Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on April 07, 2015, 10:18:53 PM
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http://www.popsci.com/nasa-sure-well-find-alien-life-within-next-few-decades
I hope I am alive to see it.
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All they have to do is take a real close look in Washington DC and they will find plenty of inhuman activity . :)
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All they have to do is take a real close look in Washington DC and they will find do plenty of inhuman activity . :)
Beat me to it.
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I assume that the aliens will pick up our TV signals before coming into our sensory range. With that in mind I think NASA is over-confident.
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I assume that the aliens will pick up our TV signals before coming into our sensory range. With that in mind I think NASA is over-confident.
I'm pretty sure they mean simple life forms on Mars, Europa, maybe in the water-ice geysers on Enceladus.
And the light-cone of our radio leakage is a sphere only about 200 LY in diameter. When we do CGI representations of the Milky Way, as seen from intergalactic space, that sphere is smaller than the points being used to represent individual stars.
And it weakens by the inverse square law as it goes outward.
The one thing everyone seems to forget when debating "should we transmit instead of just listening?" is that the transmitting civilization has to beat the Drake equation too.
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All they have to do is take a real close look in Washington DC and they will find plenty of inhuman activity . :)
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2FKoloblicin%2Fwpid-38b84c73d78198c0749a392a81267bad_zpsmutvnz19.jpg&hash=1eefc204feeb1d0dba0f4231c9c62717c34b8374)
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OK, for serious you guys. What is with this idea that water = life? ??? They just keep saying that in all these news articles.
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http://www.popsci.com/nasa-sure-well-find-alien-life-within-next-few-decades
I hope I am alive to see it.
Finding alien life, like cold fusion and viable electric cars are always going to be just a few decades away.
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OK, for serious you guys. What is with this idea that water = life? ??? They just keep saying that in all these news articles.
Liquid water is one of the chemicals we are fairly certain is necessary for life, at least life as we find on Earth. None of the chemical processes would work without it. It also happens to be relatively easy to look for. So, if we can find places that have liquid water, we can be reasonably certain that life could possibly exist there.
Of course, we could be totally wrong about that assumption, but that's one of the problems inherent in having a sample size of "1".
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OK, for serious you guys. What is with this idea that water = life? ??? They just keep saying that in all these news articles.
Without water there can be no booze. Without booze, life is not possible.
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The trouble is the loss of water to space.
Browse:
http://www.info.com/search?qkw=loss%20of%20water%20to%20space&qcat=web&r_cop=aylf&insp=%3Fpvaid%3D8fa7bf442a864b4cb7e325802ece01b5%26fcoid%3D300
On smaller bodies, this loss is greater, and there might not be any water left, only the evidence of it being there in the past.
Mars seems to have only a bit of dense CO2 left, whereas Jupiter's mass still retains even methane.
The body's temperature also plays a role in this loss rate.
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So, if we can find places that have liquid water, we can be reasonably certain that life could possibly exist there.
:laugh: I can't tell if that's meant to be a joke, or not.
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:laugh: I can't tell if that's meant to be a joke, or not.
No joke. No water, no hydrocarbon based life.
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No joke. No water, no hydrocarbon based life.
He's saying that how is the idea that having one element necessary for life as we know it means that if we find it, we can be sure (as NASA seems to be) of finding life?
I am clarifying because I'm confused about that, as well.
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He's saying that how is the idea that having one element necessary for life as we know it means that if we find it, we can be sure (as NASA seems to be) of finding life?
I am clarifying because I'm confused about that, as well.
Water could be life, doesn't say if there is water their is life.
You need about 25 elements to have humanoid life.
Without water you can't have life as we know it. There is also a pretty sound theory that all over earth's water is extraterrestrial.
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He's saying that how is the idea that having one element necessary for life as we know it means that if we find it, we can be sure (as NASA seems to be) of finding life?
I am clarifying because I'm confused about that, as well.
Yes, something like that. These articles have become commonplace. "There may be water on planet such-and-such. Better give the astronauts some fishing poles, and a can of Off!"
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The trouble is the loss of water to space.
Browse:
http://www.info.com/search?qkw=loss%20of%20water%20to%20space&qcat=web&r_cop=aylf&insp=%3Fpvaid%3D8fa7bf442a864b4cb7e325802ece01b5%26fcoid%3D300
On smaller bodies, this loss is greater, and there might not be any water left, only the evidence of it being there in the past.
Mars seems to have only a bit of dense CO2 left, whereas Jupiter's mass still retains even methane.
The body's temperature also plays a role in this loss rate.
That does indeed play a role. Mars dried out because it was smaller, cooled faster than the Earth, and lost it's magnetic field from it's once molten core, which allows the solar wind to strip atmosphere. UV light from the sun splits H2O and the hydrogen escapes to space.
OTOH, even smaller bodies, largely protected by ice, like the gas giants moons, such as Europa have more liquid water inside than all the surface water on Earth. Protected from space by the ice, and the core is continually tidally squeezed by the parent planet's large gravitational field, generating heat indefinitely. And it's unclear even here on Earth if life started on the surface in places like tidal pools, or if it started at the bottom of the ocean around geothermal vents. If it started at the bottom of the ocean, sunlight might not even be a prerequisite.
Liquid water is a strong indicator of the potential of life, because at the temperature range of liquid water, and with carbon compounds, the chemistry is complex enough to support life. It does not automatically equal life, but it's a huge, if not the biggest prerequisite. And in typical journalistic hyperbole, the scientist excited that water enhances the possibility of finding life, it gets blown up into "water=aliens!" etc. by the journalist.
