Earth's mineralogy unique in the cosmos

a reply to: Triton1128

Awesome subject OP. S&F. Earth has to be special, its not like life is obvios on other planets as a norm. The conditions that made that possible must bleed into other processes of the planet. Very cool .

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Triton1128

Awesome subject OP. S&F. Earth has to be special, its not like life is obvios on other planets as a norm. The conditions that made that possible must bleed into other processes of the planet. Very cool .

Earth most likely is not special any more than our solar system is special. (Which it isn't.)

a reply to: JadeStar
Yet life and an oxygen rich atmosphere is a rarety. You cant play it cool. THAT is not the norm. Unless you have heard of like 10!! Earth like planets? Do we know of more than ONE in deep space? MAYBE ??

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: JadeStar
Yet life and an oxygen rich atmosphere is a rarety. You cant play it cool. THAT is not the norm. Unless you have heard of like 10!! Earth like planets? Do we know of more than ONE in deep space? MAYBE ??

But the point is that you could probably take any planet at random and its mineralogy and its ratio of atmospheric gases would be virtually unique among the cosmos.

There could be CO2-breathing aliens who are saying "our planet seems to be virtually unique in the universe due to its mineralogy and the CO2 in the atmosphere that we breath". It could be common for a planet to have a unique mineralogy/atmospheric ratio.

In fact, there was a place like that where CO2 and ammonia were the main atmospheric gasses used by the life forms of that planet -- Early Earth. The early Earth had almost no free oxygen, and the life here instead thrived on the CO2 and ammonia in the atmosphere. Oxygen would have been a poison to most of the the life that inhabited the early Earth.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

You are a little off. Early earth? Life exploded once oxygen levels increased. "early earth" had no life. Life BEGAN once early earth changed and developed an atmosphere , for one our crust formed and volcanic activity normalized. I think you should be specific with time frames. Early earth is still a ball of molten mess with NO life. Mineralogically it makes sense to have unique mineral deposits after millenia of unique atmospheric conditions. I think you are wrong about the uniformity of the universe. Being this close to the sun gives us a different amount and type of celestial traffic and meteor impacts on earth. I am sure aliens would be hard pressed like we are to find a planet like their home planet. I am sure their home would be very damn special like a lottery ticket is. Its terrible odds really, worse than a lottery . Except for the asteroid belt , earth and our moon, gold is absent in our solar system, to name ONE unique aspect of our home. ONE, yet the list goes on......

a reply to: tadaman

No.

We have free oxygen on earth BECAUSE the early life (CO2, methane, and ammonia-breathing life) slowly turned the atmosphere into the ~78% Nitrogen and ~21% Oxygen atmosphere that we have today.

There was life on earth for over 1 billion years before that early life changed the atmosphere into what it is today. Life on earth began about 4 billion years ago, but our Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere has only been around for about 2.5 Billion years.

www.universetoday.com...

www.nytimes.com...

www.astrobio.net...

Earth's early atmosphere (when life first formed on Earth) was more like the atmosphere of Titan, which is one reason why astrobiologists are interested in Titan, considering that it could harbor the same type of life that Earth had early in its history.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Thats my point. "Early" earth was like any other planet that formed around the same time from the same material as us,yet we are not even remotely like other celestial bodies. Also, I dont know when you went to school,but, the general concensus NOW is that earth had more oxygen and earlier than previously thought. We have new methods and dont really stick to information from the 50s or the 80s.

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Thats my point. "Early" earth was like any other planet that formed around the same time from the same material as us,yet we are not even remotely like other celestial bodies.

The point of the information in the OP is that the specific combination of mineralogy on Earth is unique. However, it may also be true that the specific mineralogy of ANY planet is unique. So, in essence, Earth is not special. I suppose you could say its special because of its unique mineralogy, but then EVERY planet could claim its just as special.

I have a feeling the same goes for the exact make-up of atmospheres and the exact ratios of those atmospheric gasses. Early Earth was NOT "like any other planet". The exact atmospheric make-up of early Earth was probably as unique as our atmosphere is today, and as unique as Earth's specific mineralogy is.

Also, I dont know when you went to school,but, the general concensus NOW is that earth had more oxygen and earlier than previously thought. We have new methods and dont really stick to information from the 50s or the 80s.

Not free oxygen. The oxygen was here, but it was tied up in other compounds, such as in CO2 and H2O.

Could you please provide a source to the idea that the atmosphere of early Earth had that much more free oxygen than previously thought? As far as I know, the going consensus still is that our 21% free-oxygen atmosphere that we have today would have been toxic to moist of Earth's early life.

Evolution of the Atmosphere: Composition, Structure and Energy

a reply to: Triton1128
Depends on what you mean by the word "unique" I suppose. Judging by the size and the scope of the universe, I would say that there could be countless planets like earth. And not only that! But chance are there have been countless more like earth which at one point in space and time existed, but are dead barren world spinning in the void now. And chances are there will be countless more to be born some billions of years from now or are being born some millions to billion of light years away from us right this very moment in space and time.

But the same can be said of every other planet out there. Its just the name of the game...Life that is.

If your basing the uniqueness of a planet ie earth by the things you have yet to discover of figure out, well considering that we know little to almost nothing about other worlds...Well by that logic, what exactly are we comparing it to? I mean to say something is so and so and unique, you must have something to compare and contrast it to...Right?

We are not even at the stage were we can compare planets to other planets, were at the stage were we are comparing our planet by the things we don't know or are theorizing on, we are judging, comparing and contrasting ourselfs and this planet uniqueness on the things we dont know, basically we are comparing and contrasting our knowledge and dividing by our ignorance to come to a conclusion. That right there is still trudging on the depth of nothing much.

Here! Some vid and food for thought, though planetary science and cosmology or whatever the discipline is called is in its infancy, more of it seems to be concept artistry then actually fact, but you know. In till you stand face to face with the thing itself then really you are merely extrapolating theories. Who knows, we shall see I suppose. But not anything this few thousand years thats for sure.