[HN Gopher] NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and mol...
___________________________________________________________________
NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at
Enceladus
Author : wglb
Score : 199 points
Date : 2023-12-16 05:07 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| ianai wrote:
| yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652897
|
| Hydrogen cyanide, acetylene, propylene, ethane, propene. There's
| bacteria that live off acetylene (though surely abiotic processes
| too). I suspect this indicates plenty of energy and complex
| chemistry on Enceladus. Some of those compounds are energetic
| while others (I think?) are combustion bi-products. Otherwise, I
| wonder when/if we'll ever see oxygen (O2) confirmed in a study
| like this? I realize it's highly/easily bound up in reactions,
| but what a finding that'd be. They list a probability of 0.64
| (aka 64%) chance of O2 here. Imagining a surface of water ice and
| near vacuum atmosphere, I suspect any free oxygen would be very
| difficult to detect. But they also see co2 so maybe any oxygen is
| quickly used up? source:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02160-0.epdf
| passwordoops wrote:
| Hydrogen cyanide, acetylene, propylene, ethane, propene would
| all react very quickly with oxygen, if it is being produced.
|
| I imagine like early earth, if there are organisms they are
| following an anoxic pathway
| ianai wrote:
| So is it because the life signals so far suggest simple life
| that money isn't really pouring into an expedition? That's my
| inkling anyway. Turns out us apes are still far more
| interested in everyday stuff than even life outside our
| sphere.
|
| i.e. I would expect "enthusiasm" to look like discussions on
| building the infrastructure for multiple missions out there.
| Communications way points, some basic resource stuff, etc.
| Stuff to make getting things in that system more robust and
| timely.
|
| Edit: Maybe experiment/do the laser propulsion tech.
| "Lighthouses" at critical points.
| staplers wrote:
| The discovery of even the most base simple lifeform outside
| Earth would be forever world-changing.
|
| Society, religion, mass institutions would be forced to
| reconcile with this fact.
|
| I don't think it's necessarily about money.
| NateEag wrote:
| What do you think would change about religions?
|
| The only one I know well is evangelical Christianity,
| having been raised in it.
|
| I've read through the Protestant Bible several times, and
| I'm not aware of anything in it that changes meaningfully
| if there's other life forms in the universe.
| martin-t wrote:
| You overestimate people. Most wouldn't care at all, a few
| would say that's cool and move on. Religious people would
| just say their favorite god created those too. Unless the
| aliens were more advanced than us, nothing would change.
| cwillu wrote:
| The struggle with the religious types is forever that
| they can't be pinned down in the details: it's not that
| new information can't be assimilated because it conflicts
| with doctrine, it's that doctrine, aside from a few very
| core concepts, is extremely fluid and will seamlessly
| flow and change to admit the conflicting information
| without affecting anything of importance.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I'd be very surprised if we saw oxygen. Photosynthesis took
| much longer to evolve on Earth than life did in the first
| place, and on Enceladus you have both a thick layer of ice
| preventing sunlight from reaching liquid water and also a much
| dimmer Sun in the first place due to how far away Jupiter is.
| Sharlin wrote:
| *Saturn, but yes. If there's life, free oxygen would likely
| be incredibly toxic to it, just like it was to early life on
| Earth (and still is to some chemosynthesis-based ocean floor
| life).
| intrasight wrote:
| I don't much like the spark and fire analogy with life. Not sure
| what analogy works. We don't yet really understand life well
| enough to have a good one.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| What oxygen-breathing cells do is pretty much nanoscale
| combustion, so the analogy seems apt.
| superposeur wrote:
| This is intriguing and I'm very happy this exploration is being
| done.
|
| But, for decades, I've been reading reports of the discovery of
| evidence for the _trappings_ of life elsewhere: water and
| organics and "habitable" exoplanets. These are valuable
| discoveries, but the tone of the reports suggest they imply life
| is about to turn up.
|
| It's worth remembering that there is not one single shred of
| evidence that life has ever existed anywhere in the observable
| universe but Earth. Moreover, no one has succeeded in hatching
| living matter from non living matter and we must honestly say we
| do not know how this process came about or the faintest estimate
| of how likely it is to occur (despite much speculation, some of
| which may turn out to be correct but equally may turn out to be
| dead wrong). The oft cited fact that life arose "quickly" after
| the formation of Earth has no bearing on the question.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > It's worth remembering that there is not one single shred of
| evidence that life has ever existed anywhere in the observable
| universe but Earth.
