How NASA Scientists Creating Life's Building Blocks Has Implications in Search for ET

How life got started on Earth is one of the fundamental questions of all time. It is a question which only in recent decades we could even begin to address in a scientific way.

There's a good article on the latest of these attempts to address this question at NASA's Ames Research Center which I will post an excerpt of later but first I want to provide some context for why research like this is important.

Beyond simply being a profound origin question, the question of how life got started on Earth is also a fundamental question of great interest to astrobiology because how easy or difficult it is for life to begin has a direct bearing on how populated with life our galaxy and the universe beyond are likely to be.

ASTROBIOLOGY



Astrobiology (previously called Bioastronomy) is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Both extraterrestrial life and life here on Earth. It is an interdisciplinary field which encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and habitable planets outside our Solar System (habitable exoplanets), the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry, laboratory and field research into the origins and early evolution of life on Earth, and studies of the potential for life to adapt to challenges on Earth and in outer space.

As such Astrobiology draws upon the scientific disciplines of astronomy and astrophysics, organic chemistry, evolutionary biology, geology and planetology, exoplanet and comparative planetology research and sometimes anthropology and sociology.

So, Astrobiology addresses the question of whether life exists beyond Earth, and how humans can detect it if it does often by asking smaller fundamental questions shown in this chart below:




LIFE AS WE KNOW IT: Why is Earth Life Based on Organic Chemistry? And why do we focus on it?


For the purposes of this post we're talking about life as we know it, based on organic chemistry.

Why limit it to just that? Because it makes logical sense. The elements which make up organic chemistry also happen to be the most common.

This is chemistry based on molecules formed from the elements of Hydrogen - (H) - the number 1 most common element in the galaxy, Carbon - (C) - (the 6th most common element in our galaxy), Nitrogen - (N) - (the 7th most common element in our galaxy), Oxygen - (O) - , (the 8th most common element in our galaxy).

Often people talk about life based on non-organic chemistry using things like Silicon - (Si) - (the 14th most common element in our galaxy), but silicon based life and other non-organic chemistry based forms of life are highly theoretical and there is a one major thing which goes against them: They require rarer elements as well as require rarer interactions to make them work.

And beyond that, we would not know how to detect such forms of life because we're not even sure they would exist.

Organic chemistry based life is a known fact and all around us.

3 key reasons why the search for life in the universe largely involves searching for "life as we know it":

1) The elements which form our type of chemistry are ridiculously common in the galaxy and universe (making it highly likely that any life out there would be based on it because nature uses what's easy and available).

2) We know it already exists here on Earth.

3) We can model how the environments which might produce life as well as model how life might affect its environment in way that are detectable. (And by doing this, set up strategies to detect it on other worlds.)

WATER: Nature's Amazing Elixir

Nature, as we all know, uses what is common. In this way, "Mother Nature" is efficient. We see it all around us. Nowhere is this efficiency towards a useful end more apparent than in the molecule made of two common elements we use every day and take for granted.

1 Hydrogen and 2 Oxygen atoms come together to form one of the most useful and common substances in the universe: Water.

Water is an essential part of every form of life we know about, even extremophiles, on Earth. The reason is because water can both be a solvent (it's called 'the universal solvent for a reason) as well as a means of transport. Under certain conditions it can alter geology (rushing water, water ice, steam venting breaking through planet crusts, etc) and under others it can preserve biology (viable bacteria have been found preserved perfectly in water ice cores which are thousands of years old).

And in the excerpt I post below water ice may also preserve key ingredients for life, shielding them from harmful radiation in deep space.

I should also mention that water is something which can help regulate a planet's climate: In frozen form it can reflect sunlight to cool a planet or moon down, in its gaseous form as water vapor it is a "greenhouse gas" which can warm a planet or moon up.

No other liquid, be it other things which are liquid at room temperature under our atmospheric pressure (mercury, bromine, sulfuryl chloride fluoride ) nor liquids which might exist on planets and moons colder than Earth (i.e.: liquid helium, liquid methane, liquid nitrogen, liquid hydrogen) nor liquids which might exist on planets and moons hotter than Earth (i.e.: francium, caesium, gallium and rubidium), can do all of the useful things water does which benefits the complex organic chemistry which makes up life.

Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface but even within our solar system Earth, by volume, is not the wettest world. Several other bodies, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn contain more water by volume in each of their subsurface oceans than if you put together all of the oceans on Earth combined!



Also, dwarf planets like Pluto, and possibly Ceres may also contain large amounts of water.



Additionally water has been found throughout interstellar dust and gas clouds and even in the atmospheres of exoplanets. In fact we've even detected some exoplanets which seem to be completely covered with water or where water makes up the majority of their composition

So now we know that the elements which make up organic chemistry are common, water is common, and other molecules which could form the building blocks of life are also common.

If it turns out that life's building blocks come together easily in environments which are common in the universe then life itself is likely to be common.

If it were hard for these building blocks to form then life would be less common.

This also has implications beyond just things like microbial life because of the time factor.

Our Earth and Solar System are around 4.5 billion years old. Our Milky Way galaxy is around 12 billion years old. Most nearby star systems are anywhere from 5 to 11 billion years old and as a whole most of the star systems in our galaxy are older than our solar system.


The Cosmic Calendar: In this context our Solar System containing our Earth only began to form in September. Many other star systems in our galaxy formed many months before that, giving life, if common, more time to evolve than it's had on Earth.

Therefore if life easily starts then it logically follows that our galaxy may not just be full of microbes, but may also be full of older, advanced forms of life which started evolving billions of years before our Sun and solar system even formed.


Image: Simulation of what the detection of advanced life, on a nearby exoplanet billions of years older than Earth might look like through a future space telescope array. Massive distribution of artificial lighting visible on planet's night side.


But before you can have advanced ETs, you have to have simpler forms of life, and before you have even that you have to have microbes and before you can have microbes you have to have something like DNA and RNA and before you have that you have to have certain proteins which are the building blocks of DNA and RNA.

So on to the exciting news: Scientists at NASA have figured out in a lab how those proteins might have formed.

Excerpt from Space.com with my comments. (I've also bolded some things for emphasis.)

Many of the chemical ingredients necessary for life as we know it were available on the early Earth, and should be present on exoplanets as well, new research suggests.

Researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center in California generated three key components of RNA (ribonucleic acid) and DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in the lab, by exposing commonly occurring ring-shaped molecules of carbon and nitrogen to radiation under spacelike conditions.

"Nobody really understands how life got started on Earth," Scott Sandford, a space science researcher at Ames, said in a statement. "Our experiments suggest that once the Earth formed, many of the building blocks of life were likely present from the beginning. Since we are simulating universal astrophysical conditions, the same is likely wherever planets are formed."

Since stars and planets form the same elements all over the galaxy and the universe and since hundreds of years of astronomy have shown that the laws of chemistry and physics are the same throughout the universe the conditions the researchers used above are considered universal.

Sandford and his colleagues worked with pyrimidine, a ring-shaped molecule often found in meteorites. The rings hold carbon atoms, but the presence of nitrogen makes pyrimidine less stable than other carbon-rich compounds, researchers said. As a result, pyrimidine is easily destroyed by radiation, which is prevalent in interstellar space.

"We wanted to test whether pyrimidine can survive in space, and whether it can undergo reactions that turn it into a more complicated organic species," Sandford said in the same statement.

Pyrimidine should be vulnerable to destruction when traveling through the universe as a gas. But the researchers reasoned that some molecules might be able to survive if they find their way into interstellar clouds of dust and gas.

Such clouds could serve as a shield, absorbing much of the radiation on the outer edges and keeping it from reaching the interior. Safe inside the clouds, the pyrimidine molecules would freeze onto dust grains, which might allow them to survive any radiation to which they would later be exposed.

To test their idea, the scientists exposed an ice sample containing pyrimidine to ultraviolet radiation in a vacuum at temperatures as low as minus 440 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 262 degrees Celsius) —conditions similar to those experienced in interstellar space.

When frozen in ice consisting mainly of water, but also containing ammonia, methanol or methane, the pyrimidine was much less vulnerable to radiation than it would be as a free-floating gas. Instead of destroying the molecules, the radiation transformed it into new species, including uracil, cytosine and thymine — three of the "nucleobases" that make up DNA and RNA.

"We are trying to address the mechanisms in space that are forming these molecules," Ames researcher Christopher Materese said. "Considering what we produced in the laboratory, the chemistry of ice exposed to ultraviolet radiation may be an important linking step between what goes on in space and what fell to Earth early in its development."

