Habitable Earth, Why ??

[Zarkov]

There is an article in a recent Astronomy mag, no I havn't read it... for me it is totally ego-centric BS, basically saying the Earth is blessed, whereas similar planets such as Venus and Mars, failed to make the grade.

The crux of the argument is biblical, the age old lucky occurrance of water so living organisms can grow. Total hog wash IMO, as any biochemist knows, living things make water, and some living things do not need much water, nor do some need oxygen.

I will define here "LIFE"

LIFE... this is a single superorganism, made up of many life forms that co-operative co-ordinate the infection and growth on any hunk of rock at a suitable distance from an energy source. This superorganism has a fife cycle, therefore it has "seeds" and "flowers" and built into it's logic is the capacity to generated a non toxic environment for "higher life forms (flowers)" from a toxic environment.

OK.. enough there for quite a controversy...

Well is Earth any different to Mercury, Venus, Mars.... NO it isn't.

The only difference is that Earth was at a position conducive to the seeds of LIFE germinating and growing.

Now how does this work ? as an example lets look at the process of terra-forming Venus.

The seeds of LIFE would fall into the upper atmosphere and germinate, they would use H2S (O4), CH4, NH3, CO2 etc (raw chemicals) as food, releasing H2O , N2, O2 as excretory products.

In this way over millions of growth years free water and free oxygen would start to accumulate where once it never was...

As the environment becomes less toxic, ..via genetic expression, other more suited life forms will become extant.. selectively detoxifying the environment so higher life forms via genetics can be expressed... UNTIL

we have an "Earth" created from Venus that is detoxified and suitable for finer life forms, such as human beings.

I have left out so much... but if you ask I may be able to fill in the voids :)

Please discuss.



:)

[Shalashaska]

How could you possibly terra-form Venus? Mars, sure, it may have once possesed life, but Venus? The planet is far to harsh to support an iota of life...acid rain, liquid atmosphere, scorching surface at all times, it's hardly possible for humans with our advanced synethics to survive, let alone some poor single-cellular organism.
And the reason Earth was the 'blessed' planet in our star system is because of it's location: it is in the perfect location for a suitable range of temperatures for life, it was in the perfect location during the acretion of the planets to posses all the life-critical elements, and it was in the perfect location to be hit by the proto-earth and proto-moon, thereby gaining sufficient mass to hold a breathable atmosphere and a orbiting moon.

[bigjnorman]

I allways thought it had a lot to do with earth's atmosphere being close to water's triplet state.

[Nova1021]

Total hog wash IMO, as any biochemist knows, living things make water, and some living things do not need much water, nor do some need oxygen.

I'm no biochemist, but I've never heard of a living thing that makes it's own water.

I don't know the article you're referring to, but when astronomers say that venus or mars "didn't make the grade" it's usually just a simple way of saying, they didn't have the necessary ingredients to form life as we know it. It's not all that egocentric, it's just the facts. As far as we know, it would be pretty much impossible for life similar to earth's to evolve on venus, it's too hostile an environment. Mars is a little better, but still is not what I'd call any sort of paradise for life. If there is life on mars, it's most likely not much, maybe eking out an existence in some aquifer. Also, I'd say it's a good idea to read an article before trying to refute it.

If I'm reading your post correctly, it sounds like you're saying that Venus and Mars are just as good as earth for evolving life, since life can change it's environment over time. No offense, but I think your argument is flawed. You show how life could get a foothold on venus, but that would only happen with a massive terraforming effort. Something that can only happen with outside interference.

Plus, life doesn't generate an environment that is necessarily beneficial. Oxygen is poisonous to life. Life evolved in an anaerobic environment, and produced oxygen as a waste product. Eventually the oxygen levels got so high, it killed off all life that couldn't cope with it. So clearly, life doesn't plan ahead and say, "It would be great if we changed this planet's atmosphere to have more oxygen in it." It does what works, it has no conscious goal. Life doesn't have the "capacity to generated a non toxic environment for "higher life forms (flowers)" from a toxic environment." Natural selection forces life to do well in it's current environment or be wiped out. Earth's oxygen atmosphere is a mistake that life has been able to work around.

Finally, you scoffed at the "ego-centrism" of the original article, yet you say things like "we have an "Earth" created from Venus that is detoxified and suitable for finer life forms, such as human beings." That sounds a LOT more ego-centric than saying that mars and venus are not hospitable to life as we know it.

[Zarkov]

>>How could you possibly terra-form Venus?

Well Mars has had its day.

Venus is the up and coming New Earth, even NASA scientists agree, and they have detected strange growths in the high clouds on Venus, which they postulate could be bacterial colonies.

Yes Venus with 90X earth's atmospheric pressure, high temperature, toxic atmosphere, is unsuitable for life forms as we know them, BUT

there are many organisms that thrive in these conditions... see organisms living near "smokers", high temperature vents at the fault lines under the sea.