|
| I'm curious how your epistemology is working here. It seems to
| me that this will also be true in the future if we have found
| life on a hundred other planets. There still won't be a shred
| of evidence of life _anywhere else_ , and we still won't have
| the faintest estimate of how likely it is to occur, right?
| ianai wrote:
| idk, I think if we see even simple life at multiple points in
| our own system that we can increase our expectations for the
| prevalence of life very significantly.
|
| And of course given how vast and indifferent to life the
| universe is, life would still be vanishingly rare in the
| universe. It's going to be always precious and a gem.
| superposeur wrote:
| I agree, _if_ -- that's an enormous "if".
| ianai wrote:
| But it's actually possible to explore our solar system!
| We've been at it since the 70s!
| superposeur wrote:
| Yes and I'm glad we're doing it! No life or fossilized
| remains of life of any kind has yet been found.
| peyton wrote:
| Have we sent up any archeological tools for sample prep
| and whatnot? Can't find what we don't look for, no?
| edgyquant wrote:
| Why? That could just mean our solar gave rise to life and
| not earth alone. Still don't see why that increases the
| odds outside of our solar system
| superposeur wrote:
| If, in a volume of space, there are N exoplanets and 100
| spontaneously created life, then I'd crudely estimate the
| probability of life at 100/N for a given exoplanet.
|
| Currently, we have only an _upper limit_ on the probability
| and barely even that. All observations are consistent with a
| probability less that 10^-40, meaning it certainly wouldn't
| happen a second time in the observable universe.
| spenczar5 wrote:
| How many exoplanets would you say we have _proven_ have no
| life? You imply 10^40 exoplanets are known to harbor no
| life. That is probably vastly more than the number of
| planets in the observable universe (something in the wide
| region of 10^20 to 10^25).
|
| Something like 5,000 exoplanets have even been discovered.
| We can't cross off many of those as _certainly_ lacking
| life.
| superposeur wrote:
| I'm certainly not claiming the actual probability is
| 10^-40 , only using this as an example consistent with an
| upper limit, which probability would imply life has not
| arisen a second time in the observable universe. Actually
| this is way overkill -- as you say, even if the
| probability is as high as 10^-25, life on Earth is still
| probably the only instance in observable universe. The
| point is that we have _no idea_ what this all important
| parameter is.
| spenczar5 wrote:
| Our upper limit is something like 10^-1. After all, there
| is life on earth! Our lower limit is 10^-25 or so.
|
| Why pick the lower limit? Existence of life on earth is
| extremely powerful evidence.
| superposeur wrote:
| Ah, but in my opinion we can't call 10^-25 a lower limit
| since, if life didn't occur in this collection of
| planets, we wouldn't be here asking the question in the
| first place!
| jahewson wrote:
| You've not accounted for the tiny number of observations
| that we've made nor the limited power of our observations.
| We're not even sure if life existed on the planet literally
| next to us, let alone these exoplanets. Otherwise I could
| argue that all observations are consistent with a
| probability less than 10^-10 or 10^-20 or any other number
| I feel like.
|
| Ask yourself this, from how many planets in the universe
| would you be able to observe life on Earth?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| the epistemology rests on how you construct the question, and
| the underlying logic.
|
| "Does life exist anywhere besides earth" is a very different
| question than "does life exist outside these 100 planets".
| Because they are different questions, the relevancy of data
| and hypotheses are different.
| notjoemama wrote:
| Using this same logic (in an ad absurdum context) we could
| also say you will never die because no one anywhere has any
| evidence that you have. That doesn't falsify your statement,
| but using ad absurdum shows a statement is not true in every
| context. I tend to think that shows less conclusion and more
| investigation may be warranted. That's how I think of it, but
| I could be off base and I'm open to being mostly if not
| entirely wrong.
| tshaddox wrote:
| We have pretty good explanations for why people die and why
| we expect everyone alive today to die unless we acquire new
| knowledge that enables us to prevent it.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| The God of the gaps.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| The lack of interest in abiogenesis in most circles is truly
| outstanding.
