According to a certain Mr Arthur C Clarke...
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
Alien Earths are out there: Our home is not 'unique'
New research suggests planets similar to our Earth are much more common across the galaxy than previously thought. And the boffins behind this revelation have also come up with a simple chemical recipe for creating habitable worlds suitable for use by advanced super-powered intelligences and/or deities etc. "Our solar system …
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 17:30 GMT GBE
Re: According to a certain Mr Arthur C Clarke...
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
True for me, but not in the way that AC seemed to think. I find neither option terrifying at all.
I find the former much _sadder_ than the latter. I'm much happier thinking there is other life out there (though I'm not really sure why). Due to the vast distances involved, I don't see why we would have anything to fear from extra-terrestrial life.
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Tuesday 6th January 2015 22:02 GMT Uffish
Re: And it's supposed to work?
No idea whether the simple recipe described will almost guarantee that all the other elements will naturally be present in earthish ratios but if they say that there are lots of earth size, weight, temperature, chemical composition planets out there well, that's great.
But how many will have lifeforms up and working? Is that likely, or are there just a lot of wet, rocky planets in the universe.
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 07:03 GMT dan1980
Re: And it's supposed to work?
@Uffish
"No idea whether the simple recipe described will almost guarantee that all the other elements will naturally be present in earthish ratios . . ."
And why would they have to be? We have evolved to require small amount so stuff like magnesium and cobalt and so forth but other animals on earth don't necessarily need those, depending on where they evolved. There's no reason to believe that, once the basic 'organic' blocks are there, life would evolve to use and require whatever spread of elements are available, just as we have and the other inhabitants of Earth have.
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 04:43 GMT Faux Science Slayer
If at first you don't succeed....skip sky diving.
Only a brain dead moron would make this 'not unique' assertion....EARTH IS VERY UNIQUE.
Earth is the same distance from the Sun, yet is 200C cooler than the hottest temperature on the Moon and 75C warmer than the coolest temperature on the Moon. This is due to the atmosphere, the 310 million cubic miles of ocean and internal fission of 2 million cubic mile of Uranium and Thorium. In addition to internal heat, nuclear decay provides a stream of elemental atoms and compounds, replenishing the planet. The wingspan of flying insects and reptiles during the Jurassic was double that of today because the atmosphere was four times the current density. The atmosphere is under constant erosion from solar wind and nuclear decay. Earth had a magnetosphere that limits particle beam exposure and Ozone to limit UV exposure. There are dozens of critical components necessary for life 'as we know it' on Earth, and only a simpleton would reduce this to a few parameters.
See "Greenhouse Gas Ptolemaic Model" for more unique Earth factors.
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 10:45 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: If at first you don't succeed....skip sky diving.
I hope you're not committing suicide. Anyway, don't know whether the nuclear decay ... replenishing the plant is really a requirement, for kicking off the evolution the ionizing radiation certainly didn't harm. But why, e.g., would flying insects need larger wingspans in a more dense atmosphere?
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 11:17 GMT Wilseus
Re: If at first you don't succeed....skip sky diving.
why, e.g., would flying insects need larger wingspans in a more dense atmosphere?
They wouldn't, and anyway I'm not aware that the Earth did have a denser atmosphere then. Arthropods (and not just flying insects) back then did grow much larger than today but this was because the atmosphere contained a much larger proportion of oxygen.
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Friday 9th January 2015 18:17 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: If at first you don't succeed....skip sky diving.
FSS just gets better and better. He may not be as ... er ... unique a kook as Amanfrommars1, or as vitriolic as Eadon (of blessed memory), but his crazy soapbox grandstanding has a certain "they said I was mad!" flair.
If he keeps this up, maybe the Reg should assemble a Best of FSS collection. Actually, a site Best of Trolls and Kooks article for a Friday or holiday season might be a nice complement to the traditional FotW and the like.
