Discussion:
NASA Received An SOS Call From Another Galaxy
(too old to reply)
Luke Nichols
2014-07-15 15:36:50 UTC
Permalink
Video:
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Brad Guth
2014-07-21 15:47:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
John
2014-07-22 05:21:14 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
Brad Guth
2014-07-25 11:47:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by John
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
It's highly unlikely that galaxies are not hosting millions of Earth/Eden like worlds, as good or far better suited for complex life than Earth ever had to work with.

The vast majority of complex life on Earth survives where humans couldn't have possibly evolved and/or having survived. Hopefully, most other Eden planets suitable for Goldilocks have no sign of any self-destructive humanoids.
John
2014-07-25 20:53:47 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 04:47:14 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by John
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
It's highly unlikely that galaxies are not hosting millions of Earth/Eden
like worlds, as good or far better suited for complex life than Earth ever
had to work with.
Why? Why is it "unlikely"? I just posed a scenario where it would be
extremely *likely* that Earth is the first: no other singlet star is
young enough to have a high enough metallicity to have formed rocky
planets and living in a stable, life-friendly part of a suspiciously
quiet galaxy.
Earth's birth isn't that far from the beginning of Time itself; there
hasn't been that many generations of stars between then and now. It's
within the bounds of physics that Earth is the only populated world in
the entire universe at this time.
And many, many galaxies are completely unable to have any life
whatsoever for at least a few milliard years after we see them. Some
are ellipticals and don't have many new stars, others, many others,
are in the middle of collisions or are active galaxies full of
radiation and other naughties.
Life, even if there are places where it *could* arise, could be rare,
even unique to Earth, simple because the cosmos is a bloody lethal
place and very young.
Post by Brad Guth
The vast majority of complex life on Earth survives where humans couldn't
have possibly evolved and/or having survived.
Immaterial and possibly incorrect depending on how you define
"complex". 99.99999% of all life on earth is bacterial and simpler.
Much of it is viral. Loads of that lives where humans are far too
large to fit; crevices in ice, bubbles inside rocks, hot pools in
nuclear reactors, rats' intestines and other lovely places. That says
exactly *nothing* about whether technological aliens live out there.
The fact the Earth had bugs and slime for about four milliard years
before it tried its hand at multi-cellular life does *hint* that bugs
and slime could be all we ever find on all the life-bearing worlds,
assuming there ever are any and assuming humans go to look.
Even if *life* is ubiquitous, and I've just suggested why it may not
be, *multi-cellular* life may be unique to Earth. It is entirely
possibly no Vulcans ever evolved just through the random workings of
chance. Throw in the fact that almost everywhere in the universe is
deadly dangerous at some point in its lifespan and life on other
worlds may not even live long enough to evolve bugs and slimes.
Post by Brad Guth
Hopefully, most other Eden
planets suitable for Goldilocks have no sign of any self-destructive humanoids.
Why "hopefully"? Self-destructive humanoids are fun. Look at
"Babylon-5" for evidence. Also "Star Trek".
Peaceful, non-destructive peoples, humanoid or not, are bloody
*boring*.
Chances are a race like that wouldn't have anything to get them out
of bed of a morning.
Revenge or beating the bad guys are great motivators for developing a
space armada, space cities, space colonies and an Empire of Stars.
Of course I could only prove this assertion were humans to go
star-hopping and I don't see that happening. Ever.
J.
Luke Nichols
2014-07-27 16:51:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by John
On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 04:47:14 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by John
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
It's highly unlikely that galaxies are not hosting millions of Earth/Eden
like worlds, as good or far better suited for complex life than Earth ever
had to work with.
Why? Why is it "unlikely"? I just posed a scenario where it would be
extremely *likely* that Earth is the first: no other singlet star is
young enough to have a high enough metallicity to have formed rocky
planets and living in a stable, life-friendly part of a suspiciously
quiet galaxy.
Earth's birth isn't that far from the beginning of Time itself; there
hasn't been that many generations of stars between then and now. It's
within the bounds of physics that Earth is the only populated world in
the entire universe at this time.
And many, many galaxies are completely unable to have any life
whatsoever for at least a few milliard years after we see them. Some
are ellipticals and don't have many new stars, others, many others,
are in the middle of collisions or are active galaxies full of
radiation and other naughties.
Life, even if there are places where it *could* arise, could be rare,
even unique to Earth, simple because the cosmos is a bloody lethal
place and very young.
