How to know what life is and initiating life to other planets

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by devils_reject, Sep 2, 2005.

  1. devils_reject Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    659
    My idea is basically bringing life to other planets not necessarily having knowledge of life. living things cannot survive without water and most of the earth's water is said to come from volcanic steam and the consequent cooling down of the earth. Hence all we need to is cool down planets like Mercury by knowking it off course with a powerful force. Mercury will cool down and With all calculations correct a huge pool of water bodies will materialize with massive rain fall. My guess is the initial rain falls will be so heavy that oceans will also be deposited and all other rain cycles will come from there as it continues to cool. Maybe a packet of nuclear missles can alter a planets angular velocity, thats for the engineers to figure out. We can take a short cut and just introduce some bacteria to other planets though no one can tell what will become of them without besides that will not ensure the propagation of plants.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    Knock Mercury off course? It would have to be knocked over 90 million miles for any water to form for it needs that distace away from the sun to keep the water from evaporating. There's no known missile that can alter the course of a planet at all let alone throw it 90 million miles away.

    Bacteria won't survive in many environments so first we would have to alter ot "terraform" the planet which would cost trillions of dollars to do.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. buddhaman386 Registered Member

    Messages:
    21
    Sure, that would work, but we have to ask ourselves what kind of harmful gases are in the atmosphere that would enter the water cycle when the rain does come and if they would kill off any bacteria we try to introduce. I believe there is a species of bacteria that lives in hot sulfur springs and is believed to be the "hardiest" of it's kind. I wonder if something like that would be able to withstand those gases. Also, if it can withstand that kind of heat, then how far off course would we have to knock the planet? Just far enough so the water could form and these little creatures could survive, right?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. orcot Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,488
    I blieve Mercurius is pretty much boiled dry. The heat made most of the hydrogen boil away. And the solar winds charged it end send it off.
    Without a atmosfere it's pretty likly that any free hydrogen atom get's charged and blown away.
    So I don't think it's likly that we can introduce life there.

    Tell me what you think about this ID. A probe lands on Jupiters moon Europa. And uses a heather to get to the ocean beneath the ice. That a miniature sub goes outh to look for termal vents. And places bacteria where they are in a H2O enviroment with plenty of food.

    Or what you think about this one.
    Take big meteorites that consists mostly out of ice and place them in in a orbit around Venus. And destroy them completly. So you get a enormus amount of space junk that changes the planets albedo to almost complety white. When the water come down it will be charged and cause maasive lightning braking up the CO2 in O2 and organic molecules that are to heavy and fall to the surface. And therfore lowering both the temprature and the presure around Venus. If you could hold this long enof the entire surface of Venus would be covered with (half molten) organic sludge. And H2O Could rain out of the sky. giving a more acceptenable enviroment for life.
     
  8. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    Oi Vey! More nonesense.
     
  9. devils_reject Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    659
    This idea is not bad but the second one is quite..you know what. I didn't know there was an ocean on Europa. The draw back is that there is no idea what these waters will consist and they may be too cold for bacteria. I think to sustain life you need a lot of either water or bacteria. Introducing either of these to a single patch of any planet does not guarantee life for too long. Many planets have pactches of ice but no life. Anyway your idea will still not give us the meaning of life. Aside all these its not a bad idea.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2005
  10. orcot Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,488
    Well I agree it's far from certain that the enviroment from subsurface Europa is as promising as people think it is.

    But if it is you could introduce small organisms around the termale vents, then relativly small fish could live of them. with like a gernetic variation in 1 out of 1000 of those placton organismes that can't be digested. Then those same fish could wonder around in their free time looking for other thermal vents. And look if there is food there if there isn't they could shit out the little organsime that can grow there and multiply.

    So if those thermale vents are relativly close to each other. It doesn't wreally matter if they only exist a for a couple of decades.

    About that second ID I agree it's a bid far fetched. But it certainly wouldn't be a bad ID to drop something into the atmosfere that bounds with the C02 and make it drop without letting it vaporize back at the surface.
     
  11. Ibanez Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    41
    From what I remember reading, Mercury is believed to have large ammounts of frozen water beneath its surface at the poles where the temperature is constantly below freezing. I don't know where the water comes from in your idea but moving Mercury farther from the sun probably won't help much.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Also, with Mercury being so close to the sun, any atmosphere it may have had while it was being formed has been basically blown away, so not only will there be no atmosphere to retain any water vapour, but there wouldn't be any dust particles floating about for the water to collect on in the atmosphere, causing it to rain.

