Science about to prove the existence of life outside of our planet?

reply to post by Skipper1975


I do believe what bloodsearch is discussing here is realistic, scientific research.

Do not bring the content and quality down with your rubbish.

You can do that in your own thread in BTS

Originally posted by hStripe
See this animated gif i found on Cassini closing in on Enceladus.




See the thing coming in on Enceladus' 10 o'clock and take a right turn before hitting Saturns moon ?

Actually theres a thread about that here

Originally posted by SaviorComplex
Not coincidential in the least. There are far more microorganisms on Earth than larger, more complex beings. So it would stand to reason that this would be the first life we find, especially in what could be considered primative ecosystems.

Yes, of course it's not coincidential, what's coincidential is that the "only" life they're searching for is microscopical.
Wish I knew where I read it to post a link, but recently they said (bluntly) "Hey what the hell, maybe not all life is water-based organisms, there may be other lifeforms based, for instance, on silicon".
So why are they considering something as "alien" as silicon-based lifeforms, but only simple water-based lifeforms?

I would bet everything I've got that they will discover microorganisms first than anything else... while I may think some kind of advanced lifeform would be easier to discover, but of course: bacterial life can exist, silicon-based life maybe, but not an extraterrestrial plant, even less something that can communicate.

[edit on 4-11-2008 by seb2882]

Originally posted by KIRKSTERUK
Finding bacteria is boring.

We are a freak of nature. All life that exists outside Earth is inhuman, by that I mean bacteria. Earth just happens to be lucky and the only reason life exists on Earth is because of the conditions.

While it is possible you may be right with speak with an impossible confidence and definitiveness. Thus far, we haven't found any sort of life beyond Earth, nor have we explored beyond our immediate doorstep in the galaxy. So it is impossible to say what all life beyond Earth is or is not like.

Very interesting topic.

I wonder how many billions of years of evolution it took for those first simple proteins and acids to organise themselves into the cell-like structures that we're familiar with on Earth, capable of near-perfect reproduction and infinitely complex adaptation?

It seems incredible to think that it was a fluke, or that the chemical processes required to bind complex molecules in that way is unique to this planet.

On the other hand, if life does exist elsewhere it would surely have taken an entirely different evolutionary path and one which we probably can't even begin to imagine.

Personally I think we should be keeping our heads down - if there is life on other planets I'm not sure we'd like to come face to face with it

Originally posted by KIRKSTERUK
Finding bacteria is boring.

We are a freak of nature. All life that exists outside Earth is inhuman, by that I mean bacteria. Earth just happens to be lucky and the only reason life exists on Earth is because of the conditions. We're just lucky. As soon as the Ozone layer is damaged and flares from the sun are no longer blocked, we're screwed.

Why would finding bacteria be boring. The majority of life on this planet is bacteria and simple single celled organisms. Its what we have developed from over many millions of years.

Finding even the simplest forms of life means there is certainly more advance forms of life and even possibly even more advanced than us. All it takes is for a planet to be a certain distance from a star, liquid water etc and time.

Even the most skeptical people in the scientific community believe there are other advanced life in our Universe. Its a statistical certainty. There are billions of stars very much like ours in our galaxy. Each with planets and moons that formed from the same processes that created our own. Add on top of this the fact there are billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

The Drake equation was created as a attempt to formalize the statistical probabilities of this. There are many uncertainties in respects to the values of the variables however even the most conservative estimates tell us we are not alone. This was developed in the late 1960's and alot has changed. In fact it only accounts for the number of civilizations that could potentially communicate using radio transmissions.

Here is a good webpage discussing the drake equation and how it only applies to a very narrow range of possible civilizations.

Drake equation

As mentioned by previous posts, finding life elsewhere in this solar system gives much much higher values for the amount of advanced civilizations in this galaxy and the drake equation is still a conservative estimate.

Science is not about to prove the existence of life in another Solar system.

Science has discovered a number of extra-solar planets (exo-planets) they number over 700 now, which is a substantial increase in their rate of their discovery using new focusing techniques.