Post by Brad Guth
The vast majority of complex life on Earth survives where humans couldn't
have possibly evolved and/or having survived.
Immaterial and possibly incorrect depending on how you define
"complex". 99.99999% of all life on earth is bacterial and simpler.
Much of it is viral. Loads of that lives where humans are far too
large to fit; crevices in ice, bubbles inside rocks, hot pools in
nuclear reactors, rats' intestines and other lovely places. That says
exactly *nothing* about whether technological aliens live out there.
The fact the Earth had bugs and slime for about four milliard years
before it tried its hand at multi-cellular life does *hint* that bugs
and slime could be all we ever find on all the life-bearing worlds,
assuming there ever are any and assuming humans go to look.
Even if *life* is ubiquitous, and I've just suggested why it may not
be, *multi-cellular* life may be unique to Earth. It is entirely
possibly no Vulcans ever evolved just through the random workings of
chance. Throw in the fact that almost everywhere in the universe is
deadly dangerous at some point in its lifespan and life on other
worlds may not even live long enough to evolve bugs and slimes.
Post by Brad Guth
Hopefully, most other Eden
planets suitable for Goldilocks have no sign of any self-destructive humanoids.
Why "hopefully"? Self-destructive humanoids are fun. Look at
"Babylon-5" for evidence. Also "Star Trek".
Peaceful, non-destructive peoples, humanoid or not, are bloody
*boring*.
Chances are a race like that wouldn't have anything to get them out
of bed of a morning.
Revenge or beating the bad guys are great motivators for developing a
space armada, space cities, space colonies and an Empire of Stars.
Of course I could only prove this assertion were humans to go
star-hopping and I don't see that happening. Ever.
J.
I agree. Star Trek is boring.
Brad Guth
2014-08-01 00:51:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by John
On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 04:47:14 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by John
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
It's highly unlikely that galaxies are not hosting millions of Earth/Eden
like worlds, as good or far better suited for complex life than Earth ever
had to work with.
Why? Why is it "unlikely"? I just posed a scenario where it would be
extremely *likely* that Earth is the first: no other singlet star is
young enough to have a high enough metallicity to have formed rocky
planets and living in a stable, life-friendly part of a suspiciously
quiet galaxy.
Earth's birth isn't that far from the beginning of Time itself; there
hasn't been that many generations of stars between then and now. It's
within the bounds of physics that Earth is the only populated world in
the entire universe at this time.
And many, many galaxies are completely unable to have any life
whatsoever for at least a few milliard years after we see them. Some
are ellipticals and don't have many new stars, others, many others,
are in the middle of collisions or are active galaxies full of
radiation and other naughties.
Life, even if there are places where it *could* arise, could be rare,
even unique to Earth, simple because the cosmos is a bloody lethal
place and very young.
Post by Brad Guth
The vast majority of complex life on Earth survives where humans couldn't
have possibly evolved and/or having survived.
Immaterial and possibly incorrect depending on how you define
"complex". 99.99999% of all life on earth is bacterial and simpler.
Much of it is viral. Loads of that lives where humans are far too
large to fit; crevices in ice, bubbles inside rocks, hot pools in
nuclear reactors, rats' intestines and other lovely places. That says
exactly *nothing* about whether technological aliens live out there.
The fact the Earth had bugs and slime for about four milliard years
before it tried its hand at multi-cellular life does *hint* that bugs
and slime could be all we ever find on all the life-bearing worlds,
assuming there ever are any and assuming humans go to look.
Even if *life* is ubiquitous, and I've just suggested why it may not
be, *multi-cellular* life may be unique to Earth. It is entirely
possibly no Vulcans ever evolved just through the random workings of
chance. Throw in the fact that almost everywhere in the universe is
deadly dangerous at some point in its lifespan and life on other
worlds may not even live long enough to evolve bugs and slimes.
Post by Brad Guth
Hopefully, most other Eden
planets suitable for Goldilocks have no sign of any self-destructive humanoids.
Why "hopefully"? Self-destructive humanoids are fun. Look at
"Babylon-5" for evidence. Also "Star Trek".
Peaceful, non-destructive peoples, humanoid or not, are bloody
*boring*.
Chances are a race like that wouldn't have anything to get them out
of bed of a morning.
Revenge or beating the bad guys are great motivators for developing a
space armada, space cities, space colonies and an Empire of Stars.
