100% proof of life on other planets.

originally posted by: Dwoodward85
a reply to: tonycodes

You don't need anything from space to prove that life does and can exist in the universe. Get up right now, walk to your nearest mirror or reflective object and take a look at the thing looking back at you, there is your proof that life can exist out there and most likely does. I've had this debate a few times and will say it again, WE, Humanity is evidence enough that alien life can exist in the universe and does. The simple fact that in a cosmos as big as ours, so big that we cannot even imagine its size, there is life on a small green blue orb and people still question whether there can be or is life in the universe confuses me greatly.

Yeah, but evidence is not proof.

I agree that life elsewhere almost certainly exists, and I personally feel that it does in fact exist. However, it is similar to the idea that I mentioned above about the existence of exoplanets...

Scientists and laymen had always expected that other planets around other stars almost certainly existsed; Why would our solar sysem be so special? However, it wasn't until 1995 that proof of the first one was found. Even if scientists personally felt (i.e., their personal opinion) that other planets existed prior to that 1995 discovery, they would hvae had to say from a professional standpoint that no 100% proof had yet been found.


It's the same for life elsewhere. Scientists (as well as laymen) may be of the peronal opinion that life elsewhere exists, given what they know about the size of the universe and the tenacity of life as we know it. However, despite those personal opinions, those same scientist would need to say from a professional scientific standpoint that there is no scientific proof of life elsewhere.

So science thinking life elsewhere "almost surely exists" and science saying "there is 100% proof of life elsewhere" are two different things.

firm believer in life in the possibly more than 2 TRILLION galaxies out there and also firm believer that some of it has been, and continues to visit us to this day. Yes, water very important for life as we know it. I wonder a lot though, wouldn't it be insane if we find some type of life intelligent or not, swimming in the methane seas and lakes on Titan??? Life as we do not know it. I think that too, is out there all over.

a reply to: data5091

I would find life outside our understanding far more interesting, than life which fits easily within our standard frame of reference.

But its those really interesting examples, that would most easily avoid detection by the methods we tend to prefer, those of sending probes, rather than pouring more resources into figuring out better ways of launching craft and moving them around the cosmos. I feel that our languishing on the laurel of the rocket for as long as we have, is an absolute disgrace, that we should have been a damned sight further along than "Sit em on a bomb and hope for the best", which is what we do right now.

There are 51,277 planets with human populations in the Milky Way galaxy.
Don't ask me how this information was relayed.

On this very planet, which is teeming with life, I can find you liquid H2O that doesn't have life in it.

a reply to: skunkape23

There are 51,277 planets with human populations in the Milky Way galaxy. Don't ask me how this information was relayed.

After a lifetime of not following directions, I gotta ask... how was that information relayed?

My sources say 121,671.

My sources live in a close rectum.

originally posted by: skunkape23
There are 51,277 planets with human populations in the Milky Way galaxy.

I find that unlikely, as we would be at open war with at least a few of them already. 'Cause that's how we roll.

I'm pretty sure life is abundant every where in the universe wherever a star is present.
Just not near black holes, lol.

I don't know how to explain this in detail but It's a mind-***k how biological life works so similar to the universe itself.
Stars aren't the only thing that produces radiant energy from hydrogen gas.
We all breathe hydrogen and produce matter from it.

We may very well all be stranded here on a huge rock falling into the sun.
but If you're having a bad day just remember that you are a star anyway.

originally posted by: data5091
Yes, water very important for life as we know it. I wonder a lot though, wouldn't it be insane if we find some type of life intelligent or not, swimming in the methane seas and lakes on Titan??? Life as we do not know it. I think that too, is out there all over.

Methane is just part of the hydrocarbon family, unless we find fish swimming in crude oil I doubt we would find life on titan.
I am curious as to how Titan formed though.

a reply to: tonycodes

Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years. Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star...

Hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung to interstellar space. The appearance of a comet is called an apparition.

Wikipedia: Comet

I probably should have quoted this on the 'Oumuamua thread as it explains what a hyperbolic trajectory is but hey, we have it now (sorry if already posted). That is where comets from!

TPTB want you to think small! The water argument is rather small minded and you are buying it hook, line, and sinker! Time for a little "later thinking" or "thinking outside the box," like this guy!

Washington State Univ. (cas.wsu.edu) - Alien life could thrive on ‘supercritical’ C02 instead of water.

Supercritical CO2 (SCO2) is regular CO2 but under pressure and heated up. At a certain point it stops being a gas and becomes this half-way state between a liquid and gas where it behaves like a liquid and still has gas-like properties. If another planet's atmosphere has the conditions, SCO2 might be the "water" life arises in.

