Pondering this question my whole life and trying to discuss it with others has lead me to the notion that it is difficult to say what is right or what is wrong, but is much easier to simply say what is possible. Given that our solar system was formed from the collision of dust clouds composed of elements from previous stars, and our star(the sun) will one day blow up and pieces of this solar system(lets call it A) will colide with pieces of another former solar system(B) to birth a new solar system(C), it seems logical to assume that since solar system (A) was partially infested with life that it is possible for solar system (C) to evolve life given the building blocks that solar system (A) has provided. If this is true, it may also give us an explanation of how we got here. It seems to me that the universe is being seeded with life by a cosmic Johnny Appleseed, the violent deaths of stars.:m:

If this is true It isn't.

Originally posted by martinhd28v01
It seems to me that the universe is being seeded with life by a cosmic Johnny Appleseed, the violent deaths of stars.:m:

No, stars don't do that.:bugeye:

Okay, then what are your thoughts?

In your post you succeeded in generalizing cosmic activites of such terrific magnitude and complexity that countless hours of tedious observation and the incorporation of several fields of science are required to study them.:bugeye:

I look on rapt in awe. :)

WIth each new advance in biochemistry, it's looking more and more likely that the spontaneous development of life once or twice in the course of billions of years is not the anomaly (or "miracle," depending on one's frame of reference) that it seemed to be for the teeny weeny span of time during which we've been pondering the question.

If that ultimately proves to be a Truth, then it would be ridiculous to assume that life would not ever also spontaneously develop on some of the quadrillions of other planets in the universe that have conditions similar to Earth. Actual DNA-based life: plants with photosynthesis and animals that eat them.

And there's no reason to stop there. Why couldn't a planet with a different environment -- chemistry, temperature, pressure, solar radiation spectrum, etc. -- also develop life spontaneously. Life not built on DNA but on some other molecular paradigm that we haven't thought of because we only just recently figured out DNA. Living things that we might not notice if we traveled to their planet because they look nothing like the living things we're used to. Nearly invisible bags of gas or liquid. Nearly immobile creatures built out of heavier elements like silicon with metabolisms that make us look like hummingbirds. Any of the lifeforms that have been postulated with decently laid out scientific underpinnings by several generations of sci-fi writers.

Your hypothesis about life being seeded by what we call organic compounds raining down on our planet from meteorites, or some similar mechanism, is one that the unscientific community is familiar with because of Star Trek and other popular sci fi. In movies and TV, alien lifeforms are constrained in their biology and geometry by the limits of makeup and prostheses attached to human actors. As a result they all look surprisingly human.

Star Trek: TNG actually had the balls to finally deal with that issue in mid-series. They discovered a scenario much like what you describe, although it was guided by the first DNA-based spacefaring intelligent species, not by random cosmological events. They had to do it. Twenty years after Captain Kirk's debut on the small screen, viewers were getting very impatient for an explanation of not only why Klingons looked so much like humans, but how their physiology could be so incredibly similar, after evolving in separate solar systems, as to permit cross-breeding.

Don't let that be your guide to exobiology. TV has its own limitations that do not mirror those of real life, as if anyone needs to state the obvious.

If DNA turns out to be a universal constant on "Class M" planets, as Star Fleet calls them, it's no guarantee that it will evolve into mammals and reptiles and molluscs and ferns and cacti and orchids. With luck we might recognize life as life when we see it, but it won't look or behave anything like life on Earth. If DNA turns out to be just one of many springboards for the development of life, the most challenging task for an exobiologist will be to spot the lifeforms before she can begin to study them.

These are ideas that I thought of while in an atronomy class studing the life and death of stars, not watching Star Trek, which I have never really been a fan out for the same reasons you pointed out, it was just a TV show and far from reality.

Facts are a bit mixed up.

Our sun will never blow up or go nova. It is just to small to do that.

There is a bit of fact behind your post. Not in the dna but in the mixing of stellar stuff. The very first stars to come into existance had little in the way of heavier elements. Most were massive and didn't last long, in stellar time spans. The majority is thought to have gone nova. This provided the seeding for the heavier elements in the makeup of other stars. It continues today.

Our sun has a good bit of iron in its make up. It is not old enough to have made the iron on its own.

Even if our sun never "goes nova", the colision with Andromeda in 4.5 billion years should make for some interesting mixing.

I am hoping that by 4.5 billion years the descendants of humanity will have enough control over the physical world to utilise the energies released by two colliding galaxies; it is an opportunity not to be missed, rather than a disaster to avoid.

By this time humanity will have to have moved away from the Earth, as it will be too hot to support life; the Sun is set to get hotter and hotter gradually, before expanding (and cooling) into a red giant star in 5 billion years, by which time the collision will be history.
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The collission with Andromeda galaxy will be in 10 billion years, not 4.5

That's a relief! :)
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Originally posted by martinhd28v01
Even if our sun never "goes nova", the colision with Andromeda in 4.5 billion years should make for some interesting mixing.

If the universe is expanding and all galaxies are moving away from us how can we have a collision?

If the universe is expanding and all galaxies are moving away from us how can we have a collision?

Andromeda is one of the few galaxies moving *towards* us. Our two galaxies are caught up in our mutual gravitation, so are drifting together rather than apart.

Just FYI, galaxies colliding is not really a "disaster to avoid". Galaxies are so empty that rarely does anything actually collide, rather the two galaxies are twisted and bent by the gravity of all the stars and nebulae in them. The "collision" spurs lots of new star birth, but I suspect any planets with life would not be likely to be affected.

So let me get this straight.

You've been pondering this question your whole life....

...and yet you NEVER THOUGHT TO OPEN A FREAKIN BOOK AND GET THE ANSWER??????????


OMG I AM GONNA GO BALLISTIC.

This is as bad as indians dying of starvation in front of a field filled with cows.


Originally posted by martinhd28v01
Pondering this question my whole life and trying to discuss it with others has lead me to the notion that it is difficult to say what is right or what is wrong, but is much easier to simply say what is possible. Given that our solar system was formed from the collision of dust clouds composed of elements from previous stars, and our star(the sun) will one day blow up and pieces of this solar system(lets call it A) will colide with pieces of another former solar system(B) to birth a new solar system(C), it seems logical to assume that since solar system (A) was partially infested with life that it is possible for solar system (C) to evolve life given the building blocks that solar system (A) has provided. If this is true, it may also give us an explanation of how we got here. It seems to me that the universe is being seeded with life by a cosmic Johnny Appleseed, the violent deaths of stars.:m:

"How did we get here...? Plastic..."
- George Carlin

Re: How we got here?

So let me get this straight.

You've been pondering this question your whole life....

...and yet you NEVER THOUGHT TO OPEN A FREAKIN BOOK AND GET THE ANSWER??????????

And what book would this be? If it exists, you must be the only one who knows about it. . . And if you are just referring to the big bang, that doesn't really answer the question.

as i understand it from reading there are three currently credited possibilities for the evolution of life on earth in a scientiifc sense-
i only remember two of them:
1. Primordial soup- we emerged from the ocean which had elements in it that combined etc.
2. seeded by comets etc that carried necessary elements
3. I forget.

also of cours ethere is the creationist god put us here alternative.