    Third, I don't think introducing bacterial life to a planet you've destroyed with nukes is a very good idea. either the bacteria will die... or it'll mutate wildy into beings superior to humans and take over the earth

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  12. Odin'Izm Procrastinator Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,851
    How about moving europa into the earths orbit.
     
  13. Ibanez Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    41
    That is one heck of a move, although if it were possible it'd be neat to see the results if everything went ok. Wouldn't the effect of Earth attempting to catch the moon cause a major disturbance in the Earth's rotation, screw up the tides, mess up the the lengths of days, months, years? I'm not sure about the physics of it but it seems like there would be a lot of risks involved, if you even moved the moon that far.
     
  14. Odin'Izm Procrastinator Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,851
    I ment into the earths orbit around the sun,If it were properly calculated In the possission the earth was in 6 months prior. Since objects fall at the same speeds regardless of weight, they would travel at the same speed, and remain at the same distance to the sun, and to eachother.
     
  15. Ibanez Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    41
    Hmm, I made another post yesterday but for whatever reason it didn't show up. Anyhoo, moving Europa into Earth's orbit around the sun is still one heck of a move. I still don't think it's a good idea to nuke the heck out of one side of the planet to push it millions of miles into earth's orbit. Any idea how this would be accomplished anyone?
     
  16. Odin'Izm Procrastinator Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,851
    attach a huge solar sail to europa

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    and wait for 500 years , im just making a joke out of this you know, no one will be moving planets for a few thousand years to come. Its possible but very expensive and hard.
     
  17. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    I think you will find that the stable position would be at thr Trojan points, which, if memory serve, are located four months ahead and four months behind our current position.

    I tried to find something on the internal structure of Europa. There was good information here (http://lasp.colorado.edu/icymoons/europaclass/Anderson_Europa2.pdf) based on four Galileo encounters with the sattelite.
    The model proposed by the authors predicts the water-ice thickness as being between 80 and 170 kms thick. Positioned in Earth orbit the surface ice would melt and we would then have a planet with oceans 80 to 170 kms deep. Compare that with the deepest ocean on our, very much larger, planet at around 10kms.
     
  18. Odin'Izm Procrastinator Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,851
    Cool thx for that info Ophi, Would there be any dry land on europa? or do you think it would be entirely covered with water? if its really that pointless, just transport europa's ice to mars

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  19. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,232
    No dry land whatsoever. It would be Kevin Costner's Water World with a vengeance. On the plus side once life was established on it I think (though I haven't done the calculations) that you would have no trouble flying around using your own muscle power and strap on wings, because of the much lower surface gravity.
    In all of this I have no idea how to move Europa from its present position, but in the words of Scarlett O'Hara "Tomorrow is another day."
    As for moving its ice to Mars, as I've just suggested in another thread it would be easier to top Mars up with Oort cloud comets.
     
  20. abyssoft Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    30
    moving a planet/moon or other celestial body involves orbital mechanics. Using an asteroid of sufficient mass, transfering it gravitational momentum to the object to be moved. this has even been proposed to protect the earth from be destroyed when the sun heads into the red giant phase.
     
  21. Ibanez Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    41
    Originally posted by abyssoft:
    "this has even been proposed to protect the earth from be destroyed when the sun heads into the red giant phase."

    The sun has been estimated to have a life span of 10 or 11 billion years. The sun is only about halfway through its life now. In this time life has evolved from single cell creatures to, well, humans. Even if we don't kill ourselves off in the next 5 billion years, I don't think anyone has much to worry about.
     
  22. Ibanez Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    41
    I was wondering, I don't know a ton about biology, but couldn't we take single-celled creatures and over a time expose them to simulated environments of other planets/moons until they've fully adapted to their environment? It would save having to move around planets and moons, and if we wanted to, we could still send life to other planets to be studied.
     
  23. Odin'Izm Procrastinator Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,851
    It would take a very, very long time to evolve somthing. We already have bacteria that use different substances for respiration , but the other problem is the temperature, its either too hot or too cold in this solar system, it would be a headache to get a micro organism made that could withstand the extremes while trying to break down larger molecules.
     

Share This Page