http://sify.com/news/chances-of-life-on ... fcfhh.html




and another source
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... goldilocks

I wonder what their equivalent to Pearl Jam sounds like.

They should be really careful before throwing out comments like that. I've read a lot of other opinions that say there's a good chance there's nothing alive on this planet.

Thi planet doesn't have day/night rotation, what means some places are very hot, others are very cold and there is a lot of in-between temperatures. So given it's rocky and has a decent atmosphere, I'd expect microscopic beings.

you're quite the party pooper today lw

Glieselings are probably saying the same thing about us.

A couple things. The sun is a red dwarf, and the temperature ranges from well below freezing to about ten degrees above freezing. This is simply too cold to foster the building blocks of life. When life on this planet began it was extremely toasty and there was a ton of electricity in the air with an extremely thick atmosphere which triggered the first amino acids to form, which somehow then jumped to "life." (Unless you follow the theory that life developed at the ocean sea floor). From what I've read we don't know what the atmosphere is, we don't know with any sort of certainty that there is water, so how anybody could conclude with any certainty that life exists there is beyond me. Red dwarfs do not output a lot of thermal energy, and more importantly they output only a small fraction of light energy. This is would drastically inhibit the formation of life anywhere. If our sun was a red dwarf, we wouldn't exist, for instance. We also do not know what the composition of the atmosphere is, and we don't know if it has a dead core.

The biggest thing that it has going for it is stability. Being that it's locked in its orbit and not spinning on an axis, it's stable, and has been stable for quite some time. This is the largest factor that would contribute to finding life on this planet.

Believe you me, I think this is wicked cool, and I've always been fascinated with the idea of alien life, finding it, it finding us, etc. But I think it's arrogant and unprofessional to make these declarations off the cuff in a scientific press conference with little no science justifying the position.

pics or it never happened

One thing that's always bugged me is the assumption that the only way life can happen is if there's liquid water. Just because it's the only way we know how life forms exist doesn't necessarily mean it's the only way.

All things are possible with God, Nick.

After taking university Biology for shits and giggles, and compiling that with my broad chemistry and physics background, and taking into account the Oceonagraphy/Geology class I took, my heart tells me that you are right. When I look at the physical process of respiration, or a process like photosynthesis, I agree that it's possible that alternative combinations of atmosphere, temperature, and life could exist. I think the life that we see on our own sea floors are great evidence of this as well to a certain extent. I think it's possible for the building blocks of life to take a different path.

But realistically, I don't think we'll ever find a planet without water, and also life. The main problem when I look at the chemistry of it all, is that when you look alternative electron carriers in fauna, or alternatives for transforming and transporting energy in flora, you could do it with alternative hydro-carbons, and say...a methane based atmosphere with liquid methane oceans/lakes. The problem with this notion though, is that you do not get enough source thermal energy that would be required to support an ecosystem on such a planet.

I've over-looked the periodic table identifying potential elements that could be substituted for oxygen. And my friends and I have looked over potential chemical combinations that could substitute for photosynthesis. And from all I've read, you just end up chasing your tail. Oxygen is the most ideal electron carrier for respiration and energy production in any animal based life form. And photosynthesis is easily the best process for plant life to obtain energy and grow on a per unit energy basis. Any other combination or theory is just too energy intensive to support on the planets where you'd find other prerequisites like phosphorus or sulfur which can form long chains and provide the building blocks for alternative DNA. Replace water? About the best you could do is ammonia, and I've never read anything convincing to support its possibility, but tons of material deriding the ammonia as a solvent replacing water.

i just hope extraterrestrial life evolves to the point at which the development of a PeopleMyAge is possible

I'm with you here. And just to play devil's advocate to LW, why can't there be a possibility of other elements, chemicals, gases, etc. that we don't know about? I mean, we know what is here on earth and from random samples from Mars, the moon, or asteroids. But with the size of the universe, isn't there a possibility of stuff existing out there that we don't have access to on earth or in our very limited space research?

I know you're playing devils advocate here, but I can't help but be inclined to ask... like what?

I just don't know. That's the point. Sorry, I'm just confusing myself now.

1000 years ago, people couldn't have grasped 90% of what we know now.
its entirely possible that there is a lot more we don't even know enough about to begin to imagine.
I will say LittleWings post made me think of the movie evolution.

THIS

I actually thought about the core. If it's not dead, it could make life thrive near geyser, volcanos or any area with geothermal activity.

I mean, when one readsabout extremophile beings, life seems way more plausible.

I actually thought LW's explanation made good sense, though I still think that other building blocks can't be ruled out.