The best science can to is to guess if water exists on the planet on not

Considering that until recently is was thought that water was bountiful just under the surface of the Luna regiolith, which is still highly speculative, the chance of spotting microbial life light years away is completely unfounded.

what would it actually take to prove there is life on another planet is the question i have? and if it is a simple answer , why hasn't it been done already ?

i know there have been camera's on probes and the rover's and they could have snapped a picture of something that would prove it but that hasn't happened as far as we are told or been led to believe.

so the other option in my opinion is a good old microscope that has the ability to photograph a slide.

why hasn't that simple experiment been done yet ? we have spent billions on sending all this hardware and software to other planets and all we get is tests that are inconclusive on soil samples.

it doesn't make sense to me.


in my opinion, they are doing things backwards and it makes me think that the money factor or the funding of some of these projects would come to a complete hault if they proved there was life say on Mars.

yes i understand it would open up other projects for research but i can't help but follow the money trail here and i also believe that we will not ever see this discovery in our life times.

not trying to be negative here just trying to look at the reality of what should imo have happened already



[edit on 4-11-2008 by easynow]

Originally posted by mattpryor
I wonder how many billions of years of evolution it took for those first simple proteins and acids to organise themselves into the cell-like structures that we're familiar with on Earth, capable of near-perfect reproduction and infinitely complex adaptation?

There are fossils from about 3.5 billion years ago, and the Earth is about 4.6 billion - so relatively quickly in the grand scheme of things. Especially as life wouldn't have been supportable for about the first half billion years. So it didn't hang around.

Impossible to extrapolate out from that, though, especially when it comes to 'intelligent' life. It's only emerged once on Earth, and everything else, from bacteria on up, manages happily without it.

I think it's highly probable some kind of life is out there, and that the vast majority, if not all, will be primitive. Of course, any that was visiting us would be complex by definition. And also exceptionally lucky: we haven't been broadcasting long in terms of light years, and that enormity of space thing cuts both ways. We're a needle in a massive, massive haystack.

reply to post by easynow


I think that there hasn't been a mission with the primary intention to look for life is because of the uncertainties involved. You would not want to spend x amount of million dollars on a probe that may or not be successful mission. You want to find the places where the condition are right for life before you send a mission. Finding water on Mars only recently will make a mission of this sort more feesable. It is a money thing more than anything.

There was a missions planned for a unmanned submersible to be sent to Europa, to penetrate the surface and travel through the ocean below. They believe that due to volcanic activity and a liquid ocean, this icy moon is the most probable location of life outside of Earth. It is possible that this life could be more advanced. We see at the very depths of our ocean ecosystems that thrive where there is no light and under huge amounts of pressure. They get there energy from hydrothermal vents with a huge variety of life around them. This a possibility for Enceladus aswell in a limited sense.

Larger organisms such as snails, shrimp, crabs, tube worms, fish, and octopuses form a food chain of predator and prey relationships above the primary consumers. The main families of organisms found around seafloor vents are annelids, pogonophorans, gastropods, and crustaceans, with large bivalves, vestimentiferan worms, and "eyeless" shrimp making up the bulk of non-microbial organisms.

In 2006, Robert Pappalardo, an assistant professor within the University of Colorado's space department, said:

"We’ve spent quite a bit of time and effort trying to understand if Mars was once a habitable environment. Europa today, probably, is a habitable environment. We need to confirm this … but Europa, potentially, has all the ingredients for life … and not just four billion years ago … but today."

Analysis of the outgassing suggests that it originates from a body of sub-surface liquid water, which along with the unique chemistry found in the plume, has fueled speculations that Enceladus may be important in the study of astrobiology

About the mission

Lastly and more importantly we are planning to visit Mars. NASA and the scientific community believe it is extremely important for us to find out whether life is there. This is a important step. You do not want astronauts to contaminate Mars with Earth based bacteria that could hamper future searches for past or present martian life. Neither do you want astronauts potential becoming infected by a dormant virus or bacterium that we have no immunity too. If this was brought back to Earth it would be a disaster. We have found traces of liquid water so this makes this step even more important so that we can take steps to avoid problems.

Here's an ethical question then (it's been a long day and I'm in that sort of mood).

Let's say we sent a probe to Europa and found it to be completely sterile and devoid of life (as I suspect will be the case).

If we were able to engineer (or cultivate) bacteria that could survive there, would it be ethical to dump a load into Europa's oceans and see what happens to them? It would definitely be an incredible experiment, but would it be "playing God" and therefore not a good idea?

reply to post by bloodsearch


Theres one science that in my mind has already proven the existance of life outside our planet, that science is called statistics. It's been estimated that there are as many planets/stars in the universe as the number of single grains of sand on everything single beach in the world.

Now thats all the proof I need.

I don't need NASA to confirm what I've already seen with my own two eyes.

