And you need these conditions because...?
Do you like how Dawkins, Hitchens et al. represent atheists?
- Thread starter francois
- Start date
And you need these conditions because...?
Conditions at the genesis of life on Earth were probably more favorable to mutation - we had not evolved means to replicate with as little mutation as we do today, the Earth was being pelted with cosmic radiation, DNA wasn't even necessarily the basis of reproduction - http://www.astrobio.net/news/module...=article&sid=1992&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Naw - plants do it every day.
No, I was referring to the rate of mutation. It would have been higher. You need electrical energy - but the cosmic rays weren't necessary for amino acid creation.
There was a guy in the 50s (blanking on his name) who recreated the conditions of the early Earth in his lab.
It's not all that hard to create amino acids. My roommate's jade plant is doing it right now, it's part of photosynthesis.
Umm. The Earth's atmosphere "blocks" most of it these days. I'm not sure why it would be difficult though.
This is especially interesting:
"In their deep-space simulator, the Astrochemistry Lab team has previously produced cell-membrane-like structures and other organic compounds basic to life. Next, they plan to investigate why left- and right-handed amino acids exist in space, but only the left-handed forms are used by life on Earth."
Is that some evolutionary fluke or is there a specific reason for it?
I bet there are other planets in the universe with carbon based life-forms - we aren't necessary at all.
Unless you mean like terraforming? It would take billions of years. A better bet would be to find planets at about Earth's mass orbiting G-class stars. Or to be more ambitious, create giant zeppelin-like cities on gas giants like Jupiter, which are rich in hydrogen.
I bet there are other planets in the universe with carbon based life-forms - we aren't necessary at all.
Unless you mean like terraforming? It would take billions of years. A better bet would be to find planets at about Earth's mass orbiting G-class stars. Or to be more ambitious, create giant zeppelin-like cities on gas giants like Jupiter, which are rich in hydrogen.
Thats an interesting thought.
I was wondering more in terms of space immigration; how could one predict or even begin to formulate that kind of a hypothesis where one could travel over years and years on a self sustaining ecosystem based travel craft, looking for new planets to inhabit.
Is there an obstacle to abiogenesis? There's something called the Drake equation that comes into play here
http://www.setileague.org/general/drake.htm
And then we're dealing with the probability of life evolving on other worlds. Back in the day, it was considered fairly low -Earth was an anomaly, the necessary chemicals were thought to be rare. But then we've discovered other planetary systems, and amino acids will even form in deep space:
http://www.astrochem.org/aanature.html
Theoretically, life doesn't even HAVE to be carbon based. But there are other obstacles. Life AS WE KNOW IT seems to need a planet of roughly Earth's mass - nothing too hot, nothing too cold, can't have too much atmospheric pressure, has to have the right manner of atmosphere.
Then there's the evolution of so-called higher forms of life.
Its an angsty tortoise thing.
:bugeye:...ok, now I'm going to go pee on the rug.
Mathematics is hypothetical and statistics is an estimate, but none of it is evidence.
I agree about the life as we know it though, it seems highly improbable that life would evolve only on earth. Also, if life were not "earth" based but "fire" or "water" based, if we could even recognise it as life.