Although scientists know that pyrimidine is found in meteorites, they are still uncertain about its ultimate origins. Like the more stable, carbon-rich polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), considered as potential material to kick-start life, pyrimidine may be produced by the dying breaths of red-giant stars or in clouds of interstellar gas and dust, researchers said.

So basically they have learned that the very conditions that are observed in interstellar clouds are what likely forms the building blocks to DNA and RNA!

So how do those interstellar gas and dust clouds form in the first place?

Supernovae among other things.


Supernova remnant Cassiopeia A is the remains of a star which exploded 11,000 years ago and whose explosion was observed on earth in the year 1680. This composite is of images in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and x-ray spectrum as viewed with the Spitzer, Hubble and Chandra Space Telescopes.

Stars and planets are formed from material left over from supernovas. The clouds of interstellar gas and dust which make up stellar nurseries were the remnants of various supernovas and other interactions in the distant past.



"We Are All Made of Star Stuff" - Carl Sagan


The reason Carl Sagan said "We are all made of star stuff." is because of this fact. Every element which makes up our Sun, our Earth, and us was forged in the core of a star at some point which exploded and spewed those elements out into space. Many of the molecules essential to life as were formed that way as well.



These explosions leave behind often beautiful nebula like Cassiopeia A which we know through spectroscopy contains many ingredients key to the building blocks of life. (see graphs)




Image: Cycle of stellar evolution.


Image: The Orion Nebula - Graveyard and Nursery

So stars exploded billions of years ago, the elements they spewed coalesce over time under the forces of gravity and electromagnetism, stars form and begin nuclear reactions, remnants of the star formation process form dust disks, which then form planets, moons, asteroids, etc and in our case, life and us.


Image: From Death Comes New Life - Stellar nursery in the Orion Nebula, these discs are currently forming planets and stars.


This process is amazingly profound and even more amazing is we've witnessed and have images of just about every step in it: From stars going supernova, to remnants left behind like Cassiopeia A, to stellar nurseries like the Orion Nebula to clusters of very young stars like the Pleiades to planets forming in discs around other stars like HR 4796A (see below) and Beta Pictoris to young planets orbiting stars like HD 95086 (see below).


Disc forming planets around the stars HR4796A and Beta Pictoris as taken by the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI)


Image of the exoplanet HD 95086 b taken by blocking out the light of its star with a chronograph on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT)

CONCLUSION:

The search for life in the universe and the questions around the origin of life as you see are inextricably linked. They are one and the same. As we venture forth in the coming years and decades we are almost sure to answer both in a definitive way.

Not as one "Eureka!" moment, but as the culmination of years of research like this. An ever growing body of evidence with each small discovery a piece in the larger puzzle of both questions.

And today the puzzle pieces are starting to form a grand picture which we can just start to make out and take educated guesses as to which other pieces might help complete the picture.

And in a not-too-distant tomorrow, more of the complete picture no doubt, will be revealed.

What the research at NASA referred to in the above excerpt from Space.com is hinting at is that the stuff of life, the ingredients which make up DNA and which makes us up, can form and thrive in space. This means that planets are born with everything they need to produce life.. There is no need for a things like comet impacts and the like to bring the ingredients to a world. They're already present in the dust the planets form out of.

And this could mean when the puzzle is completed we may find that life, and even advanced life is be more plentiful than is commonly imagined.

a reply to: JadeStar

so , you're essentially saying my recently found extremophile stands no chance ?



narock'oslug is not happy

funbox

Amazing post! very informative.

originally posted by: funbox
a reply to: JadeStar

so , you're essentially saying my recently found extremophile stands no chance ?

narock'oslug is not happy

funbox

a reply to: JadeStar

A fascinating, and thought provoking thread subject! Top shelf stuff JadeStar!

Kudos!

I think that the possibility that life's building blocks were part of the fundamental mixture of coalescent material which made up this planet, is an intriguing one, without a shadow of a doubt. I do however wonder whether an experiment or computer simulation could be run, which factors in the conditions of the early earth, right from heavy dust cloud, through to initial establishment of the cohesive whole, and then on through the period of fire, where the entire planet was a steaming, lava blasted, undulating landscape, all the way to the first blush of life, AND models the stresses applied by all the intervening environments during those periods, to those elements, in order to see whether the theory holds?