Of course I could only prove this assertion were humans to go
star-hopping and I don't see that happening. Ever.
If our planet for whatever good/bad reason lost its star, there'd still be a bit of open water, and the geothermal core that's mostly fission driven would continue for billions of years. A km underground and there'd be no indications that we no longer had a sun.

Whatever created complex life on Earth should be fairly commonplace throughout this galaxy and our universe of a trillion other galaxies.
John
2014-08-01 01:50:45 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 31 Jul 2014 17:51:24 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
If our planet for whatever good/bad reason lost its star,
As it will, soon. In about five milliard years or so.
Post by Brad Guth
there'd still be a bit of open water,
That is nonsensical. Without Sol, Earth's surface would plummet to
the temperature of open vacuum, roughly three Kelvin, plus a few
micro-Kelvin from the core.
Rock is a damned good insulator. Miles of it would effectively cut
the hot core off from the surface. With no Sol, the air would go
solid, with the odd puddles of helium scattered about.
Helium, it seems, never freezes.
Post by Brad Guth
and the geothermal core
that's mostly fission driven would continue for billions of years.
Well, mostly fission-driven with a great contribution from the
infalling rock that made the planet. The residual heat from all those
milliards of impacts would have kept the core fluid to this day even
without the contribution from radioactives.
Post by Brad Guth
A km underground and there'd be no indications that we no longer had a sun.
I've read an SF story or two based on this. It's a limited existence
with no real point. Chances are no subterranean survivors would bother
trying to dig their way up through the permafrost so that world would
essentially be dead as far as the rest of the cosmos is concerned.
They might be having fun but they would be on a slow road to
extinction.
Sort of like humans on Earth are after having killed the Dream of
Stars.
Post by Brad Guth
Whatever created complex life on Earth should be fairly commonplace throughout
this galaxy and our universe of a trillion other galaxies.
"Should"? Perhaps. "Could", also perhaps. But there is no certainty
of either.
There are scientists who think that because Earth's hot smoky pipes
have abundant life clustered around them Europa's "should" and
"could", too. This is idiotic, magical, peasant thinking. It is
entirely backwards. It is the mewlings of a child, scared of the dark
and wanting her hamster not to be dead.
Earth's life around volcanic vents in the deep ocean *came* *from*
*the* *sunlit* *shallows*. The life on Earth was born in warm, shallow
seas lit by sunlight, powered by lightning and cooked by
radioactivity. There is absolutely no justification at all for
supposing that life can evolve anywhere but in warm, shallow *SUNLIT*
seas. None.
It *may* be possible. It may be common. It may have happened in the
ocean of Europa, deep within Enceladus and even in the "hot" springs
of Triton and lakes on Io and deep in the clouds of Jupiter but ... as
of now we only *KNOW* life evolves in shallow, warm, sunlit seas on
large worlds with lightning and radioactivity.
It is entire possible that *only* such worlds can have life. That
life can be pushed down to the black smokers but can never begin
there. The universe is cruel and cold and lethal it may take
extraordinary conditions to make life.
We don't know.
Sheer vastness is not knowledge. Sheer vastness is not necessarily
any guide to anything. Just knowing there are may icy moons does not
make any of them life-bearing. Even if there are quintillions of them
in ever so many galaxies. We know *nothing* of life elsewhere in this
cosmos.
If we don't fund hundreds of probes to Europa, Io, Enceladus and
Triton we may *never* know. As we're not currently even planning to
fund *any* this looks very likely.
However, even if every world in the Solar System apart from one
(guess which?) turns out to be completely sterile and always has
been, that is absolutely no guide to the possibility of life
elsewhere. Even if we send out falling city-farms to the other star
systems and explore their worlds for a million years or more, we will
*still* not be able to say for definite that life can't happen
somewhere we have yet to look.
But the more we find sterility and silence the more *likely* it is
that the Earth is unique.
At present, it is. At present, so far as our knowledge stretches,
Earth is the only world with life.
If it dies here without spreading to the stars it dies everywhere in
the cosmos forever.
We have zero evidence to suppose this to be wrong.
Sure, Europa *should* have life. Io *could* have life. Jupiter's
clouds *would* have life were it possible and easy and ineluctable but
these may be fantasies.
All we *KNOW* is that life is here, on Earth and it is in danger. We
should be doing stuff to make it less at risk.
Like taking the galaxies for our home.

