Oceans Potentially More Common In Solar System 182
nairolF writes "The AIP Physics News Update has a brief note on how water oceans might be more common in the solar system than previously thought, rendering useless the old notion of a narrow "habitable zone" in solar systems, outside of which life cannot exist."
This makes inhabiting other planets easier (Score:4, Interesting)
This may make the Jovian and Saturnian satellites the prime real estate (aside from Earth) in the Solar System (whoa, echoes of Larry Nivem) Who needs the dry, dusty Moon or Mars.
Of course, all bets are off if life is discovered on Titan or Ganymede. Greenpeace would probably start a petition to leave the environment alone, so the single celled organisms can prosper while humanity suffers on an increasingly overpopulated Earth. Then again, if it's the Chinese that get their first, well, we know how what they did to the Three Rivers Gorge, goodbye extraterrestial life, hello New Gangzhou!
Oh, man... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because the life forms we know about need water to live doesn't mean that any life that may or may not be in the rest of the universe needs water.
I mean, really, can we assume that all life in the universe is carbon-based and needs water to live? I don't think so. It's entirely likely that if we were to discover life, we wouldn't actually recognize it as such.
Just my random thoughts.
Another.."Life based on what we know" article. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I can't argue that I'm not an idiot." - Jon Katz
Re:Oh, man... (Score:2, Interesting)
This has been my complaint with the narrow-thinking SETI crowd for a long time. Just because we need water here on this planet for life (or think it is necessary), does not ipso facto require water to be necessary on other planets for life.
Even the concept that the only other possibility is silicon-based life forms seems quite limiting.
This article has nothing to do with oceans... (Score:3, Interesting)
... and how common they are. It has to do with the common belief that for an ocean to be hospitable, it needs to be within a certain threshold. They've basically taken evidence that microbes thrive in near boiling water and near frozen water, and apply that to the other suspected oceanic environments in the solar system. This says nothing about the environment required to form life however. Overall, nothing new here....
Interesting News (Score:1, Interesting)
Think outside the globe people...
Re:Seriously.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Europa does have very likely evidence of a liquid ocean, but the article then uses that to 'assume' of living creatures there (bac). How can there be?
While I would be the first to argue that we have no proof of life, the martian meteorites [nhm.ac.uk] not withstanding, Europa is probably our "best bet" to find it inside our own solar system.
For instance have a look at these papers from the AAS DPS meeting,
or even
- Europa's Habitability follows from Classical Dynamical Astronomy [u-strasbg.fr]
Al.Re:Oh, man... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Water on a rock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that Charon, Pluto's moon/co Planet is close to half of Pluto's mass. The tidal force they exert on each other is significant... probably enough to keep water liquid (warm enough to support life? I dunno 'bout that) near Pluto's center.
This is, of course, assuming that Pluto is mostly made of cometary ice, rather than rock, which a lot of cosmologists think is the case.
Astrophysicists please correct me on the details.
Dead Scream...
Re:Oh, man... (Score:3, Interesting)
that need not be the case for things elsewhere
in the universe.
2. Water has many unique properties but none
of these may be needed by lifeform X.
3. Supernovae create abundant iron. Are we to
presume that lifeforms near supernovae are
iron based?
4. Blood? Why does lifeform X need blood? Are we
now presuming anatomy?
To take a slightly pessimistic view, in a few
hundred years humans may have driven themselves
to extinction leaving behind smart silicon-based
computers. Now you've got a race that needs no
blood and uses primarily copper and silicon to
replicate. Water may still be important for
some industial purposes but not in as large
quantities.
Re:In further news... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I missunderstand you. Are you saying that those little white crabs and shrimp evolved completely separate from the crabs and shrimp that live in shallow water and look exactly like them?
had they read Sitchin... (Score:1, Interesting)
Not quite useless, I don't think (Score:3, Interesting)
rendering useless the old notion of a narrow "habitable zone" in solar systems, outside of which life cannot exist.
From my limited information on this subject, I've understood that the habitable zone is used in the context of planet forming and that the reason behind certain planets having certain compositions is their position in the solar system, mainly distance from the sun, while they were forming. Therefore the habitable zone is the area where if a planet forms there it will likely have the characteristics of a planet capable of sustaining life as we know it. The article suggests that the habitable zone only refers to an area that can sustain life now that all the planets are here, which is really only descriptive of human life and not other, unknown organisms (or possibly known like the microorganisms discussed in the article.)
Re:Galactic habitable zones a misnomer... (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course there's liquid, of course there's water (Score:2, Interesting)