You see, although the material from which those building blocks were made may have been present, they went through far more than being frozen in deep space before life sprang forth. They would have been exposed to extreme heat as well, not to mention a totally different set of atmospheric circumstances than the one we enjoy today! Could those building blocks have survived THOSE things as well? Or is it still possible that the Lego set that we came from, was dropped by a hurtling space rock?

Either way, a fascinating, and fantastic read, and I thank you very much for putting this thread up for all to see! It deals with the specific discovery that you are interested in, but the prologue if you will, serves brilliantly as a primer to the wider subject as a whole. This is easily the best thread I have read in a while, and it is a pleasure to see!

Thanks once again!

We are stardust.

First of all, thank you for very detailed and informative thopic. Well done!

What a coincidence, this morning I was watching very interesting YouTube video that is closely connected to this topic and in about an hour explains most of concepts explained by you in this thread.

originally posted by: SuperFrog
First of all, thank you for very detailed and informative thopic. Well done!

What a coincidence, this morning I was watching very interesting YouTube video that is closely connected to this topic and in about an hour explains most of concepts explained by you in this thread.

That's a great documentary. Good choice.

And yeah, these concepts are fairly simple and are taught in high school science classes now but a lot of the research is so recent that many older people are unaware of it.

They often still think water is rare and that our solar system is special containing elements which don't exist anywhere else.

I totes understand why. Unless one keeps up on various discoveries or watch science documentaries like the one you posted(which assumes they have an interest in the first place) it's not like your average 40 or 50 year old is going to know this stuff.

a reply to: JadeStar
have you ever felt that the drip drip* is accelerating , and do you think these revelations have anything cross tied to the ufo phenomena ?

sorry if I missed this but do you work for NASA ?

funbox

originally posted by: funbox
a reply to: JadeStar
have you ever felt that the drip drip* is accelerating , and do you think these revelations have anything cross tied to the ufo phenomena ?

I don't know what you mean by "drip drip" but i -think- (since you mentioned UFOs) you *might* mean this idea that there is this great knowledge of ET life hidden away in some secret government facility which is being leaked slowly to "prepare the populace" in some form of "disclosure"...

If that's what you mean the answer is no.

I don't believe such stories because there is simply not enough high quality evidence to support them. Nor do I think the populace would have to be prepared if such were really true.

Most of my friends when they find out what I study and what work I don't ask me if I believe in extraterrestrial life. For them the existence of other life in the universe is a given even if science has yet to discover it.

For them their question is usually "So where are all the aliens?"

Granted they're around my age (20s-early 30s) mostly but I think there's been enough sci-fi that most people today would not be too shocked to find out we're not alone.

Now on the question of whether I think all of these discoveries are accelerating, the answer to that is yes and there are very goods reason for it.

1) This field is sexy. A lot of people who were in other areas of study such as microbiology, planetary science, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, atmospheric studies & climatology, etc have gravitated towards it as it has become a bigger deal and become more multi-disciplinary in nature. The more people investigating things, the more discoveries will be made.

2) Our observing technology is growing at a fast rate. Whether its probes to places like Mars or Titan or new eyes on the skies in the form of super advanced ground and space telescopes, or faster computers with larger data storage capacities to run search algorithms for fits on observed data, model complex interactions or combine data from multiple wavelengths (optical, radio, IR, UV, X-Rays, Gamma Rays, etc) the technology we have today has become such that there are no technical hurdles to discovering life elsewhere anymore. The only hurdles typically are resource or financial based ones.

3) Media is instantaneous. Today as soons as an interesting paper goes up on ArXiv there are plenty of science reporters and bloggers who popularize the research, so more people are learning things at the same rate the research is published.

sorry if I missed this but do you work for NASA ?

funbox

No. I'm just an undergrad. I have spent some time at NASA Ames Research Center as part of their summer undergrad program at their Astrobiology Academy (twice) and my professors in this field all have ties or worked with/at NASA.

I hope that doesn't make me part of "the grand conspiracy"!!!

a reply to: JadeStar

I don't know what you mean by "drip drip" but i -think- (since you mentioned UFOs) you *might* mean this idea that there is this great knowledge of ET life hidden away in some secret government facility which is being leaked slowly to "prepare the populace" in some form of "disclosure"...

