Planets that can potentially support life... - Page 22

On April 30 2012 21:36 Aelfric wrote:

Sigh. Earth is not designed for us. We fit in to the earth. If Earth would be designed for us humans would exist as soon as the world exists. Well, it didn't happen that way. Earth seems to be 4,5 billion years old and our evolution took millions of years, billions if we count all the ancestors. We found our way into the earth by adapting to the enviroment arround us and it took time and the process is still going on.

We will adapt to the space with our technology, we are not evolved for space because we never had to survive in that enviroment. Macro evolution takes thousands, millions of years so we can't wait to adapt via biology but our technology and scientific improvements are incredibly fast so we will find our way into space too.

On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?

On April 30 2012 21:49 ArchAngelSC wrote:


Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the whole theory of evolution based on adapting to your surroundings?

On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:



Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings.
Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.

Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.

On April 30 2012 22:03 ArchAngelSC wrote:


Okay fair enough.

Also I misspoke earlier. When I said "designed for us" I didn't necessarily mean designed for LIFE. Probably should have made that clearer

On April 30 2012 21:58 Miyoshino wrote:

Life can't evolve in space period. The laws of nature were presicely fine tuned so that in 99.999999999% of the universe it is physically impossible for life to survive there. Almost all of space is a near vacuum that is near absolute zero. Then most stuff besides that are burning hot fusion engines that throw massive amounts of radiation into their surroundings.
Then there are planets but most are either frozen or cooking.

Liquid water is the medium for life. If you designed the universe for life the universe would be one huge blob of liquid water. It's not so it wasn't designed for life. Until you can prove to me the universe is indeed a huge blob of liquid water, I won't believe you when you tell me it was designed for life.

On April 30 2012 21:11 ArchAngelSC wrote:


Well it just comes down to a persons bias on how you view what your observe. For example, a scientist that believes the evolutionary theory will see something and say "this developed into being like this because it is the best way to be", whereas a scientist who believes the creation theory will see that same thing and say "it was designed like this because this is what is required" and really they're both just as unprovable as each other.

On April 30 2012 22:26 Mariella wrote:


Except that evolution has already been reproduced in a lab, thus proof.

On April 30 2012 22:17 Xpace wrote:
I'm not going to claim to be an expert at this subject, but isn't it strange that people assume planets that support life must have certain environmental qualities, like water, oxygen, or non-fatal elements (predominantly to humans) in the atmosphere? Why must a planet mimic the qualities of Earth for it to have life? So far we only about our world, is it not possible that life exists on a planet that would, say, incinerate Earth-born creatures if they try to breath? I find it strange that people (or at least the general consensus I know of) have this assumption that any species not from our planet, regardless of its sentience, must be similar to what we simply believe them to be.

I'll refer to this topic:


Again, I'm not an expert at the subject, but how are we so sure that absolutely no life can exist in space? Most likely based off of what humans know? Like, if stuff like waterbears (iirc) can be exposed the vacuum of space and come back to Earth and live, isn't there a shot?

On April 30 2012 20:30 ArchAngelSC wrote:

The universe being designed for us is a very widely accepted theory (not saying it's the only one, just one of many). You must still be in your early years of education if you do not know this.

On April 30 2012 22:56 Warillions wrote:

you verbally attack him to validate your statement.

On April 30 2012 22:54 kef wrote:


That's an incredibly complex question, and although I used to think the same thing, as I've studied biochemistry at the university level (my major), I've learned that the answer to "Could life evolve in space?" is "Almost definitely not." Now that's not to say "absolutely not" because science has a way of surprising us, but the idea that life as complex as animal life could evolve in space is basically impossible. Maybe through genetic engineering life could be able to exist in space, but naturally, certainly not.

Life (in the scientific sense) is basically a series of complex chemical reactions that have increased in complexity via the mechanism we call evolution over billions of years to the point where we are now. In order for there to be a series of chemical reactions like those that life evolved from there needs to be certain conditions. If you study chemistry, you'll learn that water has some very unique properties that arise from its chemical structure- properties such as high amounts of hydrogen bonding which lead to things like high surface tension, a specific crystalline structure that results in solid ice being less dense than liquid ice, etc. which our form of life needs to exist. The specific phase (liquid) of water, the presence of certain biological precursors ("organic" compounds or their precursors), and the correct temperature were all necessary for there to be the complex reactions that life arose from, and on Earth, it just so happened that all the right conditions were present at the same time for life to arise.

In vacuum, water is either frozen or gaseous- because pressure is so low, there is no liquid state. Chemical reactions cannot occur if particles do not come into contact (which is rare in a vacuum). Chemical reactions cannot occur if the specific reactants don't come into contact. Chemical reactions cannot occur quick enough (if even at all) if temperatures are too low, and if temperatures are high (such as near a star) the resulting organic products would literally burn up.

I could go on for a long time, but it's really difficult to explain it all in a short amount of time, especially to someone who doesn't have a decent biology/chemistry/biochemistry background. Suffice it to say that given what we know about life today, it could not evolve in space, and actually requires very specific conditions (such as those on Earth for complex life or possibly Mars for less complex life) to arise. Anything else is conjecture at this point.

On April 30 2012 23:17 Aelfric wrote:


I know that we are getting out of thread's context here but what do you think about abiogenesis?

On April 30 2012 22:36 Miyoshino wrote:
If something can survive without liquid water we wouldn't be calling it 'life' but something else.

Just like stuff can survive some conditions into space doesn't mean it can evolve and reproduce there. These extremophiles can't live in space just because they survive exposure to space.

Liquid water is needed for any form of cell metabolism. If it freezes, the crystals will damage cell membranes and organelles. Waterbears go into cryptobiosis. They are basically 'dead' when in that stage. They have no metabolism. They just can come back from that.

This means life can survive on a planet where everything freezes solid for like 10 months and then melts for their 2 months of summer, whatever length their month is. They still need liquid water to do their life things.
Something that's in cryptobiosis permanently is just dead and not coming back.

Now maybe something that is self-organizing can survive without liquid water. There's alternative chemestry where you have silicon and methane or something like that. But I would limit the term 'life' to only organic chemestry based self-organising stuff.
We know our organic chemistry. It is hard to see how something based silicon could do just as well as our carbon stuff. We need liquid water for organic chemistry. That's what we call life.
Even if something based on something else is possible, that's still a way way long shot away from silicon-based multicellular life. It's already a big enough of a challenge to find organic life. So let's find that stuff first. When we do we can speculate about the much rarer occuring alternatives.

It's not just that we 'favour' organic chemistry because that's what we are made of. It is in the nature of organic chemistry itself.
We know what complex molecules can occur and how likely they are to arise. We can even observe what is out there in space up to a limited amount. The odds are not good for non-carbon based complex self-reproducing structures.
Also, carbon is much more common in the universe than silicon is anyway.

On May 01 2012 00:32 Kingsky wrote:
we areee not ready . what if we see them and they see us back AND THEIR ZERGGGGG