Others will go on about other potential chemistries like silicon, or in the liquid methane/ethane oceans of Titan, and that water/carbon is just an Earthly conceit based on confirmation bias. However, as our understanding of chemistry has grown, it's becoming more and more clear that the number of potential chemical combinations is much much lower, and the rates of formation (and destruction) of compounds/molecules is either too slow, or too high in other environments that are too cold, or too hot for liquid water.
Liquid water and carbon is the "sweet spot" in the Periodic Table where all the interesting stuff happens. We find that space is lousy with amino acids and other organic molecules, but without liquid water and the temperature range and pressure that supports it, they'll just sit there and do nothing.
And in terms of non-carbon chemistry, you're never going to get some analogue to RNA or DNA, or the complex array of protein synthesis from silicon in... I dunno, lava or whatever as an alternate working fluid.
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Water could be life, doesn't say if there is water their is life.
But in today's pop-science, life just grows spontaneously from every puddle of water.
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Yes, something like that. These articles have become commonplace. "There may be water on planet such-and-such. Better give the astronauts some fishing poles, and a can of Off!"
The articles are also full of suppositions, faith and hope.
Humans are religious, even the practitioners of scientism.
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But in today's pop-science, life just grows spontaneously from every puddle of water.
I'm pretty sure they almost always say "could" not "does".
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Finding alien life, like cold fusion and viable electric cars are always going to be just a few decades away.
Don't worry, they WILL find evidence of aliens, just like they found all that evidence of Global Warming. If they believe it hard enough, they will find it. =D
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Don't worry, they WILL find evidence of aliens, just like they found all that evidence of Global Warming. If they believe it hard enough, they will find it. =D
Fortunately, it's a bit more of a "it's there or it's not" kind of thing, rather than burying someone in a mass of massaged climate data and making whatever kind of graph you want out of it.
Either we find germs/fossils on Mars or we don't.
Either we find germs/life on Europa/Enceladus or we don't.
Either we get spectrograph lines of free oxygen or "otherwise impossible" CO2/Methane ratios from extrasolar planets or we don't.
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The universe is large enough that even if we don't find life it will be easy to keep hope alive.
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OK, for serious you guys. What is with this idea that water = life? ??? They just keep saying that in all these news articles.
It's an assumption, but as far as we know, you can't have life without water. Water directly equaling life is a stretch, but probably not an insane stretch.
As for finding alien life, meh. Space is very very big. And expanding. If there is no way to travel at significantly faster than the speed of life, there could be millions of alien civilizations that we'd never detect even if our civilization lasts for several million years.
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I think it's mathematically ridiculous to think there isn't other life in the universe. If people want to make the argument that there are no Minbari out there, that's an easier argument. To say there aren't at the very least, some microbes somewhere, on some planet or planetoid or moon, in some galaxy in the known universe, well, the odds are astronomical on the "no life" bet.
Like Millcreek, I hope I'm still around to see positive proof, even if it is only microscopic. It would be neat though, if the first image is of a Europan fish swimming in front of the probe camera. :laugh:
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But in today's pop-science, life just grows spontaneously from every puddle of water.
Charby hit the nail on the head, "could".
It's obviously more complex. Miller–Urey experiment is a good example. Water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen are put in a flask, connected to another flask with water in it. Heat the water flask, add sparks. They ended up getting 20 amino acids. Could that evolve into intelligent life if given several billion years? Well, worked once. Might work elsewhere too.
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Charby hit the nail on the head, "could".
It's obviously more complex. Miller–Urey experiment is a good example. Water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen are put in a flask, connected to another flask with water in it. Heat the water flask, add sparks. They ended up getting 20 amino acids. Could that evolve into intelligent life if given several billion years? Well, worked once. Might work elsewhere too.
The theory contradicts what fistful believes and I suspect that's what he was getting at.
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I'm pretty sure they almost always say "could" not "does".
Yes, but:
Given the surprising number of oceans residing throughout our celestial home, they say "it's definitely not an if, it's a when."
That's a HUGE amount of faith.
Even if you hold to a belief in evolution, on what basis to you make the jump that "it happened here, so therefore, it must be a highly common event."
As noted by Regolith, we have a sample size of 1. To jump from that to the confidence these scientists have...
I have to say, I'm impressed by the depth of their faith.
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Yes, but:
That's a HUGE amount of faith.
Even if you hold to a belief in evolution, on what basis to you make the jump that "it happened here, so therefore, it must be a highly common event."
As noted by Regolith, we have a sample size of 1. To jump from that to the confidence these scientists have...
I have to say, I'm impressed by the depth of their faith.
Panspermia Theory is one that our common ancestor on earth, was extraterrestrial. It's just a theory, not fact but if you study plants like I do, it appears to be quite plausible.
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Aren't there also theories that some seeds and/or spores can survive in space and might drift around?
And of course, we are using the term "theory" loosely here and not implying that anything is proven.
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Aren't there also theories that some seeds and/or spores can survive in space and might drift around?
And of course, we are using the term "theory" loosely here and not implying that anything is proven.
That is the Panspermia Theory
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I think it's mathematically ridiculous to think there isn't other life in the universe. If people want to make the argument that there are no Minbari out there, that's an easier argument. To say there aren't at the very least, some microbes somewhere, on some planet or planetoid or moon, in some galaxy in the known universe, well, the odds are astronomical on the "no life" bet.
