Scientists Found “Complex Organic Matter” in Our Solar System, And It Shouldn’t Be There

a reply to: 727Sky
Somebody tell em to let sleeping dogs lie, we're in the middle of another human error at the moment.

Time will tell. Scientists have been corrupt or wrong before. There is a history of manipulating data from many, many scientists to 'show' the desired results and reactions. Give it time.

Rock of Life
In 1996, scientists at NASA declared that a 6.3-ounce rock, broken off from a Mars meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984, contained flecks of chemical compounds — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, magnetite, and iron sulfide — that suggested the existence of bacteria on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago. "August 7, 1996, could go down as one of the most important dates in human history," intoned one newspaper report. But within two years the theory began to crack.
Traces of amino acids found in the rock, crucial to life, were also found in the surrounding Antarctic ice. More damning, other non-Martian rocks — rocks from the moon, where it is clear life does not exist — showed the same "evidence" of life. By November 1998 an article in Science declared "most researchers agree that the case for life on Mars is shakier than ever."

A weird form of life
A report in 2010 claimed that a weird form of life incorporates arsenic in place of phosphorus in biological molecules. This one sounded rather suspicious, but the evidence, at first glance, looked pretty good. Not so good at second glance, though. And arsenic-based life never made it into the textbooks.

Astronomers rejoiced in 1987 when a supernova appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the closest such stellar explosion to Earth in centuries. Subsequent observations sought a signal from a pulsar, a spinning neutron star that should reside in the middle of the debris from some types of supernova explosions. But the possible pulsar remained hidden until January 1989, when a rapidly repeating radio signal indicated the presence of a superspinner left over from the supernova. It emitted radio beeps nearly 2,000 times a second — much faster than anybody expected (or could explain). But after one night of steady pulsing, the pulsar disappeared. Theorists raced to devise clever theories to explain the bizarre pulsar and what happened to it. Then in early 1990, telescope operators rotated a TV camera (used for guiding the telescope) back into service, and the signal showed up again — around a different supernova remnant. So the supposed signal was actually a quirk in the guide camera’s electronics — not a message from space.

Even from the OP, it is SUGGESTED, as in it's just a theory.

“spectroscopic observations suggest the presence of complex organic matter on the surface of these asteroids.”

Give it 20 years or so for the Science to prove it's theory.

originally posted by: drewlander

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: 727Sky

I therefore lean towards the possibility of Panspermia.

Seems to me that the building blocks are found would tend to support the idea that life can get a start on its own, rather than coming from someplace else.

Now, if something other than chemicals are found, that might change things.

I believe we already found abiogenesis is not a certainty, but certainly possible. abiogenesis

ETA: dont you dare respond w/o at least clicking the link.

Abiogenesis is not only possible, it is a virtual certainty -- unless one feels that life in the universe somehow "came with" the universe or that some supernatural divine being used non-physical processes to make it happen.

Now, whether or not life on Earth is the result of abiogenesis occurring on Earth is another question. But if life came here on comet, asteroid, or other space rock via panspermia, then that life ultimately needed to spontaneously start/be the result of abiogenesis occurring somewhere at least once.

Life is chemicals, of course, but chemicals are not always life. As soon as we figure out how a bunch of chemicals can mix together and decide they need to eat, poop and reproduce, the chances of ET life may go up. Or down, depending on how probable it is to repeat itself.

These days, I tend to think that life is an integral part of the existence of the universe, and it's always been here. Or rather, "always" has always been here.

a reply to: Phage

Now, if something other than chemicals are found, that might change things.

So basic block to the humans are now found scattered through out our solar system.

Expand your thinking.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Life is chemicals, of course, but chemicals are not always life. As soon as we figure out how a bunch of chemicals can mix together and decide they need to eat, poop and reproduce, the chances of ET life may go up. Or down, depending on how probable it is to repeat itself.

But even if the chances of "life" (life in general) go up, there is still a chance that more complex life is a very rare thing.

Life on Earth may have appeared here very quickly after Earth's formation, but for the first 50% of the history of life on earth, it was extremely simple life -- prokaryotic life. For 2 or 2.5 Billion years, that simple life didn't do much but be simple.

Then even when slightly more complex life appeared (eukaryotic life -- or cells with a nucleus/organelles) that more complex life still remained relatively simple until perhaps 88% of the entire history of life on earth. It wasn't until that last 12% of Earth's life history (maybe 600 Million years ago) that more complex multi-cell life came into being.

That is to say, multi-celled life on earth is a pretty recent thing. Life took about 4 Billion years of simply "existing" before it started forming more complex organisms.