If humans die on this rock no one will remember our songs.

J.
Brad Guth
2014-08-15 00:24:21 UTC
Permalink
Post by John
On Thu, 31 Jul 2014 17:51:24 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
If our planet for whatever good/bad reason lost its star,
As it will, soon. In about five milliard years or so.
Post by Brad Guth
there'd still be a bit of open water,
That is nonsensical. Without Sol, Earth's surface would plummet to
the temperature of open vacuum, roughly three Kelvin, plus a few
micro-Kelvin from the core.
Rock is a damned good insulator. Miles of it would effectively cut
the hot core off from the surface. With no Sol, the air would go
solid, with the odd puddles of helium scattered about.
Helium, it seems, never freezes.
Post by Brad Guth
and the geothermal core
that's mostly fission driven would continue for billions of years.
Well, mostly fission-driven with a great contribution from the
infalling rock that made the planet. The residual heat from all those
milliards of impacts would have kept the core fluid to this day even
without the contribution from radioactives.
Post by Brad Guth
A km underground and there'd be no indications that we no longer had a sun.
I've read an SF story or two based on this. It's a limited existence
with no real point. Chances are no subterranean survivors would bother
trying to dig their way up through the permafrost so that world would
essentially be dead as far as the rest of the cosmos is concerned.
They might be having fun but they would be on a slow road to
extinction.
Sort of like humans on Earth are after having killed the Dream of
Stars.
Post by Brad Guth
Whatever created complex life on Earth should be fairly commonplace throughout
this galaxy and our universe of a trillion other galaxies.
"Should"? Perhaps. "Could", also perhaps. But there is no certainty
of either.
There are scientists who think that because Earth's hot smoky pipes
have abundant life clustered around them Europa's "should" and
"could", too. This is idiotic, magical, peasant thinking. It is
entirely backwards. It is the mewlings of a child, scared of the dark
and wanting her hamster not to be dead.
Earth's life around volcanic vents in the deep ocean *came* *from*
*the* *sunlit* *shallows*. The life on Earth was born in warm, shallow
seas lit by sunlight, powered by lightning and cooked by
radioactivity. There is absolutely no justification at all for
supposing that life can evolve anywhere but in warm, shallow *SUNLIT*
seas. None.
It *may* be possible. It may be common. It may have happened in the
ocean of Europa, deep within Enceladus and even in the "hot" springs
of Triton and lakes on Io and deep in the clouds of Jupiter but ... as
of now we only *KNOW* life evolves in shallow, warm, sunlit seas on
large worlds with lightning and radioactivity.
It is entire possible that *only* such worlds can have life. That
life can be pushed down to the black smokers but can never begin
there. The universe is cruel and cold and lethal it may take
extraordinary conditions to make life.
We don't know.
Sheer vastness is not knowledge. Sheer vastness is not necessarily
any guide to anything. Just knowing there are may icy moons does not
make any of them life-bearing. Even if there are quintillions of them
in ever so many galaxies. We know *nothing* of life elsewhere in this
cosmos.
If we don't fund hundreds of probes to Europa, Io, Enceladus and
Triton we may *never* know. As we're not currently even planning to
fund *any* this looks very likely.
However, even if every world in the Solar System apart from one
(guess which?) turns out to be completely sterile and always has
been, that is absolutely no guide to the possibility of life
elsewhere. Even if we send out falling city-farms to the other star
systems and explore their worlds for a million years or more, we will
*still* not be able to say for definite that life can't happen
somewhere we have yet to look.
But the more we find sterility and silence the more *likely* it is
that the Earth is unique.
At present, it is. At present, so far as our knowledge stretches,
Earth is the only world with life.
If it dies here without spreading to the stars it dies everywhere in
the cosmos forever.
We have zero evidence to suppose this to be wrong.
Sure, Europa *should* have life. Io *could* have life. Jupiter's
clouds *would* have life were it possible and easy and ineluctable but
these may be fantasies.
All we *KNOW* is that life is here, on Earth and it is in danger. We
should be doing stuff to make it less at risk.
Like taking the galaxies for our home.
If humans die on this rock no one will remember our songs.
J.


A few hundred meters or possibly a km and most assuredly deeper below the surface, makes no difference whatsoever if our planet has a sun.
