Alient Life on Titan

[myata]

Has anybody seen this? Telegraph (): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7805069/Titan-Nasa-scientists-discover-evidence-that-alien-life-exists-on-Saturns-moon.html

I could not find the original reports, but if it's not a hoax it'd be the first ever serious argument supporting the existence of alien life.

[Bonam]

The most important line in the report, and probably what the interviewed scientists spent 90% of the interview time emphasizing only to get it swept under the rug by the reporter:

They warned, however, that there could be other explanations for the findings.

[Oleg Bach]

Everyone is waiting for aliens from other worlds to arrive - we are the damned aliens and we are already hear - we wait for ourselves to come but never do - there is no life out there _ I guarantee that! Once this earth is gone - all life ceases to exist and it will not "evolve" out of some chemical reaction..to return in a trillion years - this is it baby! Enjoy each other and respect this gift, this heaven we are in - cos ' when it's over - YOU are gone - and when we are all gone - God will not have a purpose other than to disappear. He can become the great nothing at will - atheist don't understand that about God - that it is so powerful it can totally become powerless and non-existent at will...and if it- gets a notion to have some fun - he might just zap us back into existence..but so far I believe we are boring him and are a great disappointment...a failed experiment.

[Machjo]

We have to distinguish between kinds of life too. I'm sure theres is life everywhere, but in many cases it's likely to be a very simple form of life far inferior to ours. I'm sure intelligent life that has built advanced civilizations is far and few planets between, though I would not be surprised if it existed too, just not as common as the simple life forms.

[Remiel]

I have heard Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute say that he expects we will detect transmissions of some sort from other civilizations sometime within the next 10 to 20 years, depending on how numerous they are. Currently our ability to scan the night sky for signals is actually rather limited, but it will only increase by leaps and bounds, and as we can look at more at a time, the chance of finding something greatly increases.

[myata]

Yes of course, with all reservations, the significance of this is that no better explanation than perhaps primitive microbial life exists as of today. We may not know for certain for a long time.

[GostHacked]

We only need to find microbial life on another planet. Forget looking for intelligent or any kind of evolved species at this point. If we find life in our own solar system it will be microbial or single celled organisms.

But even if we do find any kind of life on another planet/moon in this solar system it will be a paramount discovery and one of the most important of and for the human race.

[Oleg Bach]

Yes of course, with all reservations, the significance of this is that no better explanation than perhaps primitive microbial life exists as of today. We may not know for certain for a long time.

WE ARE ALONE - LIVE WITH IT.

[Moonlight Graham]

WE ARE ALONE - LIVE WITH IT.

Prove it.

[Moonlight Graham]

That's a really stupid and confusing article.

So is there alien life on Titan? Or the possibility? Or no life, but the possibility of it coming the in the future?

wtf

[wyly]

Has anybody seen this? Telegraph (): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7805069/Titan-Nasa-scientists-discover-evidence-that-alien-life-exists-on-Saturns-moon.html

I could not find the original reports, but if it's not a hoax it'd be the first ever serious argument supporting the existence of alien life.

heard it before, interesting, possible...we have life living on this planet in conditions no one had ever thought possible...it's only a matter of time before we find life on another plante in our solar system it's just a matter of where to look...

[Bonam]

I really think that by far the likeliest place to look for life in the solar system is Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a vast tidally heated water ocean under its frozen surface.

That's a really stupid and confusing article.

So is there alien life on Titan? Or the possibility? Or no life, but the possibility of it coming the in the future?

Science reporting is very often that way. Written by journalists who have no idea what they are writing about and intended for an audience which has even less idea. The article talks about the chemical composition of Titan's atmosphere and notes a lack of hydrogen near the surface. One possible theory to explain this may be that lifeforms of some sort consume any available hydrogen. However, there are other, possibly much more likely, explanations which could also result in little/no hydrogen. Off the top of my head, an obvious explanation would be that hydrogen is the lightest gas and would tend to rise away from the surface.

In fact, Earth's atmosphere is almost entirely lacking in hydrogen since the Earth's gravity is insufficient to prevent the hydrogen from escaping into space. Titan can hold onto its hydrogen because its atmosphere is at a much lower temperature, so the hydrogen particles have a much lower thermal speed, below Titan's escape velocity. But nevertheless they would rise to the top of the atmosphere relative to other heavier gases.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Bonam

[Oleg Bach]

I heard that there is one single E-coli on Titan - we should spend a billion dollars and go see it.

[wyly]

I heard that there is one single E-coli on Titan - we should spend a billion dollars and go see it.

who is "we" Oleg just how much money are you contributing to the US space program?...

[myata]

who is "we" Oleg just how much money are you contributing to the US space program?...

Just because some of us never interested to look out beyond their a..hole, nobody else should dare to either.

[ToadBrother]

WE ARE ALONE - LIVE WITH IT.

An easy claim to make. An utterly impossible one to back up.

At any rate, if a place like Titan does have life, it's not likely to be anything sufficiently complex enough to be intelligent, or to ever form intelligent organisms. The conditions and the chemistry involved would likely mean you're dealing with nothing more complicated than, say, microbial mats.

The point of such a discovery would be to show that life can form in conditions quite alien to Earth (even though Titan's atmosphere likely resembles the early Earth's, it's a damned cold place where liquid water could not exist, and where oceans are likely formed out of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane, and where whatever life might be there is basically breathing hydrogen).

[ToadBrother]

I heard that there is one single E-coli on Titan - we should spend a billion dollars and go see it.

I heard you're an ignorant twit. You don't seem to understand the import of such a discovery, and you don't even seem to know what would be discovered. Go back to blaming the Jews for Stalin or whatever nut-job crankism you're peddling this week.

[Handsome Rob]

I really think that by far the likeliest place to look for life in the solar system is Jupiter's moon Europa, which has a vast tidally heated water ocean under its frozen surface.

I would have bet Eceladus, on the count of Jupiter's magnetosphere.