Like Millcreek, I hope I'm still around to see positive proof, even if it is only microscopic. It would be neat though, if the first image is of a Europan fish swimming in front of the probe camera. :laugh:
"Minbari??" :mad:
Try VULCAN! :lol:
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I think it's mathematically ridiculous to think there isn't other life in the universe. If people want to make the argument that there are no Minbari out there, that's an easier argument. To say there aren't at the very least, some microbes somewhere, on some planet or planetoid or moon, in some galaxy in the known universe, well, the odds are astronomical on the "no life" bet.
Like Millcreek, I hope I'm still around to see positive proof, even if it is only microscopic. It would be neat though, if the first image is of a Europan fish swimming in front of the probe camera. :laugh:
Not so much. The calculation is based on a raft of assumptions. If any one of them are off by a significant amount or actually equal to zero, the math says "No dice."
And the theory of evolution on Earth gets worn thin the more it is examined...by scientists. There is a disconnect between those who calculate the time required to evolve life and those who date the age of the Earth. Put simply, we can not even use the fairy dust of magical time to enable evolution from non-living materials because our best estimates of the time required require more time than the Earth has existed.
And one has to love the multiple secularist creation myths crafted to account for the rather gaping holes in the TENS theory. "It is turtles assumptions all the way down." Don't forget, "Big Bang" started as a term of derision by the secular folks used to batter theist folk who claimed that the universe had a beginning point. Back when the secularist consensus was in favor of an eternal universe.
There is an awful lot of faith-based reasoning on all the multiple sides of this issue.
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The theory contradicts what fistful believes and I suspect that's what he was getting at.
Nope. We have NASA scientists telling us that the presence of water pretty much guarantees life. Can't we all agree that's just dumb? I presume this has a lot more to do with NASA plumping for more money, than any scientific realities or theories.
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There is also a pretty sound theory that all over earth's water is extraterrestrial.
What?
Panspermia Theory is one that our common ancestor on earth, was extraterrestrial. It's just a theory, not fact but if you study plants like I do, it appears to be quite plausible.
What about plants?
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What about plants?
Just how they evolved. Gymnosperms and Angiosperms, dicots and monocots.
extraterrestrial water theory
Water arrived on the earth during the period of bombardment in earth history. Basically water was carried here in asteroids and comets.
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Everything is just hydrogen and time. And overwhelming still is. =D
http://www.haystack.mit.edu/edu/pcr/Astrochemistry/3%20-%20MATTER/nuclear%20synthesis.pdf
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Just how they evolved. Gymnosperms and Angiosperms, dicots and monocots.
extraterrestrial water theory
Water arrived on the earth during the period of bombardment in earth history. Basically water was carried here in asteroids and comets.
The isotope ratios of Deuterium vs. regular Hydrogen in comet water as compared to Earth's water is making the "Comets brought the water" theory looking less and less likely. Granted, we haven't visited a TON of comets, but the ones we have, like Rosetta is doing right now, are not making it look good.
That said, the evocative, but inconclusive "Martian fossil microbes" found in AH84001, and now some other meteoroids, who's isotope ratios indicate a very high probability they are indeed chunks of Mars, that some limited panspermia has happened at least in the local Solar System is a distinct possibility.
It would also make sense since Mars was smaller, it would have cooled faster than Earth, the Thea collision that formed the Moon withstanding or not, and would have had liquid surface water and a benign climate much sooner than Earth did.
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http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/04/07/aliens-are-likely-huge-says-scientist/
The aliens would be really big also.
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The isotope ratios of Deuterium vs. regular Hydrogen in comet water as compared to Earth's water is making the "Comets brought the water" theory looking less and less likely. Granted, we haven't visited a TON of comets, but the ones we have, like Rosetta is doing right now, are not making it look good.
but they have found H2O on asteroids.
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So science posits life came from an "other" outside of our solar system (panspermia) or that sentient beings might be able to create an optimum environment where life just happens; based on the Miller–Urey experiment that actually shows no such thing.
Science!
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The isotope ratios of Deuterium vs. regular Hydrogen in comet water as compared to Earth's water is making the "Comets brought the water" theory looking less and less likely. Granted, we haven't visited a TON of comets, but the ones we have, like Rosetta is doing right now, are not making it look good.
That said, the evocative, but inconclusive "Martian fossil microbes" found in AH84001, and now some other meteoroids, who's isotope ratios indicate a very high probability they are indeed chunks of Mars, that some limited panspermia has happened at least in the local Solar System is a distinct possibility.
It would also make sense since Mars was smaller, it would have cooled faster than Earth, the Thea collision that formed the Moon withstanding or not, and would have had liquid surface water and a benign climate much sooner than Earth did.
No surprising, and not indicative of a negative. In the early solar system, elements and isotopes did fractionate w.r.t. Orbital radius, (one reason why inner planets are rocky, outer are less so), so it's not that weird that isotopic differences between hydrogen isotopes and thus water (especially given the relative mass differences) on inner planets (regardless of being deposited by cometary bodies during accretion or not) would be different than cometary bodies on higher semi major axis orbits (like what are seen today).
Also, it's a matter of time in how one phrases the argument, as cometary impacts during accretion is simply part of accretion, (and thus the basis of the non-extraterrestrial water theory) while others regard the extraterrestrial water to occur after the main body solidified. Two sides of the same coin.