It is just a theory (it has not been proved or observed) but it is a different way to think about life out there. I believe that there is 100% chance of not just life but an intelligent life out there.

a reply to: watchitburn


I have space vodka. 10 Forward Vodka , each bottle has Vodka that has been sent to space. And yes Ten Forward is named after the officers lounge on the Enterprise from Next Gen

Life is an arbitrary declaration.

We are made of atoms. Atoms exist elsewhere.

There are atoms in the universe.

We exist of compounds made of atoms.
Other bodies we have directly observes are made of complex atomic compounds.

There are compounds in the universe.

Life is made of complex compounds. (Why do we stop our logic right here?)

originally posted by: StrangeQuark96

originally posted by: data5091
Yes, water very important for life as we know it. I wonder a lot though, wouldn't it be insane if we find some type of life intelligent or not, swimming in the methane seas and lakes on Titan??? Life as we do not know it. I think that too, is out there all over.

Methane is just part of the hydrocarbon family, unless we find fish swimming in crude oil I doubt we would find life on titan.
I am curious as to how Titan formed though.

Not all hydrocarbons are alike. The lakes on Titan are methane, which is quite different than crude oil. And if life does exist on Titan, it would be a different kind of life than we have on Earth.


First of all, life on Titan would have a different cell structure, specifically the structure of the membranes surrounding the cell and nucleus. Chemical and molecular scientists at Cornell are doing research on theoretical life with a totally different type of cell structure that use nitrogen-based membranes to control the flow of nutrients in and out of the cell rather than Earth life that uses fatty-acid membranes called liposomes.

On Earth, water is the solvent in which nutrients are dissolved and then used for life processes. But liquid methane is also a solvent that could hypothetically be used in life processes, but these liposomes break down in liquid methane, so alternative membranes made from compounds (such as nitrogen compounds) that could be found on methane-worlds are being considered.

These theoretical nitrogen-base membranes are being called "azotosome", and they work like a liposome, with one major difference -- liposomes work because the fatty acids are non-water soluble, so they can act as a barrier between the water inside and outside the cell, controlling the flow of nutrient in and out of a cell. These fatty acids would break down in a hydrocarbon environment, like methane.

Instead, this azotosome membrane, being made of nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, would be non-hydrocarbon soluble, and be able to control the flow of nutrients in and out of a cell that uses liquid methane in place of water. Simulated models have been tested of liquid methane-based life with these "azotosome" membranes rather than liposome membranes containing the cell show that the methane world Titan has azotosome compounds, and (importantly) those compounds share some of the same abilities as liposomes and also show stability.


That is to say, this is a potential mechanism that would allow life-processes to happen in a liquid methane world, such as Saturn's moon Titan, or other world that might be beyond the liquid water habitable zone, but be within the liquid methane habitable zone.

Life 'not as we know it' possible on Saturn's moon Titan

On Earth, life is based on the phospholipid bilayer membrane, the strong, permeable, water-based vesicle that houses the organic matter of every cell. A vesicle made from such a membrane is called a liposome. Thus, many astronomers seek extraterrestrial life in what’s called the circumstellar habitable zone, the narrow band around the sun in which liquid water can exist. But what if cells weren’t based on water, but on methane, which has a much lower freezing point?

The engineers named their theorized cell membrane an “azotosome,” “azote” being the French word for nitrogen. “Liposome” comes from the Greek “lipos” and “soma” to mean “lipid body;” by analogy, “azotosome” means “nitrogen body.”

The azotosome is made from nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen molecules known to exist in the cryogenic seas of Titan, but shows the same stability and flexibility that Earth’s analogous liposome does. This came as a surprise to chemists like Clancy and Stevenson, who had never thought about the mechanics of cell stability before; they usually study semiconductors, not cells.

Does Titan’s Hydrocarbon Soup Hold A Recipe For Life?

NASA researchers have confirmed the existence in Titan’s atmosphere of vinyl cyanide, which is an organic compound that could potentially provide the cellular membranes for microbial life to form in Titan’s vast methane oceans. If true, it could prove to us that life can flourish without the ubiquitous HO.

Earth-based cell membranes are made of phospholipids: molecular chains with phosphorus-oxygen heads and carbon-chain tails that bind to each other to form a flexible membrane in water. Methane-based life, should it exist, would need an alternative to Earth’s phospholipid-based existence and would open up a much wider range of planets and moons to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. one possible alternative is vinyl cyanide.

Another thing that would be different about life on Titan would be the way it gets energy (what it eats). An older NASA article that might have some out-of-date info, but one that shows the research into life that uses methane instead of water is real and is something NASA actively engages in:

What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?