| ianai wrote:
| And here's another thing. With how difficult it is to probe
| new physics, we stand to do a lot more research by simply
| inspecting all the observable universe than trying to build
| colliders.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Finding a new particle doesn't necessarily threaten
| strictly up held religious beliefs like finding life
| somewhere other than this rock
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Catholics officially believe in aliens, and that we
| should save them (if they weren't visited by Jesus)
|
| Jews wouldn't care either. Don't know about Muslims, but
| it's not threatening to the other Abrahamic religions
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Catholics officially believe in aliens,
|
| A definitive position on the existence of aliens is not
| part of the Catholic faith.
|
| But, the church admits the possibility and church
| institutions have done some explorations about what the
| implications of such contact might be, and how Catholic
| doctrine might apply to different possibilities.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Apparently you are correct!
|
| https://www.catholic.com/qa/whats-the-catholic-position-
| on-t...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Catholics officially believe in aliens, and that we
| should save them (if they weren't visited by Jesus)_
|
| Reminds me of the punch line to an amusing first-contact
| cartoon, one that makes the (unstated) previous line easy
| enough to guess: "Yeah, he comes by every couple of
| years. We gave him a nice box of chocolates when he first
| visited. What'd you guys do?"
| edgyquant wrote:
| Muslims recite that Allah is "lord of all the worlds"
| every day. Think they'll be fine. This is true of every
| religion I think, it's only the non religious projecting
| that state it would "upend widely held beliefs"
| itishappy wrote:
| Inspecting the universe can be a lot harder than building
| colliders. Observing some of the short-lived high-energy
| particles would require shipping detectors to a high-energy
| location like the sun, then pulling a signal from all that
| noise.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| There's quite a bit of interest; e.g. ex-colleagues of mine
| have spent lots of effort on refining the 'chemoton' model. I
| think it's a fascinating subject.
|
| "The basic assumption of the model is that life should
| fundamentally and essentially have three properties:
| metabolism, self-replication, and a bilipid membrane.[3] The
| metabolic and replication functions together form an
| autocatalytic subsystem necessary for the basic functions of
| life, and a membrane encloses this subsystem to separate it
| from the surrounding environment. Therefore, any system
| having such properties may be regarded as alive, and it will
| be subjected to natural selection and contain a self-
| sustaining cellular information."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemoton
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/he-may-
| ha...
| borissk wrote:
| Bilipid membrane is not necessary for life - life may have
| evolved inside naturally occurring bacteria sized pores
| inside inorganic material.
| idlewords wrote:
| I would turn your logic around and say, everywhere we are able
| to look, we find evidence that life is more likely than
| expected. Until the 1990's it was an open question whether any
| other star had planets; as soon as we got the tools to test
| that, we found they were ubiquitous. As soon as we got the
| right instruments to Mars, we found signs of moving water,
| methane sources, and complex organic molecules in what is
| basically an Earth-like old lake bed. The moment PCR technology
| made it possible to do the search, we found a massive 'dark
| biome' extending many kilometers into the Earth's crust.
|
| When you immediately find strong pieces of circumstantial
| evidence the moment you acquire the tools to start looking for
| something, the correct conclusion to draw is not "we have yet
| to find a shred of evidence", but that further searching is
| likely to be highly worthwhile.
| superposeur wrote:
| These factors are what I call the "trappings of life". It is
| a completely open question (and I mean _completely_ ) how
| likely life is to arise spontaneously when these factors are
| present. One single instance of life elsewhere or successful
| abiogenesis in the lab would change that, but we have
| neither.
| malfist wrote:
| We've barely started looking. It's like picking up one
| piece of hay, not finding a needle and declaring there's no
| needle in the haystack.
| superposeur wrote:
| No is declaring that there is no needle in the haystack.
| Please actually read my post.
| stouset wrote:
| "I just want to be clear that we've definitely not
| actually found life. We've found likely precursors
| everywhere, habitable bodies everywhere, have plausible
| theories on how to go from precursors to bootstrapping,
| and see life in every corner of the planet we have
| explored. But just to be clear we haven't actually found
| life anywhere else yet."