If that's what you mean the answer is no.

very close, im not so sure about i.f.o's in secret bases, but even the revelations of simple biology outside of our sphere of knowledge will be unsettling to old heads , and certainly we have had this slow tide come in ,especially when considering curiosity's current mission and the ' positive to life' findings Nasa has been unveiling to us , *I may have a go at a comic strip of the missions highlights*

I find its ongoing story, indicative to a slow disclosure, a widening of the human sphere, so in this sense what is being unveiled , could be said to be a part and parcel deal , naturally the public are going to scream " what about the UFO's then ?"
does NASA have the same old contingency to questions , with respects to the looming, and seemingly inevitable discovery of Alien life, weather they be microbial goops or space fairing aliens , many of us will be then asking , "so whats GOD upto now"

some of us will be sharpening crude, life ending devices..


the ufo's adlib was a cursory question ;D

I don't believe such stories because there is simply not enough high quality evidence to support them. Nor do I think the populace would have to be prepared if such were really true.

maybe not enough high quality evidence , but the volume , can we really ignore ?
well ,for good or bad the populace has already had a large helping, more subculture's ready to react in a multitude of different ways to the eventual enlightenment , god only knows what the Raëlists will be upto

For them their question is usually "So where are all the aliens?"

I have to stop right here to ask a couple of things

1. what do you reply to your friends? and
2. ill add to the questions a mild hypothetical, given that, as a species we seem to be in endless warfare and explorer races roam the galaxy like were trying to. what possible reason could they use to justify intervening, given that they are out to observe?

funbox

originally posted by: funbox
very close, im not so sure about i.f.o's in secret bases, but even the revelations of simple biology outside of our sphere of knowledge will be unsettling to old heads , and certainly we have had this slow tide come in ,especially when considering curiosity's current mission and the ' positive to life' findings Nasa has been unveiling to us , *I may have a go at a comic strip of the missions highlights*

I find its ongoing story, indicative to a slow disclosure, a widening of the human sphere, so in this sense what is being unveiled , could be said to be a part and parcel deal , naturally the public are going to scream " what about the UFO's then ?"

I'd call it discovery more than disclosure. As for UFOs, if UFOs were some sort of crafts from beyond Earth they'd be picked up by the many All-Sky meteor camera networks pointed at the sky 24/7/365 around the world, often maintained and operated by amateur astronomers, meteor enthusiasts and universities.

These cameras spot all sorts of things but as yet I am unaware of any that has spotted anything like what has been detailed in the 60+ years of sighting reports.

That would seem to indicate that the origin of what people report as UFOs is far closer to home.

This is why the study of the possibility of life elsewhere has little to do with UFOs. There's nothing in the way of credible, testable evidence beyond witness testimony to link the two.
does NASA have the same old contingency to questions , with respects to the looming, and seemingly inevitable discovery of Alien life, weather they be microbial goops or space fairing aliens , many of us will be then asking , "so whats GOD upto now"

maybe not enough high quality evidence , but the volume , can we really ignore ?

Yes. Unfortunately, for something like the extraterrestrial hypothesis as an explanation for UFO reports, a preponderance of bad evidence is still bad no matter how much of it there is.

An analogy would be turning the volume up on a distant radio station you can barely hear, bathed in static on your car radio. The volume is louder but the signal doesn't become any clearer.

Only in this case, we're not even sure the station exists.

Like Dr. Peter A. Sturrock said, we need higher quality stuff before the two fields have anything to do with each other.

If anyone ever could scientifically establish a link between the two then that would change things.

I said regarding my friends who know what I study.....

For them their question is usually "So where are all the aliens?"

To which you asked....

I have to stop right here to ask a couple of things

1. what do you reply to your friends?

I usually say, "i have no idea but i'm dying to find out!"

Then I usually tell them about some of the things we're doing or are planning to do to find answers and will pull out my iPhone and shoot them a link to this poster:



Right click-Save As to save or click this link view it zoomable at high resolution

and
2. ill add to the questions a mild hypothetical, given that, as a species we seem to be in endless warfare and explorer races roam the galaxy like were trying to. what possible reason could they use to justify intervening, given that they are out to observe?

Hmmm... that's a good question.

And i'm probably not qualified to answer it as I am studying to be an astrobiologist not necessarily an exopsychologist (though that would be hella cool!)