So it could be that even if life is relatively common throughout the universe, complex (multi-cell) life might be extremely rare. Granted, we only have life on earth as a model to go by, and there is no reason to believe the path life took on earth is a common path. However, there's no reason to believe that path is uncommon or special, either.

These days, I tend to think that life is an integral part of the existence of the universe, and it's always been here. Or rather, "always" has always been here.

Maybe, but that would require a re-write of how the elements heavier than hydrogen, helium, and lithium started. Under the current model, those were the only three elements that were close to integral with the formation of this universe -- and even those took a little while to form after the universe itself formed; the universe needed to cool a little before those first atoms formed.

But the elements that we see as being vital to life as we know it today did not exist, It might have taken another 400 million years for the atoms heavier than hydrogen, helium, and lithium to form. Those heavier atoms formed inside the first stars.

So unless there is some sort of life that does not require atoms, then life did not appear at the same time our universe was created -- according to current models.

a reply to: FinallyAwake

Exactly, and if he /she also believes you don't have to be smart to be a scientist, they could just quickly go learn some physics or biology and become a scientist themselves? surely? Exactly. Epic knee jerk fail lol

I believe the statement below is closer to correct than you think.

well scientist aren`t very smart they think they know everything but they don`t

I'll tell you why, but I doubt you will believe it for the very same reason that the statement is close to correct.
Scientist are humans. Humans are pack animals, and they tend to act just like pack animals. You have observed this behavior since grade school. A group of cool kids, a group of nerds, a group of slackers and so on. None of the groups can tell any of the other groups anything. Because it's not in that groups best interest, to hear anything other than what they have determine as right.

You see this every where. Politics, science, social anything and every thing. Many scientist have had to fight tooth and nail to prove the group wrong. It's a known issue in the scientific community. Any dissenting information is usually dismissed as incorrect or flawed. And when they make a judgement on something as being definitive, but later find they were wrong. It's because of new data. Not that they made a error.

It's always been go with the flow. Disagreeing with any group of people on their accepted truth is a bad idea, even if you are right. It usually gets you ostracized, black listed, and ridiculed.

originally posted by: MykeNukem
a reply to: 727Sky

I'm not expecting much.

We've only ever observed Biogenesis.

Exactly, this is still chemistry. We've never directly seen organic chemistry transition to biology.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Experiments like the Miller-Urey experiment using simple molecules like Carbon dioxide, ammonia. methane, water
when excited by energy (electric sparks aka lightning, UV radiation or other radiation) will produce amino acids, the precursors of more complex organic chemicals


en.wikipedia.org...

Interstellar gas/dust clouds have been shown to contain numerous organic chemicals like methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol,
formaldehyde and others

It is almost impossible not to create complex organic chemicals

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

Experiments like the Miller-Urey experiment using simple molecules like Carbon dioxide, ammonia. methane, water
when excited by energy (electric sparks aka lightning, UV radiation or other radiation) will produce amino acids, the precursors of more complex organic chemicals


en.wikipedia.org...

Interstellar gas/dust clouds have been shown to contain numerous organic chemicals like methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol,
formaldehyde and others

It is almost impossible not to create complex organic chemicals

Oh, I'm with you. I think life in general is common throughout the universe. As you said, organic compounds are everywhere, and complex organic compounds I think are likely. And the step from complex organic compounds to "life" may also be common.

However, complex life might not be common. Like I said, the simple life on Earth stayed pretty stagnant for the first half of the history of life on earth; it didn't do much other than remain simple. Simple one-cell life for about 2 billion years. Then it evolved slightly to become eukaryotic life, and that kind of life remained basically stagnant for almost another 2 billion years, although a few multi-cell creatures emerged. It wasn't until about 600 Million years ago that life started organizing themselves with specialty cells into the first very privative animals (like sponges).

But life before that seemed quite content not to really become more complex for the first 80% of the history of life on Earth.

Whatever it was 600+ million years ago that caused life to become more complex might be a very rare event. Therefore, complex life might be very rare, even though life itself (simple bacterial life) might be common. Using Earth as the only example we have, it seemed to be quite a challenge for life to go from being simple bacteria to being complex. And by complex, I mean even the most basic of what we would call "animals" that first came into existence.

And that's not even touching upon intelligent life. That's a whole other issue, and may be an exceeding rare thing. However, given the size of the universe, even intelligent life likely exists elsewhere, but that "elsewhere" may be so far away that we might never learn of their existence, nor they learn of us.