Life Origins: Here or There?

So water is the second-most abundant molecule in the universe? I didn't know that either! I do understand that the presence of amino acids do not necessarily mean life is present or possible, as exchemist reminds, but if water is so abundant and there is so much alcohol, why then all we need is coffee an we have all we need to make life worth living! Perhaps that's why we haven't found life elsewhere. Coffee only exists on Earth. So why even bother living anywhere else?

 

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I'm not at all sure water is the second most abundant molecule. H2 is obviously by far the most abundant and I rather thought CO was the second. I think Wellwisher should give us a reference to support his claim.

 

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exchemist, I simply entered(except quotes!) : " the second-most abundant molecule in the universe? ", into my "search engine", and got this(Bold by dmoe) :

- the ^^above quoted^^ from : http://www.reasons.org/articles/water-water-everywhere

- the following is from the "about" page of the "REASONS TO BELIEVE" web-site :

- the ^^above quoted^^ from : http://www.reasons.org/about/our-mission

Personally, I had not 'encountered' this web-site previously, so...
At any rate, the information seems to be fairly Scientifically sound, and articulately presented.

I am not supporting wellwisher's 'claims' in their entirety, nor am I "refuting" each and every 'claim' that wellwisher makes simply due to my own "subjectively" perceived source of said 'claims'...

But, any and all Real Scientific knowledge remains just as Real, regardless of "who" presents it, or "why" it is presented...at least from my own, again "subjective", comprehension and understanding of Real Science.

 

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<Chuckles>. Nah, I'm not remotely that old, though I guess "senior status" is beginning to now peek over or loom on the horizon. Gotta' have a gimmick, and with all the bygone sci-fi pulp and retro-future / alt-history trends (steampunk, dieselpunk, etc) out there, it seemed amusing to crouch some of the gif themes in that.

Already had experience figuring out ways to squeeze a mere handful of multiple gif frames into the 6kb limit for avatars that many forum sites still traditionally have, but when SF extended its limit to 97.7 kb a couple of years ago, that was like the gleaming gates of El Dorado opening.

[Argh! Those awful days when one of my friends was participating in "powder-puff" football. Ah, better than getting internal injuries, though; shouldn't complain that she at least got to play sports with a pigskin.] Keep chugging along yourself for many years to come, AI. To needlessly state the obvious, you make interesting, informative posts and are valuable contributor to this place!

 

That rather strengthens my suspicions that the claim may be incorrect. A website devoted to spreading the Christian gospel is the last place I would go for a scientific reference

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The best I could quickly do was the following: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept07/Omont/Omont6.html

which suggests CO is next after H2, with H20 trailing in way behind, along with the OH radical.

 

Where can we get a grant to investigate the co-evolution of humans and coffee?

 

exchemist, and Fraggle Rocker, when I entered(except quotes!) : " relative abundance of water in interstellar space ? ", I got this(Bold by dmoe) :

-the ^^above quoted^^ from, and more at : http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=204

I also got this(Bold by dmoe) :

- the ^^above quoted^^ from, and more at : http://www.universetoday.com/14075/water-in-interstellar-space/

Nancy Atkinson's article references this(Bold by dmoe):

- the ^^above quoted^^ from, and more at : http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0805/0805.0055v1.pdf

F.R. and exchemist, the above "sourced" information seems to also support that one single 'claim' by wellwisher, and also may be by accepted as 'more reputably' "sourced" than the previously referenced "support", at least by SciForums Members who evidently 'depend' on such criteria.

 

No it doesn't.

 

Agreed.
Another point is that although most of the water that we know existing in the solar system, on the surfaces of planets/moons maybe frozen, conditions have and do change. Venus and Mars are two examples.
Plus we also have the possibility of planetary migration due to gravitational Interactions.
Then of course we have sub surface possibilities...example: we are near certain that Europa has liquid water beneath its surface.

And the comment that was mentioned "without water. life is Impossible", should be "life as we know it"
The Universe/spacetime is a weird and wonderful place, and as Ellie said to a child during an astronomy lesson,
"I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?"

