Posted on 09/13/2006 2:08:21 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
A comprehensive review by leading scientists about our Solar System which speculates on the possibility of life on other planets has been published.
Solar System Update brings together the work of 19 physicists, astronomers, and climatologists from Europe and the USA in 12 chapters on the sun, the main planets and comets.
The book, co-edited by Dr Philippe Blondel, of the University of Bath, highlights the many recent discoveries and in particular the amount of water, one of the essentials for life, found in the Solar System.
Recent studies have revealed ice in craters on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, and that liquid water may once have existed on the surface of Mars and may still be there underground.
In addition, liquid water may exist on moons around Jupiter, in particular Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, underneath a surface of ice.
In his chapter The Habitability of Mars: Past and Present, Thomas McCollom, of the Center for Astrobiology at the University of Colorado, USA, says that though the temperatures on Mars, as low as minus 120 Centigrade, mean that water cannot exist on the surface, there may be a "planet-wide liquid aquifer at some depth in its crust." There is also geological evidence that water has flowed on the surface in the past.
“It seems increasingly apparent that habitable environments very likely exist on Mars today, and may have been considerably more diverse and abundant in the past,” he writes.
In his chapter The Icy Moons of Jupiter, Richard Greenberg, of the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona, USA, says: “There is an unusually strong motivation to continue to pursue studies of the icy satellites.”
He says that three large moons of Jupiter “probably have liquid water layers, and one, Europa, almost certainly has an ocean just below the surface. Naturally liquid water raises the possibility of extraterrestrial life.”
However, if the surface ice were very thick, this would cut the water below off from oxygen and sunlight which are important for most forms of life on Earth, and so might have prevented life from developing.
Dr Blondel, who works in the University of Bath’s Department of Physics, took 18 months to edit the book, with his co-editor Dr John Mason.
“This book sets out how much water and ice there is in the solar system," said Dr Blondel. “This obviously has implications for our search for extra-terrestrial life.
“By understanding better how the climates of planets like Mars and Venus have evolved, we can understand more about climate change on Earth.
“For instance, the very hot and cloudy climate of Venus is likely to have developed after a runaway greenhouse effect, and the more we know about this the more we can understand some of the challenges caused by our climate change on Earth."
The full list of the contributors is:
[See list at original article]
The book is published by Springer, Germany and Praxis, UK.
curiouser and curiouser
The cause of global warming on venus is disputed but one major cause could be a giant asteroid/meteor hitting the planet. Basically think of it as a doomsday scenario on earth but it happened to Venus millions and millions of years ago. The basis behind that is venus is the only planet that rotates counter-clockwise, and it does so very very slowly. A very large asteroid hitting the planet opposite the motion of rotation could have caused the momentum to swing the other way. Burning coal and gasoline will never create an environment like the one on venus, but it does make for interesting research
Agreed.
Where's Carl Sagan and his "bbbbilllions and bbbbillions" of planets when you need him?
Both the words speculate and possible are being misused. If we are to reason in the Platonic way we need to retreat to a prescientific stage. Plato was not familiar with the scientific method and did not have access to measurements showing the presence of water on these celestial bodies and would not have demonstrated any possibility at all of life on these celestial bodies. Now we have measurement of water on these celestial bodies and water has the possibility of life.
I suspect that we share similar views of God and creation.
It's hard to understand how any intelligent person can view (and comprehend) that image -- and still claim that this planet is the center of (and most important feature in) all of the universe.
(For those of "YEC" persuasion: there are less than a handful of individual stars in that photo. Almost all of the objects visible there are huge galaxies -- on the scale of our own Milky Way Galaxy.)
IMO, only someone with a terminal case of hubris (the Bible calls it "vanity") can view that image of a tiny (angular) area of space -- and still think that earth is anything other than trivial in the grand scheme of Creation.
More like this eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5kRE_afI8o&mode=related&search=
We are supposed to go forth and multiply if I read the instruction manual correctly. If this is so, we are not even started doing what we are supposed to be doing.
Heads up! This thread may prove to be interesting...
People also speculated that the Earth was Round..
That's a load of horsecrap. The first life developed under anaerobic conditions and would actually have died in an oxy/nitro atmosphere.
Okay, let me get the troll postings out of the way:
1. We need to build a fence to keep the aliens from invading Earth.
2. This is what you get with RINOS in charge.
3. Obligatory Teddy Kennedy and Helen Thomas photos.
Point is good.
4. Blame Bush for doing nothing...
The life on other planets is just a single cell, not implanted yet.
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