|
| Yeah, we know. So what then was the _point_ of your post?
| superposeur wrote:
| Well, perhaps you know that none of the recent findings
| are evidence of life, but in my conversations with others
| I have perceived a great deal of confusion on this point,
| even among scientifically literate colleagues. Also, the
| fact that we have zero understanding of the probability
| of abiogenesis is, in my experience, a greatly under-
| appreciated fact. I speculate that the way findings are
| reported contributes to this confusion.
|
| Also, at risk of incurring a flame, I'll gently point out
| that you are folding into this confusion and reinforcing
| it with your language: "likely precursors everywhere,
| habitable bodies" ... we absolutely do not know that
| these conditions are "likely" precursors, which is a
| statement about a probability we know nothing about and
| as for "habitable" we do not actually know anything about
| whether or not a body is habitable in the sense of likely
| to spontaneously form life.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
|
| sorry your life has created this crusade of rhetorically
| reminding people about the absence is evidence
| superposeur wrote:
| Not in general, just on this particular point. Because,
| in my opinion, we as a scientific community are currently
| flush with the (very cool) unexpected discovery of so
| many exoplanets and it is somewhat distorting our
| collective thinking about life and its origins.
| creer wrote:
| We SHOULD (be flush and distorted). We can be realistic
| AND enthusiastic about it. Some technically challenging
| work was done and achieved results FAR FAR beyond
| expectations. That is a result worthy of changing
| outlook. Before, the outlook was on statistical grounds
| (the universe is so vast that there has to be). Now this
| outlook has been justified a billion billion times over.
| It's certainly time to be far more ambitious and inverse
| the presumptions that we had before.
|
| I.e. before, "there had to be - some, somewhere" and now,
| "there is most likely all over the place".
| idlewords wrote:
| You can make the less charged argument that expanding the
| search for life has in every case so far led to extremely
| interesting scientific discoveries. So as a pragmatic
| strategy, it has legs regardless of where you stand on
| the question of life origins.
| hesk wrote:
| Provided you're actively and systematically looking for
| evidence, then absence of evidence is evidence of
| absence.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I agree it's an open question, but I think it's highly
| likely with lots of circumstantial evidence that life is an
| evolutionary emergent phenomenon where inorganic material
| reactions create life. We already know that's the case in
| highly controlled environments. We don't yet have
| confidence about the exact mechanism on Earth but based on
| those experiments it's likely (& generally currently
| accepted as the most likely mechanism AFAIK) that the
| boundary layer of volcanoes (probably underwater) + some
| crucial initial elements being available causes life to
| form "spontaneously". Given the elements required and their
| overall availability in the universe, it's also highly
| likely these conditions reproduce quite readily & life is
| generally quite abundant. Similarly, significant levels of
| intelligence within animals seems like quite a common
| occurrence as well (great and lesser apes, elephants,
| octopuses, dolphins, wolves etc). Whether or not
| intelligence + physiological evolution + social evolution
| to take advantage of that intelligence to build things
| cooperatively is a huge unknown of course although I think
| it's inevitable. On the other hand, how long life sticks
| around on a planet once it forms is an open question - it's
| not clear if a life ecosystem that's stable for billions of
| years is likely and I suspect there's probably a small
| amount of filtering that happens where planets become
| inhospitable rather "quickly" and can't support life for
| multiple billions of years (e.g. there were probably
| several events in our history where it could have
| collapsed).
|
| Our type of society is probably much much rarer because you
| need access to mineral and energy deposits to go through
| each technological phase. For example, because of all the
| mining we've done, if humanity were to disappear it's
| highly likely the Earth would not sustain another
| technological society because all the "easy to get to"
| deposits of crucial metals & things like oil are gone and
| there's no way to bootstrap a technological society (it's
| possible other kinds of resources could be developed to
| build other kinds of technology so who knows).