 

I realized you had reverse engineered the number of frames from the available bytes and thought it was more than brilliant since it's a combination of technical esoterica, economy and esp.true art. But you have such a poetic sense of language to boot. It just blows me away. In fact I feel kind of like I broke through the sound barrier here getting this reply from you which sort of gives me an inside scoop. You've got to be in print somewhere, and I'll bet you have art on display at some exhibition somewhere. Now I'll be looking for your work out there, which means I'll be judging others by this ultra hip standard you've got going. And my goal is to accomplish that before I'm 30.

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Meanwhile back at the amino acid thing . . /mumble mumble grumble technospeak blah blah blah/

 

Which raises the question of how do we, or would we recognise "life as we don't know it"...Let's speculate a Silicon based life form.
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Silicon biochemistry?
At first sight, silicon does look like a promising organic alternative to carbon. It is common in the universe and is also a p-block element of group IV, lying directly below carbon in the periodic table of elements, so that much of its basic chemistry is similar. For instance, just as carbon combines with four hydrogen atoms to form methane, CH4, silicon yields silane, SiH4. Silicates are analogs of carbonates, silicon chloroform of chloroform, and so on. Both elements form long chains, or polymers, in which they alternate with oxygen. In the simplest case, carbon-oxygen chains yield polyacetal, a plastic used in synthetic fibers, while from a backbone of alternating atoms of silicon and oxygen come polymeric silicones.

Conceivably, some strange life-forms might be built from silicone-like substances were it not for an apparently fatal flaw in silicon's biological credentials. This is its powerful affinity for oxygen. When carbon is oxidized during the respiratory process of a terrestrial organism (see respiration), it becomes the gas carbon dioxide – a waste material that is easy for a creature to remove from its body. The oxidation of silicon, however, yields a solid because, immediately upon formation, silicon dioxide organizes itself into a lattice in which each silicon atom is surrounded by four oxygens. Disposing of such a substance would pose a major respiratory challenge.

Life-forms must also be able to collect, store, and utilize energy from their environment. In carbon-based biota, the basic energy storage compounds are carbohydrates in which the carbon atoms are linked by single bonds into a chain. A carbohydrate is oxidized to release energy (and the waste products water and carbon dioxide) in a series of controlled steps using enzymes. These enzymes are large, complex molecules (see proteins) which catalyze specific reactions because of their shape and "handedness." A feature of carbon chemistry is that many of its compounds can take right and left forms, and it is this handedness, or chirality, that gives enzymes their ability to recognize and regulate a huge variety of processes in the body. Silicon's failure to give rise to many compounds that display handedness makes it hard to see how it could serve as the basis for the many interconnected chains of reactions needed to support life.

The absence of silicon-based biology, or even silicon-based prebiotic chemicals, is also suggested by astronomical evidence. Wherever astronomers have looked – in meteorites, in comets, in the atmospheres of the giant planets, in the interstellar medium, and in the outer layers of cool stars – they have found molecules of oxidized silicon (silicon dioxide and silicates) but no substances such as silanes or silicones which might be the precursors of a silicon biochemistry.

Even so, it has been pointed out, silicon may have had a part to play in the origin of life on Earth. A curious fact is that terrestrial life-forms utilize exclusively right-handed carbohydrates and left-handed amino acids. One theory to account for this is that the first prebiotic carbon compounds formed in a pool of "primordial soup" on a silica surface having a certain handedness. This handedness of the silicon compound determined the preferred handedness of the carbon compounds now found in terrestrial life. An entirely different possibility is that of artificial life or intelligence with a significant silicon content.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/siliconlife.html
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I still do not believe we can discount the possibility altogether.....
In a Universe of probable Infinite extent and content, the 1 in a billion chance can still arise many times.

 

I had not heard of the following publication before......

Life as We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life

An engrossing and revelatory first look at the search for alien life—on Earth and beyond
For the past twenty years, Peter Ward has been at the forefront of popular science writing, with books such as the influential and controversial Rare Earth. In Life as We Do Not Know It, Ward, with his signature blend of eloquence, humor, and learned insight, vividly details the latest scientific findings, cutting-edge research, and intrepid new theories on the subject of alien life and the possible extraterrestrial origins of life on Earth. In lucid, entertaining, and bold prose, Peter Ward once again challenges our notions of life on earth (and beyond).

http://www.amazon.com/Life-We-Not-Know-Synthesis/dp/0143038494