Many micro-organisms have slime coats, and other mechanisms to prevent direct contact with detrimental chemical compounds and many organisms can easily survive space travel or total dehydration.

Remember our Earth environment has been totally modified (detoxicified), after all humans can survive quite well, and we have quite exacting requirements.

Earth was once as Venus is today, and just maybe Mars was once as Earth is today.

It is an observation that all planets and moons are moving AWAY from their parents.

:)

[Shalashaska]

Yes, but it would have to be highly adapted lifeforms, and probably very alien to our understanding of life. Life on our idylic planet is probably too soft to even begin to convert Venus to earth like conditions, and certaintly too much for Human inhabitation for billions of years. Venus in it's own time may develop a quiet and life rich planet, but I don't think speeding up that process is either possible or a good idea.

[Zarkov]

>>Yes, but it would have to be highly adapted lifeforms,

Still seeds are always alien to the mature organism.

Yep LIFE infecting a suitable hunk of rock, and for it to grow to maturity, does seem to take many millions of years...

I expect we have already infected Venus, it will all happen again, we are not that necessary. I view humans as flowers...

There is a continual search by microbiologists for the "seeds of LIFE" and many organisms are now known that could fit the necessary requirements.

If you read between my lines, Earth is doomed as a place where LIFE can exist... just as Mars may now only support primitive life forms, if LIFE is still there.

Our orbit is increasing, driving the Earth outwards, Mars outwards.... we will one day be orbiting at a Mars distance... will LIFE still be viable then ??

IMO

:)

[Shalashaska]

Yes, but it will take billions of years...hopefully, nay, certaintly by then, we will have moved out into space, and the Earth will probably be a distant, but hopefully pleasant memory, by the time it is rendered a dead world.

[ElectricFetus]

Nope, life makes water but it destroys more water then it makes, ripping the hydrogen right off to make its bio-molecules. Earths water as well as organic molecules came from comets.

Venus could support life in it clouds: some form of sulfur breathing microorganism perhaps, in fact the clouds of Venus have yet to be properly tested for the presence of life. Venus though will never get any more habitable: as the sun gets older Venus will only get hotter and even engulfed by the grow dying star. Earth will no longer be habitable for surface life in a 1 billion years and the inner plants orbits are not going to move further away, in fact the inner planets are falling towards the sun!

I am a believer that complex organic molecules provide by the great motherly nebula that made this solar system started life here, and it would have any where else the conditions were right for it, but earth is by far the most habitable planet in the solar system.

[LordAza]

Not to sound really cheesy but remember the movie Total Recall?
Would a plan like that actually be close to terraforming Mars? Sorry not currently up to date with its atmosphere.

[Shalashaska]

Mars has many problems in teraforming it. Not only is it's atmosphere hostile(although the introduction of green plants would fix that) but it's mass is so low that any atmosphere that was built up would bleed into space.
I think the earth has atleast 2 billion years of habitable time on it, and the sun won't die for atleast 4 billion years, considering it is a middle aged star and our star system formed roughly 4 billion years ago. However, during that time it will begin to expand.

I can't believe someone hasn't mentioned Io or Ganymede, they both possibly posses life, and if Jupiter was given 10% more mass, it would turn into a star, and life could exist in the outer planets.

[ElectricFetus]

ya but it would take centuries not five minutes sorry but Arnold would be dead!

1. First we need to raise mars temperature. This can be done if mars has enough CO2 reserves and if we can make enough super green house gaseous like CFCs. If the reserves are large enough we can raise mars up to above freezing point in under a centuries!
2. Now we have t-shirt weather but we still need to we masks and oxygen tanks, we can use photosynthesis and de-oxidation of CO2 to make oxygen, this will take centuries if not millennia.

The earth has 1 billion year tops for surface life, it going to get to hot soon and all the CO2 for plants will be stored up as limestone.

[ElectricFetus]

Europe may have oceans as well as the other moon having water deep underground. As the sun warms up these moons will literally melt and grow atmospheres (briefly for a few hundred million years then the sun will die) this freeing the life that lives underground or under the ice there, perhaps some day intelligent life will sprout (or be freed from the ice cover oceans) and praise how lucky they are for living on such a rare habitable planet (moon).

[Nova1021]

Remember our Earth environment has been totally modified (detoxicified), after all humans can survive quite well, and we have quite exacting requirements.

You're thinking backwards. Earth has not been detoxified, we have evolved to fit our environment. As I said before, originally, oyxgen was deadly to most life. The few that could survive in an oxygen environment thrived, those who couldn't were almost all wiped out. The reason we survive quite well and that earth happens to satisfy all our requirements, is that our requirements have evolved to match what earth provides.

[wet1]

Life evolved on earth. Only that life most compatible and can use what is part of the earth are successful. Any other life died in the process. Why would it be a wonder that life is uniquely fitting for the earth's enviroment? Tailored to earth's enviroment would not be anything but a true statement as unsuccessfully tailored life doesn't live very long.

