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Water ice found on Comet Temple 1!!!
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
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http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8670
While the article doesn't cover why I'm excited, I'd like to point out how imoprtant this is. Water is essential to most life -- at least on Earth -- with very few exceptions.
With this discovery it is looking more and more possible that life on this planet originated somewhere else, possibly from a completely different solar system! Proteins and amino acids may have helped to produce other life, but now it's very possible that more complex organisms arrived here shortly before the Cambrian era.
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"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: The bottom of Cloud City
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I don't buy that water is needed for life. I mean we used to think sunlight and oxygen was also.
They found the bottom of the ocean full of life in incredibly high heat and sulphur content.
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"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
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Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker
I don't buy that water is needed for life. I mean we used to think sunlight and oxygen was also.
They found the bottom of the ocean full of life in incredibly high heat and sulphur content.
That's why I said there are a few exceptions. But water is definitely (as far as we know, anyway) the best way to find life. Oxygen, however, is another story. That may be why water seems so critical since even if there isn't an oxygen rich atmosphere, water in itself has plenty of it.
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"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker
I don't buy that water is needed for life. I mean we used to think sunlight and oxygen was also.
They found the bottom of the ocean full of life in incredibly high heat and sulphur content.
You do know that the ocean is, um, water, don't you?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2005
Location: West LA
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philly water ice is pretty good
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Your Anus
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If they had found Mtn. Dew there would be a better chance of it sustaining life.
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My sig is 1 pixel too big.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: planning a comeback !
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Originally Posted by ort888
If they had found Mtn. Dew there would be a better chance of it sustaining life.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Why is life so rare? The properties of water are most likely only conducive to life as we know it under a small range of conditions.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html
Water has a very narrow range of pressures that allow it to exist in solid, liquid, and gaseous form. Mars probably won't have life, because the pressure is low enough that liquid water has a very narrow range.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Tampa, Florida
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Most likely, the next lifeforms we find will not be water and carbon based, but something of a completely different chemical composition. As long as the environment provides a liquid-solid dichotomy and a chemical potential, life building blocks can prosper.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
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Originally Posted by iLikebeer
Why is life so rare? The properties of water are most likely only conducive to life as we know it under a small range of conditions.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html
Water has a very narrow range of pressures that allow it to exist in solid, liquid, and gaseous form. Mars probably won't have life, because the pressure is low enough that liquid water has a very narrow range.
Not at the surface, but perhaps in aquifers.
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"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
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