|
| I think based on our existing body of knowledge, life is
| likely extremely plentiful throughout the universe at one
| point in time or another. Some form of intelligent life is
| highly likely wherever we find any life that manages to
| stick around through bilions of years. A highly
| technological adept species of life though is highly likely
| an extreme rarity and a planet gets one shot at developing
| it. Whether any manages to escape their home planet remains
| an open question that likely only we will manage to answer
| over the next thousands of years if we make it that far.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Our type of society is probably much much rarer because
| you need access to mineral and energy deposits to go
| through each technological phase. For example, because of
| all the mining we've done, if humanity were to disappear
| it's highly likely the Earth would not sustain another
| technological society because all the "easy to get to"
| deposits of crucial metals & things like oil are gone and
| there's no way to bootstrap a technological society (it's
| possible other kinds of resources could be developed to
| build other kinds of technology so who knows).
|
| As I recall-though it's been many years-this was
| something of a premise in Farmer's Riverworld series.
| Once you've taken the first pass though historical
| mineral etc. resources, you don't really get a second
| pass.
| antihipocrat wrote:
| Readily obtainable hydrocarbons are lost for the
| forseeable future. However, haven't we made it easier for
| future civilizations to obtain minerals and metals? We
| have extracted, refined and placed them all in
| concentrated surface areas all over the planet (i.e. city
| limits)
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| > I think it's highly likely with lots of circumstantial
| evidence that life is an evolutionary emergent phenomenon
| where inorganic material reactions create life
|
| Out of curiosity, if you reject religion, what other
| possibilities are there?
| seszett wrote:
| Just inorganic material combining at random and
| eventually, over about 10 billion years, randomly
| creating something that self replicates in some way,
| beginning the process of evolution through natural
| selection and inevitably progressing to life as we know
| it.
|
| I don't think religion is needed at all for this. I also
| don't think this has to be a common thing (after all,
| here on Earth it only happened once, but it's also
| possible that once life is widespread it makes it very
| difficult for emergent new forms of life to take off).
| wingspar wrote:
| Where did you get 10 billion years of random chemistry?
|
| The articles I read assert that life began just 500
| million to 1 billion years after formation of earth.
| 3.5-4.1 billion years ago with an earth age of 4.5
| billion.
| wingspar wrote:
| >>>I agree it's an open question, but I think it's highly
| likely with lots of circumstantial evidence that life is
| an evolutionary emergent phenomenon where inorganic
| material reactions create life. We already know that's
| the case in highly controlled environments.
|
| Did I miss some big announcements? Where has anyone
| created life from inorganic material reactions in a
| highly controlled environment?
|
| Serious question, not trolling.
|
| Seems to me that would be an insta-Nobel.
| superposeur wrote:
| This is what I referred to as "speculation" in the
| literature for life's origins on Earth. This speculation
| is a good first theoretical stab... or it might not be.
| Until life is created from inorganic matter in a
| laboratory (enabling us subsequently to estimate how rare
| or not it might be elsewhere in the observable universe),
| we should substantially dial back our confidence from
| "life is likely extremely plentiful throughout the
| universe at one point in time or another".
| idlewords wrote:
| The other part of the open question is how easily life is
| able to spread across worlds. This is why it's so vital to
| go look at Mars without contaminating the search. If life
| spreads easily (whether within the solar system or more
| widely), then we'll likely find traces of life there that
| look a lot like our own. If life arises easily, but doesn't
| spread easily, we may find traces of very un-earthlike
| biochemistry. And if life is rare, we'd expect to find
| nothing.
|
| Any of the three results would have huge implications. And
| then rinse and repeat on Enceladus, Ganymede, Europa, and
| so on. And find a way to look at exoplanet atmospheres and
| chase stuff that comes in from outside the solar system.
| Even negative results will add enormously to our
| understanding.
| creer wrote:
| idlewords was specifically mentioning that we have (found
| life elsewhere).
|
| It was pretty clear to people that there would be no life
| 750 metres inside the earth crust below another 700m of
| ocean: too hot, no light, pressure, bla, bla. - And plenty
| was found. Of course it's an easy counter "Still Earth,
| haha! Doesn't count". So yes, it's back to the point that
| whenever we have developped tech to go look, we have found
| "whatever the tech could find". Except - for now - TV
| serials radio waves. That's true. And bacteria on Mars. Yes
| it's a glib way to put it but it's not an unfair answer to
| that criticism.
| njoubert wrote:
| Great comment! Indeed there is a recent Nature paper that's
| causing a lot of discussion that is investigating that
| missing link between the physics of matter and the emergence
| of the natural selection and evolution processes that give
| rise to life. this is a really fascinating area!