That said, if i'm allowed to speculate then I'd say there is nothing we can do at this stage that would threaten any species which could travel here from another star system.

We'd probably be less of a threat to them than an colony of army ants is to you in your car driving down the road. Our most powerful weapons, hydrogen bombs would probably be like firecrackers to a species several million or billion years older than us given the types of energy they could potentially harness from things like anti-matter, mini black holes not to mention theorized things like exotic forms of matter, strange quarks, etc.

a reply to: JadeStar

had to give this some time out , excuse the long delay in reply

I'd call it discovery more than disclosure. As for UFOs, if UFOs were some sort of crafts from beyond Earth they'd be picked up by the many All-Sky meteor camera networks pointed at the sky 24/7/365 around the world, often maintained and operated by amateur astronomers, meteor enthusiasts and universities.

rather a big assumption to make considering the range of stealth craft we have on this planet, never mind the uncountable amount of other planets where such technologies could be realised, as here on earth, through necessity, so yeah we would see them coming alright !

history is resplendent with amateur astronomer's observations of the unusual and sublime, if you want to see a complete picture of this I can heartily recommend the 'book of the damned' by Charles Hoy Fort, also 'Lo!' two book the heavily concentrate upon the reported observances of astronomers , all collated from the scientific publications of the time

a big list of unusualities.

but if cameras and other such detection devices are to be given credence in regards to valid truths , there are examples on earth where camera's are manipulated to hide truths or obscure lies, e.g. the cameras surrounding the building of the pentagon.. there is no reason for their exclusion to the reality's they could present in that specific timeframe , this footage would go far to affirm much of an official story of supposed truth. they are not present in this storyline , what cameras then, can see any truth that can presented , without the receiver of said truth being tainted with suspicion,

i suppose there are many instances of this.

Yes. Unfortunately, for something like the extraterrestrial hypothesis as an explanation for UFO reports, a preponderance of bad evidence is still bad no matter how much of it there is.

well, nothing that's been revealed . Given their transitory nature , i doubt scientist would have the tools or foresight to study them, albeit you could say there is evidence of radar blips that are of an unidentified nature, whether these are alien in nature is another question .

the storey of the pilot and crew observing small lights and then a mother ship on their way to Anchorage in 1986 always interested me , and there is also said to be radar evidence , alien or not, that's electronic detection and eyewitness detection. not repeatable though

Like Dr. Peter A. Sturrock said, we need higher quality stuff before the two fields have anything to do with each other.

does Dr. Peter A. Sturrock, mention a viable toolkit in which to obtain such evidence ? , maybe something from the Dr's bag would suffice? without being specific the storey's suggest that these visitors have an unnerving , scientist disturbing, grip on reality , tech that appears to defy the gravity of our collective understanding.

what would you grab from your bag Jade?

Hmmm... that's a good question.

And i'm probably not qualified to answer it as I am studying to be an astrobiologist not necessarily an exopsychologist (though that would be hella cool!)


That said, if i'm allowed to speculate then I'd say there is nothing we can do at this stage that would threaten any species which could travel here from another star system.

We'd probably be less of a threat to them than an colony of army ants is to you in your car driving down the road. Our most powerful weapons, hydrogen bombs would probably be like firecrackers to a species several million or billion years older than us given the types of energy they could potentially harness from things like anti-matter, mini black holes not to mention theorized things like exotic forms of matter, strange quarks, etc.

just as qualified as any , but a good answer to the questions 'what would we do , which, in a way has kind of already answered my question , bug, ant , squash.. but that's for implied duality notions upon the alien visitors .

what I want to know is from the scientific-observer perspective, maybe not you or I are qualified for , as it takes a lack of emotive quality's we simply don't possess , but that's not to say that's not a perspective held in other worlds .

empathise . would you make sure your well hidden from us earthlings? as an observer super-scientist would you intervene?

funbox

originally posted by: funbox
a reply to: JadeStar

had to give this some time out , excuse the long delay in reply

I'd call it discovery more than disclosure. As for UFOs, if UFOs were some sort of crafts from beyond Earth they'd be picked up by the many All-Sky meteor camera networks pointed at the sky 24/7/365 around the world, often maintained and operated by amateur astronomers, meteor enthusiasts and universities.

rather a big assumption to make considering the range of stealth craft we have on this planet, never mind the uncountable amount of other planets where such technologies could be realised, as here on earth, through necessity, so yeah we would see them coming alright

!

