To me it’s not a matter of whether live exists anymore, but where it exists
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
332 points (93.0% liked)
Technology
59588 readers
3576 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
While I agree there is a very high probability of life out there, we truly do not know until we can prove it. This evidence JWT found may have another explanation that our scientists are unaware of yet.
Also probably simple life, I mean the eycariote cell happened only once on our planet ...
I’m so excited to discover a totally different take on life because it will help us truly define what life is.
Then again if we find a similar take on life (carbon based, compatible chemistry to life on earth) then that’s pretty interesting too, implying either panspermia or that there’s something special about this configuration. It also likely means we have more potential for useful discoveries from that life system, as well as threats.
Convergent evolution happens all the time with life on earth. The fact the other life has developed in a similar way will not be surprising. It likely wouldn't be identical, but if they use a similar basis for a DNA type thing, or something like that, it won't imply panspermia.
load more comments
(2 replies)
You will dig this if you haven't seen it.
The aliens will not be silicon
implying either panspermia or that there’s something special about this configuration
Or that it's just as inevitable a result of chemical reactions under certain conditions as mixing baking soda and vinegar.
I’d be pretty happy to put $100 right now on life being found on almost every planet and moon throughout the galaxy where liquid water exists.
I would bet all the money in my savings that life exists somewhere in our galaxy, but I’m not sure I’d do it for every moon with water
I can only do $3
In a hose, on a rose, up your nose. Everywhere where life can be is where life goes.
Only a 1 sigma confirmation at the moment so needs to be thoroughly reinvestigated
What does 1 sigma mean?
Sigma is basically a representation of certainty that your result isn’t a statistical fluke. It comes from standard deviation in statistics but 1 sigma is 68% certain. 2 sigma is 95%. 3 sigma is 99.7%.
By convention, astronomy uses 3 sigma for “significance,” meaning you almost definitely found something. Particle physics, since it’s usually done in controlled experiments, usually requires 5 sigma (99.99994%).
It’s similar to margin of error in political polls.
All of our homies like 3 sigma.
Oh that's where 6 Sigma comes from. TIL
load more comments
(4 replies)
It’s a number that statistically represents how strong the result is in the data basically. As far as I understand it, with astronomy the typical sigma value expected is 3
Technically, this is astrochemistry, not astronomy. I don't know what the expected sigma value there is.
It’s 3 plus/minus 1 sigma
Whats less than 0 sigma? I kid but only a little Astrochemistry is fantastically difficult, it involves large networks of reactions, many of which have multiple orders of magnitudes of uncertainty on their rates. Different groups can tey to model the same conditions and end up with over a factor of 1000 difference in the abundences of key tracer speices.
load more comments
(1 replies)
By saying 1 sigma, they are basically saying tgat are 68% confident in the results. As you increase the sigma, your confidence in the results increases. Here is a site that goes into more in depth explanation: https://news.mit.edu/2012/explained-sigma-0209#
A chemical only produced by life on earth. But can it be produced by abiotic conditions on other planets? I’m not sure that has been ruled out at this point.
Yeah, this headline is bullshit. It's indication of possible life, but it isn't what the headline makes it sound. There's always other possible methods, even if we aren't aware of them yet. It's interesting, but doesn't confirm anything yet.
it picked up hints of a substance only made by living things — at least, that is, on Earth.
What other process could theoretically produce it?
Given the vast differences in atmospheres (or the lack thereof) and their conditions, I wouldn't be surprised if those were the culprits
There are plenty of places on earth where life exists in conditions that seem alien compared to the rest of the planet.
"life finds a way".
if you have methanol, hydrogen sulfide and enough heat along with a specific rock, it will get formed. or probably methane, hydrogen sulfide and UV
there are many ways, and what i'm saying it's likely a massive clickbait
t. organic chemist, currently working with sulfur compounds
load more comments
(2 replies)
Sadly they cannot be communicated with in a single human life time; assuming they are intelligent and possess the capability to respond.
Even if Webb were to basically spot earth 2 5 light years away, I’d caution about getting excited for a radio chat.
Remember that life has existed on earth for something like 3 billion years, but multicellular life has only been around for 500 million or so years, humans in various forms have been around for about a million years, and we’ve only had radio for about a hundred years.
The vast majority of life that has ever existed on our planet has been single called organisms. Finding evidence of any life on another planet is huge news, but we should temper our expectations.
It’s way, way more likely for alien planets to have oceans full of plankton analogues as the dominant life. Considering the rest of this planet’s atmosphere is composed mostly of hydrogen, even their plankton would be weird by our standards.
We could irradiate Earth2 with so much RF radiation the crearures of the other planet all develop immune to cancer!
It's a planet 8x the mass of the earth with a heavy hydrogen atmosphere and is considered very hot, the water is in a super critical state. I think if we found anything it would just be bacterial life.
My bet is on "previously unknown chemistry" creating the chemicals we found. It's never aliens :(
But the definition of a single human lifetime could very well change within one human lifetime from now.
Time for a new version of the Bible. The Adam and Eve thing is about to look pretty silly.
Just expand on the current one.
God made humans, in his image, because God is a jealous God and wouldn't want humans to be better looking than himself. He filled the world with animals for the humans to hug and eat. On the seventh day He rested.
On the either day, he started on some new planets, then on the ninth day He populated them with more life so that humans might expand to fill the universe he created, and find the life he scattered around for the humans to hug and eat. On the tenth day, he created intelligent life on other planets, because he is all knowing and therefore knows humans won't feel true camaraderie without attacking and wiping out other sentient life forms. On the eleventh day, He declared a public holiday, because He felt like resting but he already decided the Sabbath is every 7 days.
The bible was written by a bunch of religious scholars, and assembled into a series of books. There's no reason they can't "discover" some more books.
I had a Christian relative tell me “Hey I’m interested in science too. Like why did God make the universe so big? I mean… obviously to show his power, but why this big, exactly?”
I told her that she was starting with all the answers already defined and that this is not science.
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›