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9
| creer wrote:
| That link (going from basic chemical to bootstrapped
| evolution) is an entire field of research. Not one paper
| now and then. Labs, money, researchers building on each
| other's work... Just want to point out.
| henry2023 wrote:
| The universe is 13 billion years old.
|
| Planet earth is 4.5 billion years old.
|
| Life on earth started 3.7 billion years ago.
|
| We sent our first radio wave just 125 years ago.
|
| Probably life is not than unusual and we just don't have a way
| to verify this (yet).
| edgyquant wrote:
| What is this probability based upon?
| wredue wrote:
| The probability is based on the fact that everywhere we
| look, we find building blocks of life, life started on
| earth basically as soon as it could have, life exists at
| all and is capable of asking said question, life is
| remarkably adaptable, we estimate billions of earth like
| planets just in our galaxy.
|
| I know that there is a burning desire to think we're
| special, but the truth of the matter is that we're almost
| definitely not.
| borissk wrote:
| The three and a half facts you listed (life may have started
| earlier if it came to Earth from Mars or elsewhere) do not
| logically lead to your conclusion.
| fzeindl wrote:
| I once heard: ,,The universe is unbelievably huge and
| unbelievably old so rare events happen all the time."
|
| I think it meant that even if life started itself accidentally
| by some unbelievably slim chance, this could happen somewhere
| else as well simply because the dice are rolled that often.
|
| I think time is the factor here. When you take into account not
| only the size of the universe but also it's age, the chance
| that life started somewhere, somewhen and ended long ago could
| be larger than zero, even if we are not able to calculate it.
| grupthink wrote:
| All dimensions are a factor. Life could exist on different
| time-scales (e.g. it moves so slow we thought it was
| inanimate). It could exist on different physical-scales (be
| so large we don't realize we are a part of it). Or, it could
| exist on an entirely different plane of existence (on a
| desolate planet in a shard of silicon that is turing complete
| and quietly simulating its own recursive universe).
| onion2k wrote:
| _I think it meant that even if life started itself
| accidentally by some unbelievably slim chance, this could
| happen somewhere else as well simply because the dice are
| rolled that often._
|
| That might be true, but we have no basis the probability of
| how rare life is so we can't say it is. We may assume the
| probability is high enough that it happens often in trillions
| of chances, but if the probability is one in a quintillion
| then we're simply wrong.
|
| Humans are _incredibly_ bad at thinking about both
| probability _and_ thinking about large numbers, so when we
| combine the two we 're likely to be quite wrong.
| zvmaz wrote:
| > It's worth remembering that there is not one single shred of
| evidence that life has ever existed anywhere in the observable
| universe but Earth.
|
| It is hard for me to believe that in the mind boggling vastness
| of space and time, we are the sole singularity in the history
| of the universe.
| hossbeast wrote:
| Many things which are hard to believe are nevertheless true.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| When Everest was first measured, it was exactly 29,000 feet.
|
| They figured no one would believe this, so they told people
| it was 29,002 feet
|
| Sometimes things just are, regardless of what we expect.
| TheGRS wrote:
| Sure, I don't think that's lost on anyone. The headline of
| "life found outside earth" is going to be a big deal.
|
| But I also think we are zeroing in on the inevitable outcome.
| The math of probability and the simple components to life make
| it seem pretty likely we'll get there unless there is something
| more fundamental that hasn't been seen yet.
|
| We haven't reproduced proto-life yet, but we also don't have
| millions of years and a planet sized laboratory at our
| disposal.
| sigzero wrote:
| I happen to agree with you. I am in the "we are it" crowd but
| still agree with should explore.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| I am too - I think it's the moon plus Jupiter that is
| extremely unique and makes complex life possible
|
| I also think it's a lot of pressure if it's only us, so it's
| easier to imagine we're one of billions.
|
| Honestly, honestly think it's just us. Maybe not in the
| entire universe but in our local cluster.
| swingingFlyFish wrote:
| "It's worth remembering that there is not one single shred of
| evidence that life has ever existed anywhere in the observable
| universe but Earth"
|
| Dude considering we're barely scratching the surface of the
| scratch on the scratch of the surface, I'd say this is really
| arrogant. We haven't found anything because our universe is a
| haystack and we're looking for the quark of a needle in that
| haystack. Perspective.