Now I'm getting nostalgic for the net.kooks of Ye Olde Usenet. There used to be a good Net.Kookery museum site - I should try to find it.
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 13:09 GMT Little Mouse
A simple shortcut
Rather than waiting "a few more millions of years" for life to appear, might I suggest the use of a great big melting pot, big enough to take the world and all it's got?
It should only take a hundred years or so for literally 20's of people to appear. The lack of racial diversity might be an issue in the long term though.
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Wednesday 7th January 2015 15:46 GMT 2nobel2014
They forgot about blasting the Earth and inserting a chunk of electron-degenerate matter - as the core. This creates the conditions for magnetic fields/shields on the Earth which keeps all life, well living! But that would truly be an unique circumstance (one of a kind?) - and that doesn't fit their narrative ...
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Friday 9th January 2015 23:26 GMT Trevor_Pott
Electron degenerate matter? Wut? The pressure at the center of the earth isn't remotely that high. It's just a blob of iron, nickle and some radioactives doing the turny woo-woo due to being a liquid, initial rotational speed and some convective forces.
If there were electron degenerate matter at the center of the Earth very shortly thereafter there would be no more Earth.
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Thursday 8th January 2015 09:06 GMT Chands
I'm sure I've seen a Brian Cox episode where they've essentially deduced that there are in fact billions of planets out there that can support life. However, we are still unique, because we are *so far* the only detectable planet that is actually inhabited with intelligent life forms.
Although, I'd argue looking at the human race and calling us intelligent.
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Sunday 11th January 2015 19:20 GMT illiad
Re: Rare Earth
HUH!! Its a bit like your friend getting a £1mil house, and you thinking he is a millionaire... Soooo WRONG!!!
- He is actually *poorer*, he now owes the **bank/lender** £1mill, and has to work his butt off to repay it...
This shit-ball is **all** we have, unless you know how to travel 5 - 12 light years easily enough ... And possibly find its NOT as habitable as thought, or have aggressive occupants...
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Thursday 8th January 2015 09:42 GMT AndrueC
Although by the sound of it, any super-intelligent hive mind civilisation, collection of beings of pure light or similar that might have the astro kitchen to actually follow this recipe might not bother.
I think that any super advanced civilisation will build its own space habitats and largely ignore worlds with natural ecosystems. The damn' things are so fragile and getting goods up from the bottom of a gravity well is such a drag. Far better to build an orbital. You control the thermostat if you want to leave it you just walk off the edge.
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Thursday 8th January 2015 13:09 GMT smartypants
Super Intelligent Hive Mind Shocker
Freed of the short-term perspective of biological creatures, it realises that the universe is going to come to an end and with it, whatever glorious empire they might have attempted to erect in the reflection of their own importance, and that instead, it'd be better to concentrate on gardening!
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Wednesday 14th January 2015 08:14 GMT LaeMing
Re: What about the moon?
The moon's benefits don't really require a moon. Any nearby strong gravity well in (relative) motion would likely do just fine for driving tidal forces throughout the body. While earth-sized planets with large moons may be somewhat rare, titan-sized moons orbiting gas giants seem likely to be quite common. The Giants (presuming they have moons like all ours do) even show up often enough in 'green-belt' zones of stars.
Local panspermia would pretty much ensure all the moons of a green-belt gas giant would get life of some similar form (relative to the local atmosphere depending on local gravity &c) within a short while of life popping up on the first (probably most favourable) one. Would make a rather interesting local system to live in, especially since you might end up with another habitable world within 1970s-Earth technological reach.
^^ All speculation, of course!
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Wednesday 18th February 2015 09:57 GMT GaryB_
Tectonics ... d'oh!
You missed Uranium! W/o internal radioactive decay, the earth would cool and tectonics stop. The continents and other material would wear down, minerals disperse, magnetic core would solidfy and fade and the planet would die w/o the recycling services provided by plate tectonics provided by the heat engine of radioactive decay. You must mix in some radioactive material, but not too much!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
