Big news imminent re: Mars ??

[johnny crossan]

Are you actually able to engage in discussion with anybody about anything without being insulting?
Don't answer, just fuck off to wherever it is you're fucking off to.
Dickhead.

Diddums. Hurt your feelings did I?
Maybe you should try not talking shit about stuff that you obviously don't understand?
EDIT: Also, if you're insulted by science I suggest coming into a thread about a scientific discovery wasn't the strongest move you've ever made.

Damo is the personification of Science and nobody understands - lol

 

[pominoz]

Are you actually able to engage in discussion with anybody about anything without being insulting?
Don't answer, just fuck off to wherever it is you're fucking off to.
Dickhead.

Diddums. Hurt your feelings did I?
Maybe you should try not talking shit about stuff that you obviously don't understand?
EDIT: Also, if you're insulted by science I suggest coming into a thread about a scientific discovery wasn't the strongest move you've ever made.

Damo is the personification of Science and nobody understands - lol

What did he post, that was in any way insulting?

 

[SWP's back]

Wow, that's a lot of assumptions. The biggest seems to be that each planet revolving around one of 500 billion stars in 500 billion universes has a broadly equal chance of sustaining life.

Do you have evidence to suggest that this is not the case? Considering that the Universe contains broadly the same elements, the same laws and has been shown to produce millions of species on one world, I don't see how you could reasonably take this stance.

I think we're up to 118 separate elements in the periodic table. The assumption that at the big bang there were no more than 118 elements and we got at least a small share of all of them is quite a big one. But there's no way of knowing whether our share of all the elements in the universe is compeltely atypical, slightly imbalanced or average in ever conceivable way, so let's park that one.

The Universe is the same in all directions. There were two elements at the earliest part of the Big Bang, Hydrogen and then Helium. The rest formed due to stellar nucleosynthesis, and taking the even distribution of Hydrogen and therefore a pretty even distribution of Helium (as the Universe had the same conditions all over), it is more than logical to assume that there is a pretty even distribution of elements.

Then there is the issue of the conditions necessary to support the formation or sustenance of life. Does this require an atmosphere? Well, if it does, that rules out any lumps of rock in space which do not have an atmosphere of their own. (The number of planets of which we have any actual evidence of there being an atmosphere is quite small, as I understand it.)

There is an atmosphere on every planet in the Solar System. Mercury has a thin atmosphere of hydrogen, oxygen, water vapour and potassium. There is evidence to suggest that it had a thicker atmosphere in the past that was blown away by solar winds due to the low gravity of Mercury. Venus has a very thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and is a world of constant storms. It is actually the sister planet of Earth, and a study of what happens when you put a shedload of carbon dioxide into an atmosphere. Mars also has an atmosphere mainly of carbon dioxide but there's some nitrogen, argon and methane in there too. Jupiter and Saturn have "atmospheres" of Hydrogen and Helium. I use inverted commas there as they have no real land so the point at which the planet begins and the atmosphere ends is an exercise in futility. Both Neptune and Uranus are methane based atmospheres with ammonia, methane and water vapour.

Some of the Moon's of Jupiter and Saturn also contain an atmosphere.

Our atmosphere's composition is well know, but this is actually our third atmosphere, believed to be changed by bacterial life that fed off of methane and excreted oxygen.

Atmospheres are very common to planets because of the way that planets form. The colour that we see the outer planets are actually due to their atmospheres, as they absorb light of the spectrum on the red side. However, nobody is exactly sure how the ice giants formed but both successful models create an atmosphere and as it has one, it seems close enough.

What about temperature? Well, the temperature on any given planet will depend on a number of variables, the size of the sun and its distance from the planet in question being obvious ones, as well as the planet's own internal dynamics (eg geo-thermal issues) but of course it's the temperature of the atmosphere rather than the planet itself (a fine distinction perhaps but an important one) which is important. But being too hot or too cold will rule out a number of other possible candidates.

I disagree. Life has formed on Earth in conditions ranging from an entire planet of Lava, a "snowball Earth", an entirely methane based atmosphere and what we have today. We have found bacterial life in the harshest conditions on the Earth and have successfully shown that some bacterial strains can survive even in the harshness of space for periods of time.

Each step along the way, you rule out a large number of planets. In our own solar system realistically it is unlikely that any organic life either is or has ever been present elsewhere than Earth and Mars. So if 7/9s of our own solar system (and let's not get into semantics about Pluto and everything beyond) is incapable of sustaining life or its creation, it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the same broad proportion applies to the other 5 planets (average) revolving around 500 billion stars in 500 billion other galaxies.