Since any ice-ball is properly termed a comet, regardless of what side you agree with, any water on earth was likely frozen out, condensed, accreted into ice-balls, and then deposited in the growing or already formed planet...so "water from comets" is (while ambiguous in terms of time) pretty much accurate.
The other argument is that earth now, and even more so during formation is unable to gravitationally capture hydrogen on a long term basis (net loss is greater than net gain), so accreating hydrogen and then reacting it with a created oxygen to form water over time doesn't pass muster. In fact, due to charged particle impacts and UV disassociation of water, we actually continually lose hydrogen even now.
(And helium as well, which is why it's so important to recycle it/not vent it...once vented, it's gone).
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(And helium as well, which is why it's so important to recycle it/not vent it...once vented, it's gone).
A good excuse for more uranium fusion! Moar power to power the hippy electric scooter and more helium for balloons. :)
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A good excuse for more uranium fusion! Moar power to power the hippy electric scooter and more helium for balloons. :)
I'll vote for that! Balloons & scooters!
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I'll vote for that! Balloons & scooters!
Just trying to make the hippies and the little children happy.
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No surprising, and not indicative of a negative. In the early solar system, elements and isotopes did fractionate w.r.t. Orbital radius, (one reason why inner planets are rocky, outer are less so), so it's not that weird that isotopic differences between hydrogen isotopes and thus water (especially given the relative mass differences) on inner planets (regardless of being deposited by cometary bodies during accretion or not) would be different than cometary bodies on higher semi major axis orbits (like what are seen today).
Also, it's a matter of time in how one phrases the argument, as cometary impacts during accretion is simply part of accretion, (and thus the basis of the non-extraterrestrial water theory) while others regard the extraterrestrial water to occur after the main body solidified. Two sides of the same coin.
Since any ice-ball is properly termed a comet, regardless of what side you agree with, any water on earth was likely frozen out, condensed, accreted into ice-balls, and then deposited in the growing or already formed planet...so "water from comets" is (while ambiguous in terms of time) pretty much accurate.
The other argument is that earth now, and even more so during formation is unable to gravitationally capture hydrogen on a long term basis (net loss is greater than net gain), so accreating hydrogen and then reacting it with a created oxygen to form water over time doesn't pass muster. In fact, due to charged particle impacts and UV disassociation of water, we actually continually lose hydrogen even now.
(And helium as well, which is why it's so important to recycle it/not vent it...once vented, it's gone).
Yes, that's a good point, it's an argument of "water during accretion" or from "later cometary bombardment". It's all "stuff from space". And saying "from space" is an oxymoron, as we're in "space" right now. We're part of "space".
It does infect your thinking though, subconsciously, you sort of draw a line down the mental blackboard or map of "stuff concepts and places" we have, and the bottom half is "Earth" and the top half is "Space", dividing it kind of 50/50. When of course, "Earth" is a bit of chalk dust you can't even see on the blackboard. It's that way even if you are a big fan of space exploration, astronomy, science etc. Hell, for all I know it infects your thinking even if you're a professional in these fields, unless you're actually in orbit or higher looking at the Earth through a window...
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Charby hit the nail on the head, "could".
It's obviously more complex. Miller–Urey experiment is a good example. Water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen are put in a flask, connected to another flask with water in it. Heat the water flask, add sparks. They ended up getting 20 amino acids. Could that evolve into intelligent life if given several billion years? Well, worked once. Might work elsewhere too.
I attended a seminar today on therapeutic drugs targeting microRNA (miRNA) as it is very relevant to the work I do.
The mechanisms for gene regulation are so complex that we are only scratching the surface of understanding how it all works.Its not as simple as DNA-->mRNA-->tRNA+nucleic acid=protein- that's only the 50,000 ft view of the central dogma. Getting a few simple amino acids from a bag of snot and some electricity is one thing, but bringing all of the complex proteins/genetic material (and don't forget lipids- you don't have cell membranes without them) perfectly and having them interact perfectly to create an organism that can not only live, but reproduce is simply beyond probability.
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I think it's mathematically ridiculous to think there isn't other life in the universe. If people want to make the argument that there are no Minbari out there, that's an easier argument. To say there aren't at the very least, some microbes somewhere, on some planet or planetoid or moon, in some galaxy in the known universe, well, the odds are astronomical on the "no life" bet.
Like Millcreek, I hope I'm still around to see positive proof, even if it is only microscopic. It would be neat though, if the first image is of a Europan fish swimming in front of the probe camera. :laugh:
It's the Fermi paradox. If life is a probabilistic event, given the infiniteness of the universe there should be innumerable intelligent lifeforms out there. So where is everyone?
Not so much. The calculation is based on a raft of assumptions. If any one of them are off by a significant amount or actually equal to zero, the math says "No dice."
Not really. At its core it's based on just 2 simple assumptions: infinity and probability. Mathematically, even unlikely events will occur many times given infinite chances.
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we don't have infinity
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The jury is still out on that.
Not that it matters in any practical sense. Even the smallest estimates of a finite universe are still colossally humongously huge, which doesn't change the argument in any meaningful way.
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The jury is still out on that.
Not that it matters in any practical sense. Even the smallest estimates of a finite universe are still colossally humongously huge, which doesn't change the argument in any meaningful way.
