EPTHaha, the orion nebula is a star-forming region, supernovae are guaranteed to happen soon (on astronomical timescales) and in fact did happen already. A nuke would be like nothing against a supernova.
Scientists discover *life* on another galaxy. - Page 3
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
Haha, the orion nebula is a star-forming region, supernovae are guaranteed to happen soon (on astronomical timescales) and in fact did happen already. A nuke would be like nothing against a supernova. | ||
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deL
Australia5540 Posts
On March 14 2010 03:47 konadora wrote: But does having all the necessary elements -> life? I'm pretty shitty at chemistry but my thinking is that having the 'materials' there doesn't necessary mean the end products will exist. Exactly, like you can't just throw together water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. and you end up with a human. I think quite obviously there are chemicals out there that form the basis of life on earth, we have already seen that from analysing meteors. EDIT: AFAIK | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:05 iCCup.deL wrote: Exactly, like you can't just throw together water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. and you end up with a human. I think quite obviously there are chemicals out there that form the basis of life on earth, we have already seen that from analysing meteors. Organic molecules in nebulae are nothing new really, hell we know there is lots of alcohol out there  This spectrum is just of better quality. | ||
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DefMatrixUltra
Canada1992 Posts
On March 14 2010 05:40 zer0das wrote: Yeah, I realize you have to simplify things a bit, I just think you went a little overboard.  Also, you must calculate the spectra? Is there any particular reason for this? Are real spectra too noisy? (actually now that I think about it, probably since IR detectors have this issue :S) For stuff like Hydrogen and Helium, you do not have to calculate the spectra (we already know what it looks like from simple lab experiments). Even if you did, it's pretty easy for these simple atoms. Also, when you take a spectral measurement series for something like a galaxy, you can make broad sweeps and just say 'this is H alpha' and so on without any real work needed. However, most astronomers these days are looking for specific things. Noise is not a huge problem in the signals (we're in space, so there's not any background radiation if we're far enough away from the Earth and we're not looking straight at Mars or something), and you can take measurements over very small frequency ranges and then add them all together later to get the spectrum. The special stuff you are looking for (for example, PAHs) is in general a very complicated system (with 50-100 atoms combining in many different ways). + Show Spoiler [More science] + The difficulty with these complicated systems is that they have spectra over large ranges. You can't look at a single molecule of a compound in a certain state and be like 'oh this is in its n-th rotational mode with extra vibrational noise' or whatever (you can do this in a lab, but not in space). You will get a spectrum from a LOT of emissions happening all at once (remember, the resolution here is pretty important). This is why you have to run the calculations. You have to put in the number of molecules, the chemical makeup, the molecular bonding structure etc. and solve for it at every energy level between the lowest and highest possible levels you are interested in. This is a huge calculation. Keep in mind that this calculation must be done, in general, BEFORE you try to compare measurements. So you have to go out, measure a spectrum, and then try to guess which configuration its in, and then calculate it and see if you are right. We've already done a bunch of calculations for the 'smaller' configurations so we already have a lot of them. One important thing is that a lot of these classes of atomic structures all look the same except at some particular range (like they are within 1-5% of each other except in some special range where their unique modes show up). So we need to do the calculations over a very large range of energy levels to find spaces where the unique modes show up. But anyway, in summary, astronomical spectroscopy is a very advanced field and is definitely capable of identifying things at ridiculous distances thanks to the constraints that quantum mechanics puts on the combinations of elements. It's hard for large stuff, and easy for simple small stuff. | ||
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deL
Australia5540 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:09 Maenander wrote: Organic molecules in nebulae are nothing new really, hell we know there is lots of alcohol out there This spectrum is just of better quality.mmm booze comets | ||
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PiePie
United States248 Posts
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obesechicken13
United States10467 Posts
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L
Canada4732 Posts
On March 14 2010 05:34 HnR)hT wrote: Astrobiology is not a real scientific discipline.  Also, AFAIK there can't possibly be life as we understand it in a region of young stars and interstellar gas. Aside from the fact such stars presumably had not had the time to aquire planetary systems with Earth-like planets, they occupy a region well on the left on the main sequence strip of the Hertzprung-Russel diagram, i.e. they are blue-hot and extremely luminous and their radiation would be absolutely lethal at distances in the AUs. Sure it is. Its just in its infancy. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
I believe the methane found in the Mars-atmosphere last year is a strong indication that methane is not the best indicator for life on a planet, although many Mars-enthusiasts might disagree | ||
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starfries
Canada3508 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:03 Maenander wrote: Haha, the orion nebula is a star-forming region, supernovae are guaranteed to happen soon (on astronomical timescales) and in fact did happen already. A nuke would be like nothing against a supernova. LOL it'd be like trying to 4 pool someone.. but the map is so big that when you get there, they stop it with 3/3 battlecruisers | ||
micronesia
United States24740 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:34 starfries wrote: LOL it'd be like trying to 4 pool someone.. but the map is so big that when you get there, they stop it with 3/3 battlecruisers Wasn't that iloveoov's pimpest play? Btw thread has been /threaded already. | ||
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
On March 14 2010 03:53 barth wrote: Is spectrum analysis so accurate as to determine the exact compounds from such a huge distance? Also "life" is an extreme overstatement in my opinion. Not really, all you need is a single-celled organism to form and that will be considered life. | ||
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hifriend
China7935 Posts
isn't orion nebula part of the milky way? | ||
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Nitrogen
United States5345 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:05 iCCup.deL wrote: Exactly, like you can't just throw together water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. and you end up with a human. I think quite obviously there are chemicals out there that form the basis of life on earth, we have already seen that from analysing meteors. EDIT: AFAIK heh, this reminds me of the miller/urey experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:43 hifriend wrote: "Scientists discover *life* on another galaxy." isn't orion nebula part of the milky way? Yes, the orion region is one of the closest red blots on this picture, around 1300 lightyears away from the sun: ![[image loading]](http://ipac.jpl.nasa.gov/media_images/ssc2008-10b_medium.jpg) nice map of the milky way, ah the things NASA does for us | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On March 14 2010 06:36 micronesia wrote: Wasn't that iloveoov's pimpest play? Btw thread has been /threaded already. Yeah that one was legendary. I think it was #2 in that year, even beating Boxer building a supply depot  | ||
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KungKras
Sweden484 Posts
I also hope that that life won't zerg rush us. | ||
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Not_Computer
Canada2277 Posts
I'm not bashing that life can't exist out there in the near-infinite universe, I'm just saying that they're overhyping their findings. For instance, it's been extensively theorized that silicon based lifeforms could exist in the same way as carbon based lifeforms do. Their chemistry would be immensely different, but it could still be 'life'. On the bright side, if we ever screw up Earth enough and we need a new home, we can find a wormhole, hop over to there, colonize some planets and play some EVE Online. | ||
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White_Raven
Australia178 Posts
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Dx Fx
Russian Federation85 Posts
Back to math... our math is pretty broken and it doesn't work very well, it works fantastic if you use it within it's boundaries, but if you leave them just by a dot they will epic fail. Anyway if i'm not mistaken some Dude proved something that's equivalent to "0 = 1" and the big math society is discussing about it. Hoyle compared the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." I believe that we are to restricted in our imagination of the definition of life. There could be 4D beings which we wouldn't be able to detect due our restriction to 3D and life don't need the same requirements as we do, especially not as we do after all we cannot even explain why we are able to "think".If we take in account that our life is nothing else as bunch of electromagnetic waves in a biological shell, then there is a pretty high chance that we are not alone. | ||
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