Continents on Alien Worlds Could Hint at Extraterrestrial Life

I understand that early life on this planet (whether from Space Meteorites or Homogeneous), would have found Earth a much different planet than now.
Billions of years ago, the Earth was still cooling, the Sun was still a larger developing Star, the surface of the Earth must have been almost boiling....with a lack of our type of atmosphere.
It is often hardly ever mentioned about Earth early atmosphere (pre life).
Did we have one? Was it thin? Obviously there was not much Oxygen or Nitrogen?
Where did the gasses come from?
They tell us the Water probably came from comets etc that collided with Earth.
When you think of how much water is on and under the Earth's surface (not to mention all the other planets and moons in our SS)....thats a lot of big a** comets full of water, over a very long time...way in our past.
The Mysteries of our planet/Sun/Solar system, will be that way for a long time, we will Never really know the truth, even if we build a time machine and go back, that would only represent a tiny moment in "History", we cant go back for every day or year of 4 billion years of "History", to see what was going on.
We can only interpret was is left to us...Geology, Biology, Astronomy etc....but it is still thru the eyes and mind of Man.

gort51
I understand that early life on this planet (whether from Space Meteorites or Homogeneous), would have found Earth a much different planet than now.
Billions of years ago, the Earth was still cooling, the Sun was still a larger developing Star, the surface of the Earth must have been almost boiling....with a lack of our type of atmosphere.
It is often hardly ever mentioned about Earth early atmosphere (pre life).
Did we have one? Was it thin? Obviously there was not much Oxygen or Nitrogen?
Where did the gasses come from?

The Oxygen came from life.

TRiPWiRE
I'm always a tad confused as to why they think anything living out there would require the same (or similar), environmental conditions as us.

Just because we need certain temperatures and conditions to survive and thrive here doesn't (to me), mean other species elsewhere would be the same. We have organisms here on Earth that can survive boiling hot conditions (as seen around underwater volcanos etc), so it seems odd to only look to these planets that exist under these conditions.

Who's to say "Mr Blue Alien Man" cannot survive double our gravity and temperatures we have here? If that's how they evolved then it seems quite possible this could occur.

edit on 13/1/14 by TRiPWiRE because: (no reason given)

The one thing all life on Earth requires is liquid water. There are also limits as to how hot organic molecules can get before breaking down or how cold they can get and still be effective.

When we talk about planets just the right temperature we mean planets where liquid water can exist on the surface by one common definition and often mean the temperature range that exists on Earth in the hottest places (like near an undersea volcano) to the coldest places (like the Arctic or Antarctic).


Here is the Habitable Planet scale.

You'll notice different classes of Habitable Planets.

Planets like the Earth are called "Class M" planets (yep, just like in Star Trek):





You'll notice that there -are- other types of planets that are not like the Earth that are considered possibly habitable both on the hotter side and cooler side because at certain altitudes, pressures, with certain compositions of atmosphere or of a certain size, they may also possibly lead to life.




It's funny when I was little I'd watch Star Trek The Next Generation and I was fascinated by the section of the ship they called "Stellar Cartography". This was where they made maps of other solar systems and the planets they contained.

What is remarkable is that right now we've already begun the basics of Stellar Cartography (we've already made cloud maps of some of the giant planets), we've launched the GAIA mission which will give super accurate positions of the stars in our galaxy to give us a true 3D map of it and within 30 years we'll be making maps of the continents and oceans on other worlds.

Maps which your children's children may someday use or look back on the way we look at old maps like this one of "the New World:



We're living in a new age of discovery. When people look back at this time they probably won't remember what pop star did what with who or who was President or Prime Minister but they will remember this was when we began mapping the Galaxy.

Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me, JadeStar.

Greatly appreciated

I have a question Jadestar.

I would have though tectonics would be more a factor of continent creation?

Water and plate movements?