Indeed. The very, very, very, tiny 48 billion or so years worth of the universe that we can even see contains 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. That's just stars, not planets, planetoids, asteroid, moons, etc. The Hubble has been finding multiple planets around stars like crazy over the last few years. These are incomprehensibly large numbers of surfaces that could potentially support life, may support life in the future, or could have supported life in the past. It's a four dimensional game of hide and seek.
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Like Millcreek, I hope I'm still around to see positive proof, even if it is only microscopic. It would be neat though, if the first image is of a Europan fish swimming in front of the probe camera. :laugh:
What you guys said. That would be too cool. And we've still got time, if NASA can get it's crap together.
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Indeed. The very, very, very, tiny 48 billion or so years worth of the universe that we can even see contains 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. That's just stars, not planets, planetoids, asteroid, moons, etc. The Hubble has been finding multiple planets around stars like crazy over the last few years. These are incomprehensibly large numbers of surfaces that could potentially support life, may support life in the future, or could have supported life in the past. It's a four dimensional game of hide and seek.
The big assumption is that life arises from inanimate matter due to as rooster says, the pixie dust of time.
And arguing if it maybe could happen, it did happen, because infinity, doesn't seem very scientific to me.
Personally If we locate life or signs of life outside of earth I would be excited and feel honored to be alive during such a momentous occasion in our history.
Under most probable scenarios I can think of I don't see where the discovery would change or threaten my views on the source or nature of life.
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The big assumption is that life arises from inanimate matter due to as rooster says, the pixie dust of time.
Time is only one factor. It's the infinite, or very large finite, number of possible combinations of elements in the correct "crucible" if you will. It also doesn't have to be the same combination that led to life on Earth. It doesn't necessarily need to be carbon based either.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/05/stephen-hawking-on-non-carbon-based-alien-life.html
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The big assumption is that life arises from inanimate matter due to as rooster says, the pixie dust of time.
And arguing if it maybe could happen, it did happen, because infinity, doesn't seem very scientific to me.
There's an old thought experiment known as the Drake Equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation). There are even calculators (http://www.classbrain.com/artmovies/publish/article_50.shtml) that will tell you how many civilizations should be around as a result (http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html). This one (http://www.as.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/drake.pl) even estimates how far apart they would be.
We know it DID happen, because of us. The question is thus whether it's happened(or will happen) elsewhere. The sheer number of stars in our universe simply means that even if you plug state lottery level odds into the unknowns, while you might end up with us being the only intelligent life in the Milky Way, it's unlikely that we're the only one in the Galaxy. Meanwhile, while still rare, planets with life, just not 'intelligent' life, would be relatively common.
Plugging in 10% for most of the variables gives an expected separation between communicative civilizations of almost 3k ly. That's far enough that it's probable that we'd have a long while before we could detect them - we've only been listening, kinda-sortof, for less than 100 years.
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What you guys said. That would be too cool. And we've still got time, if NASA can get it's crap together. get done boosting Islamic self-esteem, and go back to space exploration.
fixy-ricky-ticky
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No surprising, and not indicative of a negative. In the early solar system, elements and isotopes did fractionate w.r.t. Orbital radius, (one reason why inner planets are rocky, outer are less so), so it's not that weird that isotopic differences between hydrogen isotopes and thus water (especially given the relative mass differences) on inner planets (regardless of being deposited by cometary bodies during accretion or not) would be different than cometary bodies on higher semi major axis orbits (like what are seen today).
Also, it's a matter of time in how one phrases the argument, as cometary impacts during accretion is simply part of accretion, (and thus the basis of the non-extraterrestrial water theory) while others regard the extraterrestrial water to occur after the main body solidified. Two sides of the same coin.
Since any ice-ball is properly termed a comet, regardless of what side you agree with, any water on earth was likely frozen out, condensed, accreted into ice-balls, and then deposited in the growing or already formed planet...so "water from comets" is (while ambiguous in terms of time) pretty much accurate.
The other argument is that earth now, and even more so during formation is unable to gravitationally capture hydrogen on a long term basis (net loss is greater than net gain), so accreating hydrogen and then reacting it with a created oxygen to form water over time doesn't pass muster. In fact, due to charged particle impacts and UV disassociation of water, we actually continually lose hydrogen even now.
(And helium as well, which is why it's so important to recycle it/not vent it...once vented, it's gone).
Something I've been wondering, how huge of a ball of ice would it have to be to create the amount of water that there is.
Why do some people even think that the water came from somewhere else?
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The theories I've read about don't try to suggest all our water came in one big delivery.
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Something I've been wondering, how huge of a ball of ice would it have to be to create the amount of water that there is.
On earth?
As a liquid, it would be 860 miles wide.
http://earthsky.org/earth/if-you-made-a-sphere-of-all-earths-water-how-big-would-it-be
Freeze it, and it would be a sphere of close to 960 miles wide, since ice increases in volume by about 9%.
Why do some people even think that the water came from somewhere else?
It's thought that shortly after the earth formed there was a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, when the Earth was struck regularly with a large number of asteroids and comets. We know both asteroids and comets have a fair amount of water, so it's theorized quite a bit of earth's water could have come from that period.
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Why do some people even think that the water came from somewhere else?
Ever try to make water?
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fixy-ricky-ticky
If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
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If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
Who do you think was doing most of the destroying?
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All you need in any of these probability equations is for something in the numerator to approach zero or something in the denominator to approach infinity and you end up with bupkis. As with global warming models, I smell a whole lot of bending the calculations to find the desired result.