Brad Guth
2014-08-15 00:29:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by John
On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 04:47:14 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by John
On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:47:13 -0700 (PDT), Brad Guth
Post by Brad Guth
Post by Luke Nichols
http://pepperonpizza.blogspot.com/2014/07/nasa-received-sos-call-from-another.html
Interacting/colliding galaxies should be transmitting all sorts of SOS packets.
It depends on the timing.
Almost all galactic collisions took place many millions of years ago,
even the ones we see happening now. It is quite possible that those
don't have any G-type singlet stars in stable regions young enough to
have a high enough metallicity to have a swarm of terra-type planets
so life never evolved in those galaxies.
Indeed it is even possible that Earth is the first planet in the
entire universe to have life just by sheer happenstance and by virtue
of the cloud that formed her being dirty enough to do so. It is
possible that Humans are The Ancients. That Humans are The First Ones,
that this is the bright, bright, shiny Dawn of Mind in the cosmos and
that there are no alien Mayday's because we have yet to go out there
and send them.
Unlikely? Who knows? It has to happen that *some* planet is the first
in the universe to have life, Earth is just as likely a candidate as
any other and more so than some. All we know is that Earth *has* life,
that Earth has *intelligent* life [me and my cat] and that no other
place we have yet looked at has shown any sign of this.
True, our sample size is small and out of date but all that means is
that there aren't any Galactic Dyson Spheres milliards of years old.
No Ancient Empires altering the natural flow of stars.
Humans could be the first. Humans could be the only. The cosmos could
be empty and waiting for Man's Children to fly up and take it all.
The Seed of Earth could be the only life that ever happens in all of
space and all of time.
Something to ponder as we casually exterminate it all?
J.
It's highly unlikely that galaxies are not hosting millions of Earth/Eden
like worlds, as good or far better suited for complex life than Earth ever
had to work with.
Why? Why is it "unlikely"? I just posed a scenario where it would be
extremely *likely* that Earth is the first: no other singlet star is
young enough to have a high enough metallicity to have formed rocky
planets and living in a stable, life-friendly part of a suspiciously
quiet galaxy.
Earth's birth isn't that far from the beginning of Time itself; there
hasn't been that many generations of stars between then and now. It's
within the bounds of physics that Earth is the only populated world in
the entire universe at this time.
And many, many galaxies are completely unable to have any life
whatsoever for at least a few milliard years after we see them. Some
are ellipticals and don't have many new stars, others, many others,
are in the middle of collisions or are active galaxies full of
radiation and other naughties.
Life, even if there are places where it *could* arise, could be rare,
even unique to Earth, simple because the cosmos is a bloody lethal
place and very young.
Post by Brad Guth
The vast majority of complex life on Earth survives where humans couldn't
have possibly evolved and/or having survived.
Immaterial and possibly incorrect depending on how you define
"complex". 99.99999% of all life on earth is bacterial and simpler.
Much of it is viral. Loads of that lives where humans are far too
large to fit; crevices in ice, bubbles inside rocks, hot pools in
nuclear reactors, rats' intestines and other lovely places. That says
exactly *nothing* about whether technological aliens live out there.
The fact the Earth had bugs and slime for about four milliard years
before it tried its hand at multi-cellular life does *hint* that bugs
and slime could be all we ever find on all the life-bearing worlds,
assuming there ever are any and assuming humans go to look.
Even if *life* is ubiquitous, and I've just suggested why it may not
be, *multi-cellular* life may be unique to Earth. It is entirely
possibly no Vulcans ever evolved just through the random workings of
chance. Throw in the fact that almost everywhere in the universe is
deadly dangerous at some point in its lifespan and life on other
worlds may not even live long enough to evolve bugs and slimes.
Post by Brad Guth
Hopefully, most other Eden
planets suitable for Goldilocks have no sign of any self-destructive humanoids.
Why "hopefully"? Self-destructive humanoids are fun. Look at
"Babylon-5" for evidence. Also "Star Trek".
Peaceful, non-destructive peoples, humanoid or not, are bloody
*boring*.
Chances are a race like that wouldn't have anything to get them out
of bed of a morning.
Revenge or beating the bad guys are great motivators for developing a
space armada, space cities, space colonies and an Empire of Stars.
Of course I could only prove this assertion were humans to go
star-hopping and I don't see that happening. Ever.
J.
The vast majority of exoplanets have a better star. Most stars are slightly smaller and a lot cooler than ours, and the'll survive at least twice if not tenfold as long.
Continue reading on narkive:
Loading...