I'm sorry, I just don't buy this idea that these objects are lit up like christmas trees and do all sorts of strange things according to stories but somehow aren't picked up doing them by cameras operated by average everyday people.

but if cameras and other such detection devices are to be given credence in regards to valid truths , there are examples on earth where camera's are manipulated to hide truths or obscure lies, e.g. the cameras surrounding the building of the pentagon..

i suppose there are many instances of this.

The pentagon is different from your average person who operates an all-sky camera. What motivation does a group of average people who operate sky cameras have to "cover up" UFOs?

None really. In fact they'd be more inclined to want to investigate it or bring more attention to it.

Yes. Unfortunately, for something like the extraterrestrial hypothesis as an explanation for UFO reports, a preponderance of bad evidence is still bad no matter how much of it there is.

well, nothing that's been revealed . Given their transitory nature , i doubt scientist would have the tools or foresight to study them, albeit you could say there is evidence of radar blips that are of an unidentified nature, whether these are alien in nature is another question .

the storey of the pilot and crew observing small lights and then a mother ship on their way to Anchorage in 1986 always interested me , and there is also said to be radar evidence , alien or not, that's electronic detection and eyewitness detection. not repeatable though

Exactly. We're left with a story and some radar "blips".

That's just not good enough.

Like Dr. Peter A. Sturrock said, we need higher quality stuff before the two fields have anything to do with each other.

does Dr. Peter A. Sturrock, mention a viable toolkit in which to obtain such evidence ? , maybe something from the Dr's bag would suffice? without being specific the storey's suggest that these visitors have an unnerving , scientist disturbing, grip on reality , tech that appears to defy the gravity of our collective understanding.

what would you grab from your bag Jade?

Personally I'd probably want to set up a mobile multi-spectral (Millimeter/Submillimeter/IR/Optical/UV) camera array along with magnetometers, a particle detector, a mobile radar unit etc in a "UFO hotspot" after ruling out that the UFOs people were reporting were not simply misidentifications of mundane stuff.

Is something was truly strange and interfacing with our world on a regular basis then it is detectable, filmable, measurable.

If it is not then it might as well be angels, santa or the easter bunny.

That said, I'm not all that interested in UFO sighting reports but you asked what I would do if there were a genuine mystery which occurred in an area with regularity. So that's my answer.

Hmmm... that's a good question.

And i'm probably not qualified to answer it as I am studying to be an astrobiologist not necessarily an exopsychologist (though that would be hella cool!)


That said, if i'm allowed to speculate then I'd say there is nothing we can do at this stage that would threaten any species which could travel here from another star system.

We'd probably be less of a threat to them than an colony of army ants is to you in your car driving down the road. Our most powerful weapons, hydrogen bombs would probably be like firecrackers to a species several million or billion years older than us given the types of energy they could potentially harness from things like anti-matter, mini black holes not to mention theorized things like exotic forms of matter, strange quarks, etc.

just as qualified as any , but a good answer to the questions 'what would we do , which, in a way has kind of already answered my question , bug, ant , squash.. but that's for implied duality notions upon the alien visitors .

Yeah but we don't get out of our car, drive over to the ant hill and squash it. We just don't care enough to.

what I want to know is from the scientific-observer perspective, maybe not you or I are qualified for , as it takes a lack of emotive quality's we simply don't possess , but that's not to say that's not a perspective held in other worlds .

empathise . would you make sure your well hidden from us earthlings? as an observer super-scientist would you intervene?

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If I am an alien species with technology to travel here I wouldn't need to "hide".

That said, an alien species just 100 years or so more advanced than us could probably image the Earth down to the size of a Honda Accord from their own star system, remotely with space telescopes so they wouldn't have to hide because they wouldnt have to come here to learn a hell of a lot about us in the first place.

a reply to: JadeStar

I'm sorry, I just don't buy this idea that these objects are lit up like christmas trees and do all sorts of strange

things according to stories but somehow aren't picked up doing them by cameras operated by average everyday people.