In our Solar System, I wouldn't even rate Mars that highly. I think Venus has an excellent chance of life due to the amount of heat, energy and hydrides but we cannot get to it properly to test. Europa may be our best shot and is a Moon of Jupiter. It looks to have liquid water underneath the surface and crucially gets irradiated by Jupiter and has carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. When you irridiate carbon dioxide, you get formaldehyde, an essential building block for life. It also has Jupiter's magnetic field breaking down the ice into hydrogen and some compounds to produce energy and a feeding source.
Enceladus and Titan are also excellent candidates. Enceladus might even have an ocean upon it.

Even so, the chances that life occurred uniquely here still apprear pretty small - if you accept as gospel truth the various extrapolations which astronomers adopt to fill in some of the gaps in the current state of their knowledge.

You mistake gaps in their knowledge for gaps in your knowledge.

However - and this was really the point of my last post (however stupid you might have considered its premise to be) IF the reality is that of all the places in the universe this is the only one where the right combination of things happened in the right way to create life, that would (IMO) be a rather awe inspiring fact.

It would be an almost unbelievably impossible thing so rare that nobody should be suggesting such a thing.

Are you actually able to engage in discussion with anybody about anything without being insulting?

Don't answer, just fuck off to wherever it is you're fucking off to.

Dickhead.

Where was he insulting? It seemed to me that he took the time and effort to try and educate you.

 

[johnny crossan]

Diddums. Hurt your feelings did I?
Maybe you should try not talking shit about stuff that you obviously don't understand?
EDIT: Also, if you're insulted by science I suggest coming into a thread about a scientific discovery wasn't the strongest move you've ever made.

Damo is the personification of Science and nobody understands - lol

What did he post, that was in any way insulting?

From what I know of it the chances that there is NO other life in the Universe are really quite small. Whether there is any intelligent life, whether there is animal life, whether there are sentient beings is all another matter, but the idea that in this big universe the only place where life kicked off is Earth is quite a frightening one.

I would say that it an entire stupid proposition....

I would say that his first line sort of sets the tone....

 

[lust overlord]

I enjoy reading Damocles posts about science because they are quite educational.Im interested in this sort of topic though not particularly educated enough in it to get into a debate.His posting style can sometimes give the impression of speaking down to people he considers less knowledgeable perhaps.

 

[SWP's back]

I enjoy reading Damocles posts about science because they are quite educational.Im interested in this sort of topic though not particularly educated enough in it to get into a debate.His posting style can sometimes give the impression of speaking down to people he considers less knowledgeable perhaps.

Not true, he never talks down to anyone asking genuine questions. But when people state falsehoods as fact or make confident statements which show a total lack of understanding of the subject matter, then he has a vigorous posting style and knocks them aside.

 

[johnny crossan]

I enjoy reading Damocles posts about science because they are quite educational.Im interested in this sort of topic though not particularly educated enough in it to get into a debate.His posting style can sometimes give the impression of speaking down to people he considers less knowledgeable perhaps.

Not true, he never talks down to anyone asking genuine questions. But when people state falsehoods as fact or make confident statements which show a total lack of understanding of the subject matter, then he has a vigorous posting style and knocks them aside.

it's always enjoyable to witness the Sooty inversion technique - the relish with which he attempts to support the insupportable is a lesson to all those who feel that reason and goodwill should prevail.

 

[SWP's back]

I enjoy reading Damocles posts about science because they are quite educational.Im interested in this sort of topic though not particularly educated enough in it to get into a debate.His posting style can sometimes give the impression of speaking down to people he considers less knowledgeable perhaps.

Not true, he never talks down to anyone asking genuine questions. But when people state falsehoods as fact or make confident statements which show a total lack of understanding of the subject matter, then he has a vigorous posting style and knocks them aside.

it's always enjoyable to witness the Sooty inversion technique - the relish with which he attempts to support the insupportable is a lesson to all those who feel that reason and goodwill should prevail.

And you never miss a trick to try and score a point of me or damocles you mad sad old cretin.

Still smarting after damocles walked all over you and caused you "genuine mental distress" aren't you. Now stop trolling an interesting thread and if you want to continue this then send me a pm.

 

[1.618034]

The whole world is gonna be overrun by DAM DIRTY APES!!!

It already is! 7 billion and counting...

 

[johnny crossan]

Not true, he never talks down to anyone asking genuine questions. But when people state falsehoods as fact or make confident statements which show a total lack of understanding of the subject matter, then he has a vigorous posting style and knocks them aside.

it's always enjoyable to witness the Sooty inversion technique - the relish with which he attempts to support the insupportable is a lesson to all those who feel that reason and goodwill should prevail.

And you never miss a trick to try and score a point of me or damocles you mad sad old cretin.
Still smarting after damocles walked all over you and caused you "genuine mental distress" aren't you. Now stop trolling an interesting thread and if you want to continue this then send me a pm.

I think you must be confusing me with someone else Sooty, or lying through your teeth as usual. Please spare me your trademark abusive PMs though, they really are a truly sad expression of your mental distress.