| superposeur wrote:
| This is true. It is also true that we have found "not one
| single shred of evidence that life has ever existed anywhere
| in the observable universe but Earth".
| robofanatic wrote:
| But the other possibility that some intelligent super being
| created life on Earth is even bizarre. If that's what you
| believe then who created that creator? You can go on and on,
| there is no end to this question. That very first creator must
| have come out from a "non living" thing.
| DennisP wrote:
| Your parent comment isn't suggesting creationism, just
| pointing out that the beginning of life could be an
| astronomically rare event.
| mcfig wrote:
| People are reacting negatively to your comment, the reason is
| that however accurate your complaint may be about most such
| reporting (IMO you are correct), you have chosen to attach it
| to _this_ article. I find no evidence in _this_ article of
| "tone implying life is about to turn up".
|
| I think you have misread the tone. The article certainly has a
| tone of excitement throughout. But it's excitement for further
| knowledge, in general.
|
| Of the possibility of life showing up elsewhere, it says only
| this: "Scientists are still a long way from answering whether
| life could originate on Enceladus"
| superposeur wrote:
| Fair enough. On the other hand, to my ear the title "NASA
| finds life-sparking energy source and molecule" sets the
| tone, as though life was sparked, or that we even know
| _could_ be sparked by the presence of these ingredients with
| some degree of confidence.
| borissk wrote:
| Life is much more than a mix of ingredients. A dead
| bacteria cell has all the ingredients needed for life, but
| is not alive.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Is it actually worth remembering? I don't know, man. It kind of
| sounds not worth remembering if I'm honest. It's kind of like
| telling us that there is not one single shred of evidence that
| artificial flight has ever existed or that exoplanets have ever
| existed or anything of the sort.
|
| Sure, that's the base case. It's not "worth remembering" at
| all. It's as much worth remembering as the fact that my clothes
| are in the dryer right now.
| superposeur wrote:
| I think it's "worth remembering" precisely because it seems
| _not_ to be the base case anymore! To see this, just look at
| all the expressions of confidence in life 's ubiquity
| throughout the rest of this thread!
| seanoliver wrote:
| Life almost certainly exists elsewhere in the universe
| (particularly if you consider that which is beyond what we
| define as "observable"). As others have commented, it's too
| large for it not to exist.
|
| However, it does seem extremely rare and could be so rare that
| it doesn't exist in the observable universe (it's almost
| certainly not in our Local Bubble).
|
| It is interesting to also think about the likelihood of
| "intelligent" life. Because while basic, simple organisms are
| bound to appear somewhere else considering the universe's
| vastness, the idea that they could develop this intelligence
| and self-awareness is another big leap that doesn't seem like
| it necessarily needs to happen wherever life is happening.
| 725686 wrote:
| For anyone interested in the origin of life, and the origin of
| complex life I highly recommend Nick Lane's Books. You can start
| with "The Vital Question". There are also some fantastic videos
| of him online.
| borissk wrote:
| Yes, Nick Lane has done a great job of popularizing the
| metabolism first hypothesis of origin of life. What his books
| and videos don't address is the biggest problem of metabolism
| first - once there's a proto cell (say inside a pore within a
| white smoker) with working metabolism that turns H2 and CO2
| gases into sugars and other organic molecules - how are the
| proteins that make the metabolism work translated and encoded
| into an RNA code.
| mekoka wrote:
| I think the title is pushing it a bit. When I see "life-sparking
| energy source", I think of an inextricable property. Get that and
| you can spark life. But we have and we couldn't. They're merely
| ingredients, building blocks, fuel to _sustain_ life as we
| understand it on Earth, as the article more sensibly admits. The
| "life-sparking" source itself remains a mystery.
| 0xedd wrote:
| It's either that or a tits thumbnail. The former seems fine for
| a clickbait.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| We don't know what causes life.
| bytearray wrote:
| I always thought Enceladus was just an icy moon, but turns out
| it's cooler than that.
| holoduke wrote:
| The fact that there is something, just something can drive me
| crazy. Why is there something and not just nothing.
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