I agree , I think there might be dualistic tricksters, amongst the visitors , their little Alien ego's winking

occasionally, at the feeble minds below , but I think its bit unfair to brand all the sightings under this type of

flagrant display.

i think most everyday people are terrible camera users *see youtube* most everyday people are too busy, in front of

screens, mostly eyelevel, doing earthly things, and to those visitors without ego or emotion driven intention , are most

likely never seen.

The pentagon is different from your average person who operates an all-sky camera. What motivation does a group of average

people who operate sky cameras have to "cover up" UFOs?

None really. In fact they'd be more inclined to want to investigate it or bring more attention to it.

if your average person who operates an all-sky camera , spots one ginormous Alien ship , im sure the pentagon will be very interested to know ., they might even bring a few neatly packaged 'welcome packs' filled with wonderfully sounded

motivations, for your average all-sky operator to sink his or her teeth into. i imagine David Kelly had a similar pack ,

but for different 'against the grain' reasons.

Exactly. We're left with a story and some radar "blips".

That's just not good enough

not for any repeatability or scientific conclusions to be drawn, but then i doubt it was an event for scientist's to take

notes from, this event is as odd and as apparently motiveless as many of the reports we hear. shame it screwed up the

captains career though. :/ especially when he had corroborative eyewitnesses and at least one radar station confirming , as well as on-board radar. pilots get it tough

quite a few high up agency's involved in the case too

if these agency's can interfere in a pilots career and rep, then im sure they can do exactly the same to you're average
sky-cam operator

en.wikipedia.org...

Personally I'd probably want to set up a mobile multi-spectral (Millimeter/Submillimeter/IR/Optical/UV) camera array along

with magnetometers, a particle detector, a mobile radar unit etc in a "UFO hotspot" after ruling out that the UFOs people

were reporting were not simply misidentifications of mundane stuff.

Is something was truly strange and interfacing with our world on a regular basis then it is detectable, filmable,

measurable.

a bag Jade , not a lorry

interesting selection ,although ide imagine any technological advanced visitors would be eye rolling with child scolding countenances at that list, mumbling to themselves about S.E.P's , tea derivatives and the importance of a well laid out bistro

maybe you should take that selection to Hessdalen, their equipment, somehow, still feels budget , given that the area is a historically renowned hotspot

seems like Science is turning that blind eye again in regards to Hessdalen, or at least, only the very least, invested in by the few.

didnt NASA or someone recently observe/create a warp bubble? which of the devices listed in your bag would be used to observe one of those ?

Yeah but we don't get out of our car, drive over to the ant hill and squash it. We just don't care enough to.

its a dark subject you touch, ascribing duality's to the visitors, and one which cannot be ignored in considering life in the universe

but we do far stupider things than squash anthills here on earth, people have gotten there faces eaten off just for leaving their car to film a bear. there's no end to the randomness of actions that happen on this planet , just this planet.

for instance , at 7 years old i was creating very loud noises with a brick and bullets in the gully at the back of my house. very stupid and dangerous

all those worlds Jade , numbers which defy the imagination ,all those potential life forms.. billions on this planet , ouch
i just tried to calculate this galaxy's and scorched my brain. im not even peering over the edge to the rest of the universe .. be my guest , but potentially an awful lot of automobiles to step out of and squash insect mounds.

could it be that once your bored squashing your own mounds , the neighbours mounds start to look appealing ?



i smell the words 'endless motives' rising but my mouths too full of numbers *projectile quadratic overspill alert*

If I am an alien species with technology to travel here I wouldn't need to "hide".

That said, an alien species just 100 years or so more advanced than us could probably image the Earth down to the size of a Honda Accord from their own star system, remotely with space telescopes so they wouldn't have to hide because they wouldnt have to come here to learn a hell of a lot about us in the first place.

well lets just hope that duality is a concept here on earth and good or evil are not a concepts held by any visitors that have been or will pop in to say hi, ide really like to believe that its a notion that exists here on earth , but i think that its written in the base of everything , the yin and yang of the universe so to speak , and just like here on earth , pain and death and suffering created necessity and the corresponding emotive reactions, self preservatory technological advancements , so, then, as our planet is not special, similar paths to emotionally complex, technological being's, arise out there too .. they get advanced , take their chips out with them on exploration.. bump into earth ," o look another dualistic race of hominids! anyone up for some monkey baiting ? yeah !, how about for irony's sake we take the zoologist this time ? "

looks but not touch eh .. very likely

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