And as with global warming I think it serves a purpose similar to religion or helps satisfy some folks' religious impulses. Kind of like other nerd-pocalypse scenarios like the singularity.
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Who do you think was doing most of the destroying?
The same group who was doing all the persecutions and executions of heretics, the catholic church. Started with Constantine and really didn't change when they couldn't stop the movement around Martin Luther.
Church even promoted a northern crusade to rid northern Europe of pagans.
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If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
The same group who was doing all the persecutions and executions of heretics, the catholic church. Started with Constantine and really didn't change when they couldn't stop the movement around Martin Luther.
Church even promoted a northern crusade to rid northern Europe of pagans.
That's funny right there.
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fixy-ricky-ticky
:lol:
If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/aug/01/michael-sullivan/michael-sullivan-says-nasa-administrator-said-main/
Fistful's humorous fix had nothing to do with Islam's prior contribution to science. NASA director stuck his foot in his mouth a few years ago.
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That's funny right there.
Because its true? The early Christian Catholic-State was a bunch of self serving aholes that wanted to keep the masses down and profit for themselves.
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:lol:
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/aug/01/michael-sullivan/michael-sullivan-says-nasa-administrator-said-main/
Fistful's humorous fix had nothing to do with Islam's prior contribution to science. NASA director stuck his foot in his mouth a few years ago.
Yea I remember that, I also remember they corrected themselves about helping the Muslim faith celebrate their contribution to science and mathematics.
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If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
Sooo... while complaining about an overbroad generalization of Muslims, you make the same about Christians and specifically the Catholic (large C) church.
I think St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas might have a little something to talk to you about "destroying all things not Christian." Further the thousands (tens of thousands?) of monks that spent most of their life painstakingly transcribing works of the Romans and Greeks (pre-Christian!) have a nit to pick as well.
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Because its true? The early Christian Catholic-State was a bunch of self serving aholes that wanted to keep the masses down and profit for themselves.
That may be true, but they weren't the ones who destroyed the library of Alexandria or a lot of other stuff. What ancient knowledge is the Catholic Church accused of destroying? Yes, they wanted to control the Christian Faith and consolidate power, but that sort of thing wasn't exactly unique in the ancient world.
Also, how much of that "Muslim" knowledge was developed by Muslims versus taken from people they conquered/slaughtered or gained through trade from India or China? I think I was told stuff like that about Muslims when I was younger also. I don't think it was true or at least not the whole truth.
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Indeed. The very, very, very, tiny 48 billion or so years worth of the universe that we can even see contains 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. That's just stars, not planets, planetoids, asteroid, moons, etc. The Hubble has been finding multiple planets around stars like crazy over the last few years. These are incomprehensibly large numbers of surfaces that could potentially support life, may support life in the future, or could have supported life in the past. It's a four dimensional game of hide and seek.
Not the Hubble, Kepler. Kepler views a large area of sky continuously and looks for transits, Hubble has a really REALLY small FOV so it is a poor survey instrument.
Just wait till the metric-butt-loads of data from the LSST hit!
Something I've been wondering, how huge of a ball of ice would it have to be to create the amount of water that there is.
Why do some people even think that the water came from somewhere else?
Because it couldn't have come from somewhere else...it either was early bombardment during accretion, or later bombardment, but since it would be virtually impossible for the earth to accrete free hydrogen, it literally had to come from ice.
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Not the Hubble, Kepler. Kepler views a large area of sky continuously and looks for transits, Hubble has a really REALLY small FOV so it is a poor survey instrument.
Sorry, yup - my bad.
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There's an old thought experiment known as the Drake Equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation). There are even calculators (http://www.classbrain.com/artmovies/publish/article_50.shtml) that will tell you how many civilizations should be around as a result (http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html). This one (http://www.as.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/drake.pl) even estimates how far apart they would be.
We know it DID happen, because of us. The question is thus whether it's happened(or will happen) elsewhere. The sheer number of stars in our universe simply means that even if you plug state lottery level odds into the unknowns, while you might end up with us being the only intelligent life in the Milky Way, it's unlikely that we're the only one in the Galaxy. Meanwhile, while still rare, planets with life, just not 'intelligent' life, would be relatively common.
Plugging in 10% for most of the variables gives an expected separation between communicative civilizations of almost 3k ly. That's far enough that it's probable that we'd have a long while before we could detect them - we've only been listening, kinda-sortof, for less than 100 years.
No, we know we are here but can only speculate on our origins.
We actually really know little to nothing. We have some good working theories.
Our cosmology and our working understanding of evolution is very limited. Science speculates that life arose from inanimate matter but has no proof.
Adapting an old saying to the modern reliance on probabilities that can be manipulated by inputs.
There are lies, damnable lies and probabilities.
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Because its true? The early Christian Catholic-State was a bunch of self serving aholes that wanted to keep the masses down and profit for themselves.
No, because it is ignorant anti-Roman Catholic kool-aid. And protestant and then anti-clerical political propaganda.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a Roman Catholic and, in fact, consider the office of the Roman Pope to be but one instance of an anti-christ. So, not exactly a Roman apologist here. But I am interested in facts and getting things right, especially in the face of laughable and laughably easy to debunk propaganda.
Let us get a few things in order.