But I guess NASA is good for convincing the sheeple about the fact that there's more in this rediculously massive universe than just us and our little '1/10932108324903425904309485309543930485390548 trillion million quadzillion chance of happening' rock..

edit: but in saying that it's good to see what bacterial formations and lifeforms have cropped up locally (if not more than just bacteria as it is said), and how differing they are from earths. I'd say they most likely know this and have already been across the stars (or US mil) - alas not publicly.

[edit on 4/11/08 by GhostR1der]

reply to post by Death_Kron


I agree, however for most of the worlds population statistics are not enough. Statistics suggest things, but are far from proof. Just because theres a 99% chance of something happening, we still could end up in that one percent. Thats why solid proof, the difference between light and day is the only way forward for some people.

Personally I have never seen any UFO's, but the science to me is just as important, in many cases more incredible and out there than any of the outlandish theories we have seen about the subject.

Science is the search for truth from evidence. As we learn more about our universe we will grow to understand our place in it. I believe there are UFO's visiting Earth. I don't have definitive proof.

When and if disclosure occurs science has a huge roll to play in this and its impact should not be underestimated.

Originally posted by bloodsearch
I agree, however for most of the worlds population statistics are not enough.

I agree with your last post (well, I don't believe aliens are visiting the Earth, but I agree with the spirit of what you're saying).

Statistics are enough for me, but the statistics say all kinds of things. So I accept there's very, very probably life elsewhere in the Universe, but there really isn't any sensible way of estimating how much of it is intelligent.

However - simply looking at the same figures - it seems unlikely (to me) it's visiting us. For an alien race to know about us, it would need to be very close. Someone looking at our planet from a distance of more than around 100 light years would have no obvious way of telling anyone was on it. Given the size of the Universe, the same statistic that makes life probable also makes it improbable that anyone would have noticed us. Well ... maybe.

reply to post by damagedoor


Good point. All depends on whether or not you believe that a Alien race could have mastered interstellar travel. If they have and are a large enough population then its likely they may have detected the signals we throw out into space everyday.

If as you believe that advanced civilizations are not to be found on any of the stars that are relatively near to us then this part of the galaxy might be quite interesting to a alien race.

I think that we are a bit like a tribe in the middle of a isolated patch of the amazon rainforest that have no idea of how incredible the outside world is. We are interested in them but do not want to interfere with their development.

Here is a picture of a tribe that was found only very recently. They react to their first sight of a helicopter in a very telling way.

reply to post by ElectroMagnetic Multivers


watched it several times and I cannot see anything that qualifies as a foriegn object

This animation changes it's angles in mid stream (judging by the reversal of star direction mid stream) so it is hard to tell what is articficial and what isn't

Also, since this is animation, how do you know it has not been tampered with? Is it really just a sped up camera? If so this is not true animation and I would put more stock inthe video. But how can I get excited by an animation?

For each person desperate enough to lie about the lack of existance of aliens there is an equal amount of desperate people looking to lie to prove they do exist.

This makes it difficult for the layman to assimilate real information and so we must be very sceptical and cautious about what is accepted and what isn't.

Having said that, I like the post and overall article and hope when proof is revealed it cannot be so easily dismissed as this video

Originally posted by bloodsearch
Add to this the fact that we have detected the signs of lighting in the atmosphere and that we believe lighting was what sparked the chemical reactions that led to the origins of life on this planet.
link

To be fair, abiogenesis scientists have been saying since the fifties that lightning wouldn't do this, but rather just simple chemistry.

Good thread BTW.

reply to post by bloodsearch

Yeah! This lost tribe was featured on coasttocoastam. Funny how they try to shoot arrows toward the planes. It's probably our reaction towards alien crafts.
Back on topic now, its funny that that the main subject on the thread is an interrogation. Science IS the way to go. After all, it helped us find out the earth wasn't flat. Knowledge becomes power only when it’s bought by a privileged few with diabolical agendas.

Originally posted by Good Wolf

To be fair, abiogenesis scientists have been saying since the fifties that lightning wouldn't do this, but rather just simple chemistry.

Good thread BTW.

Thanks for the post. Could you possibly provide me a source. I'm not disputing what you say, i would just like to read up about it myself. I just got the idea from previous reading and from the source I quoted. I'm no Biology or Chemistry expert.

But a new study reports faint signs of a natural electric field in Titan's thick cloud cover that are similar to the energy radiated by lightning on Earth.

Lightning is thought to have sparked the chemical reactions that led to the origin of life on our planet.

It was my undertanding that the origins of life is still quite a mystery however there are a number of credible theories.