BengalszoneBilly Posted August 18, 2007 Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 From Space.comScientist: Calculations Prove Life Began in Comet By Ker ThanStaff Writerposted: 16 August 200703:19 pm ET Life almost undoubtedly began in space, and specifically in the hearts of comets, rather than on Earth, a new study claims.Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astrobiologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, and his team say their calculations show that it is one trillion trillion times more likely that life started inside a slushy comet than on Earth."The comets and the warm watery clay pools in comets are settings in which the organic molecules are transformed into living structures in comets," Wickramasinghe said. "That transformation is more likely in some comet somewhere in the galaxy than in any small pond on the Earth."The new findings will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Astrobiology.But while most scientists are willing to concede that fallen comets might have delivered some of the water and organic materials necessary for life to Earth, critics say that Wickramasinghe's proposal that life originated in comets which subsequently crashed on our planet-an idea called panspermia-is speculative and not supported by evidence."It looks to me as if their conclusions are constructed from a series of speculations, none of which is based on much evidence. It is a theory built on air, not solidly grounded in scientific facts," said David Morrison, a senior scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who was not involved in the study.Wickramasinghe and his colleagues' idea rests on the assumption that comets are full of porous clay particles that can hold water in a liquid form for eons. Cometary missions such as Deep Impact have found evidence for a variety of silicates existing inside comets, but not clay per se, Morrison said.The "assumption that Earth has very little clay while comets are full of clay is the key to their argument, and it is at best speculation," Morrison said.It is also an open question as to whether comets do indeed contain liquid water inside them and whether other star systems support comets at all, let alone clay-, water- or life-bearing comets. "No comets have been discovered yet around other stars," Morrison said in an email interview.Paul Falkowski, a biochemist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, also does not think that the site of life's origins can be figured out using simple calculations. "These basic kinds of things are dependent on the beginning initial assumptions. I don't know that we know the odds," Falkowski said. "We know the odds for exactly one planet, and it happened once, so everything else is a game."Recent work by Falkowski and his team suggests that life would have difficulty surviving unprotected in deep space where comets reside. In research detailed in the Aug. 6 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team recovered highly degraded microbial DNA from 8 million-year-old Antarctic ice and estimated that DNA on Earth has a half-life of only about 1.1 million years. In other words, every 1.1 million years, half of the DNA disappears.The researchers say cosmic rays are the culprits and think that DNA-or any other complex organic molecule-would have a difficult time surviving for long in space, where radiation levels are much higher than on Earth."The radiation flux on the surface of this planet is one-tenth to one-one-hundredth to that of space," Falkowski told SPACE.com. "So when you go into a situation where you don't have a magnetic field protecting you from cosmic background radiation, the amount of damage to DNA would be incredibly high."Falkowski's team estimates that DNA would survive only a few hundred thousand years in space, essentially ruling out interstellar pollination of life by comets as well as the potential for life to survive in space for very long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmyBengal Posted August 18, 2007 Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 I hope everyone can remember the "No religion bashing" rule we have here at Bengalszone !!!WHODEY !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ox Posted August 18, 2007 Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 Being a huge fan of astronomy and the discovery channel, I can see where these folks are coming from, scientifically. But I once had a person tell me, "The odds of us being here right now, the perfect distance, temperature, the exact perfect conditions for life, are about equivalent to someone taking apart a rolex into the thousands of individual pieces, throwing them in a dryer, hitting the dry button, and one of these days the watch being put back together in perfect working order." It's unfathomable, and there's just no way someone didn't have a hand in us being here. On the other hand, what a mind blowing waste of space the rest of the universe is if we're the only life. I mean we can't even comprehend how big our galaxy is, let alone the entire universe filled with trillions of galaxies!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BengalszoneBilly Posted August 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2007 On the other hand, what a mind blowing waste of space the rest of the universe is if we're the only life.Rest assured we are not.First Ever Photo of Earth From the Surface of Mars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckj414 Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 But I once had a person tell me, "The odds of us being here right now, the perfect distance, temperature, the exact perfect conditions for life, are about equivalent to someone taking apart a rolex into the thousands of individual pieces, throwing them in a dryer, hitting the dry button, and one of these days the watch being put back together in perfect working order." It's unfathomable, and there's just no way someone didn't have a hand in us being here.I've heard almost that exact same thing before, and its a nice sounding phrase, but it operates under the undeniably false assumptions that the laws that bind the universe are random or that the chemistry of life is even remotely analagous to a watch. If you break it down, all this metaphor really says is, "We can't factually explain how life started, so it must have been 'God'," whatever 'God' really means. The comet hypothesis is as good as any, but personally I believe the first humans emerged fully formed from the egg of the Queen of the Fairy Seahorses of the Moons of Jupiter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ox Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 The comet hypothesis is as good as any, but personally I believe the first humans emerged fully formed from the egg of the Queen of the Fairy Seahorses of the Moons of Jupiter.I'm rather partial to the flying spaghetti monster myself.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stripes Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 The comet hypothesis is as good as any, but personally I believe the first humans emerged fully formed from the egg of the Queen of the Fairy Seahorses of the Moons of Jupiter.I'm rather partial to the flying spaghetti monster myself..Speak the word, brother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 "The odds of us being here right now, the perfect distance, temperature, the exact perfect conditions for life.....It's unfathomable, and there's just no way someone didn't have a hand in us being here.Think about the relatively small temperature range that life is able to exist in. Pretty amazing. -50 to -80 on one end to the 120's or 130's at the other extreme. I saw a show the other night about one of the moons of the outer planets. I don't remember the name of the moon or which planet (Neptune maybe?) but they say it is the coldest place in our solar system. -375 degrees! It has some type of internal geyser system similar to Yellowstone but as soon as the water breaks the surface, it freezes and crystalizes and is dispersed on the surface. Because of the reflective properties and its white color the ice reflects the minimal rays of the sun away from the moon's surface so that it never, ever gets warm. Man, that is f'kn cold! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BengalszoneBilly Posted August 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 Think about the relatively small temperature range that life is able to exist in. Pretty amazing. -50 to -80 on one end to the 120's or 130's at the other extreme.That is life as we define it. Who's to say there are other life forms out there that can exceed those parameters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bengalboomer7 Posted August 20, 2007 Report Share Posted August 20, 2007 I'm a nature guy, so I do a lot of hiking and mountain biking and other stuff(I just can't stand to be inside) and sometimes when I see a really beautiful place or I look up at a sky filled with stars I just gotta believe that something special did that. I just can't accept that all the beauty in this world randomly happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted August 21, 2007 Report Share Posted August 21, 2007 Think about the relatively small temperature range that life is able to exist in. Pretty amazing. -50 to -80 on one end to the 120's or 130's at the other extreme.That is life as we define it. Who's to say there are other life forms out there that can exceed those parameters.You aren't talking about Pittsburgh or Cleveland are you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.