1. The Christian church did not go around destroying non-Christian works as policy in antiquity, the Dark Ages, Middle Ages, or Renaissance. The Christian church had its beginnings in the Levant and spread throughout the Mediterranean first and incorporated pagan philosophers where it saw fit. Plato and Aristotle top among the pagans. See Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas for some serious chewing on pagan philosophy as applied to the early and Medieval Church. The very existence of these men, their works, and the thread that connects them across roughly 1000 years debunks your assertions.
2. During and after the fall of the western Roman empire, fluency and literacy in languages outside of the vernacular and church Latin declined. The last translation of pagan Greek writers into Latin done in the West for centuries was done in the late 6th century AD. Those served the Dark Age & Medieval church for centuries...and were known to be originally written by non-Christians. Those following would not have known a non-Christian book written in Greek from a Christian book written in Greek. Because they could not read Greek. If it wasn't in Latin, they likely could not read it.
3. Many Pagan and Christian books were lost during the fall of western Rome and the Dark Ages. Primarily due to:
a. Declining prosperity that reduced population, literacy, and the infrastructure necessary to support luxuries like private libraries.
b. Deliberate destruction by PAGAN raiders sacking monasteries for treasure and destroying what they could not put to use. Like pretty much all of the books.
c. Aforementioned decline in literacy in Greek and other tongues leading to not knowing the value of not losing some books.
4. Muslims were not the primary keepers of non-Latin Western knowledge during the Dark Ages. That was done mostly by the Eastern Roman Empire / the Byzantine Empire / Constantinople. Constantinople held on until the 1400s and became a go-to destination when those in the lands of the former western empire recovered enough to be curious about more than living hand-to-mouth, starting in the AD1000s and really picking up steam in the AD1200s. Those nasty Roman Catholics set sail to Constantinople, learned Greek and other foreign tongues, and brought them back to the West. Yes, there were some copies gleaned from the Muslims, but the better ones and more came from "The Greeks" as the Byzantines were known. Also, libraries in the West were raided for books that had somehow managed to survive. That (re-discovery of forgotten books) happened several times and allowed later Renaissance writers to shamelessly plagiarize earlier writers and claim the innovations as their own.
5. There was no "Christian Catholic-State." Yes, Christianity became approved state religion for the Western Roman Empire after Constantine, but ecclesiastical governance was mostly separate from state gov't, leading to friction between them. And the developing Christian states in the West had no unified state gov't. Also, the Great Schism happened in AD1054, which separated Roman Catholicism from Eastern Rite / upper case "O" Orthodox Church. Thus: the largest, longest-lived, and most closely aligned with the state church was not the Roman church, but the Easter Rite church. The one that never forgot Greek and preserved the books of the pagan writers through antiquity, the Dark Ages, and the Middle Ages through into the Renaissance.
6. It was intellectual innovation in the Middle Age Roman Church that laid the foundation for modern science. Again, beginning in the AD1000s and accelerating in the AD1200s. The primary intellectual revolution and paradigm shift was performed by theologians, as theology was the ultimate course of study and the best minds went into theology. They allied their understanding of God, God's creation, and God's Laws with early pagan logic/reason, science and philosophy and made modernity literally thinkable.
7. The lands conquered by Islam had an inverse intellectual arc from the West. The lands they conquered many times had great intellectual traditions and communities: Bagdad, Damascus, the Levant, Spain, etc. For a while, the tumult generated much intellectual ferment as these established and somewhat moribund communities were infused with intellectually curious Muslim go-getters. This, however, did not last and the more Islamicised a city became, the more squashed its intellectual life. Those that managed to stay out of the drive for Muslim orthodoxy held out the longest. Still, it was a downward arc, just as the West was recovering.
8. The fathers of the Reformation (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) were, more or less, concerned with getting Christianity right. After they died and folk separated out, follow-on Protestants with other motives took up the printing press and used propaganda to make political hay, partly by turning the RC church into an anti-intellectual monster. And the RCs wrote similar things about the Protestants.
9. The anti-clerical sorts from the Renaissance onward used those talking points and expanded on them even unto this day.
10. The Renaissance was a reactionary movement against too much reason and logic in the RC church and intellectual life. The Medieval RC Church took pagan logic and philosophy books, went all Spinal Tap(1), and turned the Logic Amps up to "11." Besides, rigorous logic is hard.
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A fine resource is Hannen's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science ( http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science-ebook/dp/B003B02OJQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1428589896&sr=8-3&keywords=foundations+of+modern+science )
A nice review/overview can be found here:
http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/
Hannen was not the first to document all this, but he is the most readable. I have read several of the earlier works he relied on and they were informative but a bit dry. They are mentioned in Hannen's bibliography and the review linked above. Hannen is quite enjoyable to read.
(1) Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
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If it wasn't for the Muslims and their science/mathematics/medicine (and libraries), there would have been a lot of knowledge lost during the dark ages when anything non Christian was destroyed.
If you are alluding to the library at Alexandria there is a lot of misinformation out there about that also.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/207/
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===================================================
A fine resource is Hannen's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science ( http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science-ebook/dp/B003B02OJQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1428589896&sr=8-3&keywords=foundations+of+modern+science )
A nice review/overview can be found here:
http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/
Hannen was not the first to document all this, but he is the most readable. I have read several of the earlier works he relied on and they were informative but a bit dry. They are mentioned in Hannen's bibliography and the review linked above. Hannen is quite enjoyable to read.
(1)
Curse you, Roo_ster, for giving me another book to add to my list.
