charles-salvia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Well geologists think our impact can already be measured enough to leave a trace and are calling the era of man the 'Anthropocene'. Climate change and mass extinction are two of these features, but there will also be radiation from nuclear tests, plastic waste and impact of domestication on animal fossils. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-...

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#42

Post by Ataraxy »

herbstein wrote: post #18
nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

Isaac Arthur has a very interesting video that touches on that specific topic, but with a space exploration angle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7fLNvpl0c8

My favorite youtube channel out in the wild! His videos are such a treat every week.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#43

Post by komali2 »

charles-salvia wrote: post #12
nzonbi wrote: post #4

If 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…

I dunno man, the galaxy alone is pretty darn big.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#44

Post by blacksmith_tb »

moomin wrote: post #30
charles-salvia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd guess that microbial life would evolve into cellular life almost anywhere there was enough heat.

Multicellular? Most organisms on earth are unicellular[1] even now. My impression is that multicellular organisms evolved because the 'easy' evolutionary niches were already occupied by single-celled species, and it took new tricks to compete for new niches.

1:https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biomass-of-bacteria-What-i...

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#45

Post by zeroer »

Cyph0n wrote: post #24
nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

How do we know that 65 million years is long enough for a species with a human-like intelligence to evolve? What if our evolution was merely a biological fluke that took much less time than usual?

I'm still waiting for intelligent life.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#46

Post by zeroer »

milquetoastaf wrote: post #38
ars wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to say which species was first to become intelligent, but I'm pretty sure humans weren't the first. And yet, somehow Humans are in a completely different category than all other life. It's not just a matter a degree ("more" intelligent), it's a completely different category. So that means your definition of intelligent is flawed because it is unable to capture that distinction. Perhaps you need a new word…

>And yet, somehow Humans are in a completely different category than all other life. Lol no we are not. We share 98 percent of our DNA with various simians. We share 97 percent of our DNA with mice. Are we the only species to communicate? No. Are we the only species to communicate symbolically ? No. Great Apes use hand gestures. Are we the only species to recognize themselves? No. Plenty of animals do. In fact, even…

Recursive grammar.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#47

Post by ams6110 »

milquetoastaf wrote: post #38
ars wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to say which species was first to become intelligent, but I'm pretty sure humans weren't the first. And yet, somehow Humans are in a completely different category than all other life. It's not just a matter a degree ("more" intelligent), it's a completely different category. So that means your definition of intelligent is flawed because it is unable to capture that distinction. Perhaps you need a new word…

>And yet, somehow Humans are in a completely different category than all other life. Lol no we are not. We share 98 percent of our DNA with various simians. We share 97 percent of our DNA with mice. Are we the only species to communicate? No. Are we the only species to communicate symbolically ? No. Great Apes use hand gestures. Are we the only species to recognize themselves? No. Plenty of animals do. In fact, even…

Biology notwithstanding, no other species has deliberately transformed its environment and improved it longevity and standard of living like humans have. Not even slightly.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#48

Post by sharun »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
charles-salvia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#49

Post by scythe »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
charles-salvia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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-107 can be used to estimate the date at which the palladium was deposited or the ore can be dated by its depth. So we can exclude the use of uranium-based nuclear weapons by previous inhabitants going back about... 60-80 million years since the half-life of Pd-107 is about 6 million years.

In theory we could have tried to detect whether nuclear weapons had been used on Earth in the last 120-150 million years by looking for iodine-129 in the oceans, but we already blew up too many bombs to confound that experiment. Finding iodine-129 some place we don't expect it would be interesting.

Re: Saturn moon 'able to support life'

#50

Post by scythe »

S4M wrote: post #40
nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier 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…

How about the things we would have left in extreme environments: Internet cables at the bottom of the sea, rubbish (or dead people with clothes) high in the mountains, or remnants of polar expeditions in the South pole?

Antarctica will eventually leave the South Pole if I understand it correctly.
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