Oxygen is extremely toxic to the majority of life and it took a lot of random changes for only a few bits to take hold. Once it did, there were no competitors for the vast space it could fill.

H2S is another toxic compound. Very few bits of life can live on H2S. While it is rare that life could take hold in an H2S enviroment there are a few that can. It is the exception rather than the rule as H2S is a far harder and tougher enviroment than Oxygen.

It isn't that the enviroment becomes less toxic, it is that life modifies to survive with in that particular set of conditions, or it does not survive at all. In otherwords, life changes to fit the enviroment and not the other way around.

[Zarkov]

>>You're thinking backwards. Earth has not been detoxified, we have evolved to fit our environment


mmmh, sorry I disagree, All planets are similar to hunks of rock, degassing toxic (to LIFE) compounds. Life forms do not evolve as per Darwin, they develop as per the structures (think species) that appear in the growth of any organism, from say cotyledon to flowering....ONE super-organism, but separate super cells (species). All under a definite integrated blueprint. IMO

When considering a new raw planet,..Applying the rules of chemistry's reactive series, water will not be available in a free form, (if ever it was made by chance) it is both acidic and alkaline, it will react until it is GONE. Oxygen and free water just would not exist on a cosmic rock that does not have LIFE growing on it.

All prospective homes for LIFE start off totally toxic, and the toxicity is only lowered once life forms start modifying the environment. This process is continually happening, even today.

The suitability of a planet harbouring LIFE is really quite short, most probablly only able to do so for a bit over 2 billion years, and most of that time is spent in the vegetative stage of the growth of the super-organism.

Flowering stages seldom go on for very long, before the decision re annual/perennial status has to be determined.

LIFE of Earth is at this cross road, and I would not be toooooo sure that this growth of LIFE here on Earth is perennial.

IMO

>:)

[Nova1021]

All planets are similar to hunks of rock

Except for those that aren't...

Life forms do not evolve as per Darwin, they develop as per the structures (think species) that appear in the growth of any organism, from say cotyledon to flowering....ONE super-organism, but separate super cells (species).

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sentence doesn't makes sense to me. What exatly do you mean by "the structures that appear in the growth of any organism"? And what does "flowering" mean in this extended metaphor of yours? Also, why are you considering species as "super cells"? Is this just part of your Gaia hypothesis?

Oxygen and free water just would not exist on a cosmic rock that does not have LIFE growing on it.

Oxygen, no, but free water, definitely. Take a look at Europa, it's thought to have an ocean underneath its crust of ice. And mars has evidence of free water at least at some point in it's history. Plus, water was necessary for life to evolve on earth. Therefore it means that there was water before life on this planet.

All prospective homes for LIFE start off totally toxic, and the toxicity is only lowered once life forms start modifying the environment. This process is continually happening, even today

If they started off toxic, meaning that the environment would kill life, then wouldn't life never evolve? Just because the environment long ago would be toxic to us today doesn't mean it was toxic to life as a whole. It's true that life modifies it's environment, it's not true that that environment starts out toxic because that would, by definition, prevent life.

The suitability of a planet harbouring LIFE is really quite short, most probablly only able to do so for a bit over 2 billion years, and most of that time is spent in the vegetative stage of the growth of the super-organism.

You are aware that life is thought to have been around on earth for at least 3.5 billion years? I guess earth might be unusual, but then where do you get the 2 billion number from? Also, you talk about this "vegitative stage", but don't say what you mean by that.

Flowering stages seldom go on for very long, before the decision re annual/perennial status has to be determined.

"Flowering stage"? What do you mean by that? It does no good if you talk about parts of your theory without clearly explaining them.

IMO

IMO, your theory needs a little work, though it did spark an interesting conversation. :)

:cool:

[Zarkov]

All organisms that we know of "get born" in some way, mature, become "reproductive", and reproduce, and so ensure new life.... that is the way of growth.

The reproductive phase, I equate to a flowering...

In the flowering stage mechanisms are produced that facilitate reproduction, and as seen on a plant, the flowers often proliferate em mass hoping to become seeds, then there is seeding where the seeds are mechanically spread by some other mechanism.

Well humans have grossly proliferated, and are good at producing mechanisms to spread "life forms" around via contamination...

The whole discussion from my part hinges upon the fact/ fallacy that the sum total of all life forms constitute a whole, a single superorganism, that mirrors the constituent parts and their cycle of existence.

Humans will turn to spreading life here there and everywhere, if we can, it seems to be an upper most thought in our psyche.

:)

[Zarkov]

>>"Earth is the up and coming new Venus."

Can not be, the Earth is moving away from the Sun. All solar bodies are moving AWAY from their parents.

See Electrodynamic Spin Gravity papers, this site.

:)