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We know it DID happen, because of us.
Once. One is not a good number to try to leverage off of.
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If you are alluding to the library at Alexandria there is a lot of misinformation out there about that also.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/207/
Persia not Alexandria, remember middle east was the middle of two worlds at the time, with trade between the East and West.
Some of the problems in Iraq currently is that some of the fanatics are destroying the history of the area that doesn't align with their particular beliefs.
Here is a Muslim that contributed a lot to science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Zakariya_al-Razi
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Curse you, Roo_ster, for giving me another book to add to my list.
My work is done here.
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No, because it is ignorant anti-Roman Catholic kool-aid. And protestant and then anti-clerical political propaganda.
I still self Identify as a Roman Catholic, born, raised and but full of independent thought. I drove the nuns and priests nuts in Catholic school when I started seriously questioning Catholicism and history of the church. A very rosy picture was painted, but I started reading otherwise. Probably the worst thing my parents did those poor nuns and priests was that they let me get an adult library card at the age of 11 so I could go read and explore the adult section of the public library. I was 21 years old when the Internet as we know it was available to everyone, Mosaic browser. So I had my opinions about religion in general made long before the dawn of the fringe internet blogger.
When I get home later tonight I have some real academic sources that contradict your findings from your one book, I see that it is written by a scholar but it is still "popular" literature, I see that the reviews also tend to be skewed by folks who want to see their religion. AKA, wouldn't stand up as a source in a bibliography on a research paper.
The part of the atheist reviewer that bothers me that makes his review of the book, very skewed is
Medieval science and technology to bring the recent research on the subject to a more general audience and to counter the biased myths about it being a Dark Age of irrational superstition. Thankfully I can now cross that off my to do list, because Hannam's superb book has done the job for me and in fine style.
His method of research is that he is just only going to find facts that support what he wants to believe and not look for facts that contradict what he believes.
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If you are alluding to the library at Alexandria there is a lot of misinformation out there about that also.
http://www.ancient.eu/article/207/
Thanks. That is interesting. I hadn't realized there were multiple stories about that.
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Because its true? The early Christian Catholic-State was a bunch of self serving aholes that wanted to keep the masses down and profit for themselves.
So, they grew up to become American politicians?
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So, they grew up to become American politicians?
One could probably say that about most politicians across the ages. Actually there are very few politicians that aren't self-serving aholes, they disguise it well, but they are to the core.
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I still self Identify as a Roman Catholic, born, raised and but full of independent thought. I drove the nuns and priests nuts in Catholic school when I started seriously questioning Catholicism and history of the church. A very rosy picture was painted, but I started reading otherwise. Probably the worst thing my parents did those poor nuns and priests was that they let me get an adult library card at the age of 11 so I could go read and explore the adult section of the public library. I was 21 years old when the Internet as we know it was available to everyone, Mosaic browser. So I had my opinions about religion in general made long before the dawn of the fringe internet blogger.
When I get home later tonight I have some real academic sources that contradict your findings from your one book, I see that it is written by a scholar but it is still "popular" literature, I see that the reviews also tend to be skewed by folks who want to see their religion. AKA, wouldn't stand up as a source in a bibliography on a research paper.
The part of the atheist reviewer that bothers me that makes his review of the book, very skewed is
His method of research is that he is just only going to find facts that support what he wants to believe and not look for facts that contradict what he believes.
Sorry only the ignorant or those with axes to grind buy the medieval rc church as a bunch of anti science persecutors any more. The data is that lopsided and has been available in easily accessible for for decades.
Hannens is only one of the latest books. A drier and more academic work is grants. Grant goes in depth describing the various ideas and philosophy in enough depth that it is a good intro to them. Some folk are not up to reading in depth on the various cosmologies and such. Did i mention dry? Anyways grant and hannens other predecessors covered the ground in depth.
Even protestants like me have to acknowledge our debt the the rc church for its unequaled contributions to the advancement of science in the middle ages. Without the medival rc church contemporary science is inconceivable.
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I just think that people give these unsubstantiated claims mainly to find something to latch on to because we are unbelievably frightened of us being "all there is" and nothing more out there. Like a small child who fell asleep under a row of seats in an large auditorium, only to wake up in the middle of the night once everyone is gone and everything locked down... Being all alone is scary and sometimes we need imaginary friends.
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Sorry only the ignorant or those with axes to grind buy the medieval rc church as a bunch of anti science persecutors any more. The data is that lopsided and has been available in easily accessible for for decades.
Hannens is only one of the latest books. A drier and more academic work is grants. Grant goes in depth describing the various ideas and philosophy in enough depth that it is a good intro to them. Some folk are not up to reading in depth on the various cosmologies and such. Did i mention dry? Anyways grant and hannens other predecessors covered the ground in depth.
Even protestants like me have to acknowledge our debt the the rc church for its unequaled contributions to the advancement of science in the middle ages. Without the medival rc church contemporary science is inconceivable.
I have read way too much Draper and White, and people who agreed with them in the past. I stumbled upon Thomas Woods tonight, and started reading a bit of his stuff on the church. I was also series of papers from 1983 that was picking apart Draper and White that was showing evidence that was some persecution of scientists, but at a lesser scale. seemed it was a more pagan vs Christianity then church vs science.
I did see the Grant in a few bibliographies. I'll check out his papers in a few weeks when I have more time to read.
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http://www.ancient.eu/article/207/
Thanks for that site.