One key finding comes from a paper online now in the journal Icarus that shows hydrogen molecules flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Another paper online now in the Journal of Geophysical Research maps hydrocarbons on the Titan surface and finds a lack of acetylene.

This lack of acetylene is important because that chemical would likely be the best energy source for a methane-based life on Titan, said Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., who proposed a set of conditions necessary for this kind of methane-based life on Titan in 2005. One interpretation of the acetylene data is that the hydrocarbon is being consumed as food. But McKay said the flow of hydrogen is even more critical because all of their proposed mechanisms involved the consumption of hydrogen.

"We suggested hydrogen consumption because it's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth," McKay said. "If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth."

a reply to: tonycodes

Frankly, 0% proof of life on other planets is
not only the current scientific evidence, but
the prospect of that possibility is very
credible.. and even promoted as a strong
possibility by even SETI leadership.

"The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien IntelligenceApr 13, 2010
by Paul Davies"

It's a pretty good read.. I'd recommend it.

Now that said.. I also find it likely, but not necessarily true, that life
exists elsewhere. But we could all easily be wrong.

Extraterrestrial life will not be a definite until humans discover it, be it a full-blown civilisation or micro-bacterial. Life is life. What should unite all sentient life forms is the the life force itself...consciousness, self awareness...maybe that is a constant throughout all existance.

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: tonycodes

Frankly, 0% proof of life on other planets is
not only the current scientific evidence, but
the prospect of that possibility is very
credible.. and even promoted as a strong
possibility by even SETI leadership.

I agree we have no proof, so science cannot declare "life elsewhere exists" until we actually come across it.

However, I personally feel the universe is too big of a place for there to be no other life that existis today, including technological civilizations.

Granted, there does seem to be the silence as mentioned by the Fermi Paradox, but I think the reason for the Fermi Paradox is the same reason why I think life exists -- that is, the universe is such a vast place. It might be so vast that the other civilizations existing today may be so far away and so sparse that we may never cross paths.


There's also a timing factor. I said above "other civilizations that exist today" because even though our galaxy seems to have a lot of planets that could possible harbor an ET technological civilization, the timeline of the galaxy is also large (billions of years) and even though the odds might be good that a planet relatively near us (a few hundred LY away) might have supported a civilization, the odds greatly decrease when we specify that the civilization exists at the same time as ours.

There could have been dozens of civilizations n our neighborhood that came and went in the 4.5 Billion years the Earth has existed, but there may be none near us right now, in the relative blink-of-an-eye that human civilization has existed.

In another galaxy? I say it's likely.
Across the other side of our galaxy? Maybe.
Within a few hundred light years? Maybe not.

originally posted by: watchitburn
I want space beer.

Setting up a Space Cantina near the ISS might solve both Thirst and the Big Question.

All customers will be expected to observe immaculate behaviour - and must never be first to draw their weapons.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

As I said in the post you responded to, I too think that life
somewhere in the Universe seems quite likely.

I just don't believe in feeding the UFO religion with nonsense.

Kevin

a reply to: TrueBrit

LOL for years we were taught that somehow a few amino acids got together and formed life which led to higher evolved forms.

Someone posits that water which is necessary for life as we know it is abundant and therefore life may be a 100% certainty.

does not prove or even pass muster as a reasonable assumption, that the presence of H2O in ANY format automatically means life

Of course it is a reasonable assumption. Living in your world you should be checking the 200 odd vehicles you may run across everyday to make sure they've had their brakes serviced otherwise you shouldn't be leaving your front door.

Now, I am of the opinion that we should be sending manned missions to every solid body that we can physically land a craft on with a relative degree of safety, and having those pioneering people sift every interesting pile of dirt, look under every rock, explore every cave, crack, crevice and gap, and do what only human beings have ever been able to do in our experience, and that is deeply and passionately explore those places, to identify as many potential places where life may form as possible.

Thats a lot of " every's " So you dont mind your taxes going up by a few trillion?

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Your post is a nice practice in psychological semantics and individual perspectives. I back that guy's viewpoint though. Life is out there, because life is here. Good enough for me. Chicxulub threw some life well out into space.

Earth has been a cesspool of life for a while, I wager that some has left. Doesn't take NASA to put life in space. We've had plenty of meteors and asteroids to get that job done. Besides, if organisms can get high enough to stick to the ISS windows? Any glancing blow of a comet or meteor in our upper atmosphere can pick up hitch hikers.

Extremophiles, tardigrades, dormant spores and seeds, and long hibernation animals like Cicadas or rock toads... Maybe some are hanging around a little further from our backyard than we would imagine.