Posted on 12/04/2006 9:59:23 AM PST by FYREDEUS
A meteorite that crashed in northwest Canada almost seven years ago might have been able to host the very earliest life forms, according to NASA researchers, which opens the door to the possibility that life could be present elsewhere in the universe.
Mike Zolensky, a cosmic minerologist at the NASA Space Centre in Texas, told CBC Radio the Tagish Lake meteorite is unlike any they have ever examined.
"We always knew it was a rare, very carbon- and water-rich meteorite - and they hardly ever fall on the Earth," said Zolensky. "But we've found since that it's even more unique than that. It's a totally unique meteorite."
Zolensky said tiny bubbles in the rock are organic globules where the universe's earliest life forms could have been able to live, an astonishing discovery from a meteorite thought to be 4.5 billion years old - older than the Earth.
"Perhaps these are like little condos arriving on earth and biology can move in later on," said Zolensky.
"They've survived somehow, intact on an asteroid for over four and a half billion years and where they come from, we don't know. But it's not from around here. It's from somewhere else."
Scientists have speculated life on earth began somewhere between 3.5 and 3.9 billion years ago.
The meteor first attracted attention when a dramatic fireball lit up the early morning skies of the Yukon, northern British Columbia, parts of Alaska, and the Northwest Territories on Jan. 18, 2000.
Fragments of the meteorite scattered across the Southern Lakes region of the Yukon. A week later, outdoorsman Jim Brook discovered a remnant on Tagish Lake between Atlin, B.C., and Carcross, Yukon.
Brook stored the meteorite in a freezer to keep it intact, a move that helped give researchers a chance to study it before it could be influenced by the environment on earth.
"This meteorite is unique because it was recovered frozen ... and some of these samples came to us still frozen," said Zolensky. "It's never happened before, may never happen again, and will always be a bonanza to science for that reason."
Sure there's life present elsewhere in the universe, but if you call them *angels* and *demons* you'll get laughed off the forum. But it's OK to call them *extraterrestrials* and suggest that they are more advanced and have more highly evolved bodies and perhaps telepathy.....hmmmm.... Just don't call them *angels* and *demons*.
It's far from the most egregious example of redundancy in the press, but I'll notify the Grammarian In Chief immediately! ;-)
Do I have time to retire? :)
I don't assume that - yes it will probably take far longer for Humanity [or post-Humanity] to go intergalactic than it will for us to go interstellar [unless we develop some FTL or pseudo-FTL drive that allows arbitrary velocity/pseudovelocity] but eventually we will want to do that too imo, if for no other reason than survival insurance in case some moron with a Zero Point Bomb blows the galaxy up eh?
There is only one logical imperative that a Kardashev Type II[late] or III civilization might have to build Flying Ringworlds [the ULTIMATE 'mobile home']; as an extraGALACTIC 'ark' against a Galaxy going Seyfert etc or some worse unnatural disaster like the aforementioned 'Z-Bomb'. Since galaxies DO explode even for natural reasons it is entirely reasonable and imo both likely and expectable that any civilization therein which had advanced to late Type II or early Type III might seek to survive by fleeing it - survival instinct should be a Universal Constant of Life EVERYWHERE.
This might invoke the Fermi Paradox unless we could assume that all the Type II/III civilizations that have ever done so in the last 13.7 by only flee in OTHER directions than OUR galaxy...which I suppose is possible though there is no logical reason to assume us to be thusly 'privileged'.
Or we might hypothesize that there are no other civilizations that reach TypeII/III to be able to do so, or no other civilizations at all, or even no other life...any of which definitely invoke Fermi and would require us to be privileged here on our third rock from an insignificant and quite ordinary G star of a quite ordinary spiral galaxy in the quite ordinary Local Group of galaxies; ok to believe if one is a Bible-thumping fundy literalist who believes in a Special Creation <7000 years ago...not so believable if one is rational.
Thanks...hmmmm why would a post on this subject be moved to chat???
anti-science weekend mod???
Well the space microbes might become exposed to Labatts Blue and become Leafs fans, and that would spell the end of Hope for them for sure ;-)...or they might be exposed to Molsons and become Habs fans - but then they might also want to separate from the bacteria around them that came in other meteors eh? ;-) LOL
Yes that is how I read this as well...if so then that is significant imo even if this particular environment was 'unloaded'...it makes Panspermia in/from similar but 'loaded' others more viable [pun intended].
Yes indeed, you are right and it is significant and worth remebering that there are no claims this meteor actually contained extraterrestrial life - apparently it did not.
What is also significant about what it DOES contain is that it contains structures that COULD have contained ET life. This presents an actually existant MECHANISM for Panspermia it is by no means evidence that Panspermia DID occur - an important distinction. But by presenting an existing mechanism allowing it to occur, Panspermia becomes more likely than when there was no such extant mechanism known.
ROTFLOL!!! :-)
Qui est "They"?
Terra has been Firma since less than 5 Billion Years Ago. There were G stars exactly like Earth's sun Sol 10BYA in a Universe that is approx. 13.7 Billion years old - meaning stars and planetary systems could have formed less than 4 Billion years after the Creation of the Universe and have advanced to the exact same stage of development of both life and technological civilization as intellignet life in our solar system has attained before our solar system even formed...plenty of time for spacefaring 'Johnny Appleseeds' to have sown Life widely in the last 5 billion years.
Heck even STL Bussard rams or slowboats at speeds our <Type 1 civilization can attain with our PUNY 'rocket science' NOW could spread Life THROUGHOUT our entire Galaxy in just a few million years; early life elsewhere could have done the same throughout theirs before our sun burned hot in space and then started looking for new horizons [ours]...even intergalactic travel @ slowboat speeds isnt inconceivable when you have 5 BILLION YEARS to do it in.
Unless you intend to suggest that in a sphere of space 5 BILLION LIGHT YEARS in diameter [do you actually understand how BIG that is - how many stars fill that volume of our Universe?] Life and Intelligence and Techological Civilization never arose anywhere but here then "distant, inscrutable" civilizations OUT THERE not only COULD have but SHOULD have spread Life from wherever they were to not only HERE but EVERYWHERE by now - That is Fermis Big Question aka the Fermi Paradox ["Where ARE they?"].
And if they DID that does NOT in any way "promote a godless origin of life" since it merely moves the LOCATION and TIMEFRAME for the Origin of Life from somwhere on Earth sometime since 4.5 Bya out to somewhere in a 5 billion lightyear diameter sphere 10Bya.
God could still have Created life - it would just mean He created life somewhere else than we thought and a lot longer ago than we thought it.
Methinks old Bucky would have been tickled pink by the thought that Life could have come to earth in meteoric 'spaceships' full of geodesic fullerene structures...afterall he wanted US to live in geodesic domes too...lolol
Well I thought the terms "angel" and "demon" refer more to hypothetical entities inhabiting other extradimensional "spiritual" continua 'outside' ours rather than other places within our observed 4D spacetime continuum but theres no reason "angels" "demons' and "aliens" couldnt ALL exist I suppose...I dont see using that terminology as anything to laugh people off the forum for, and maybe those who do need to open their minds more :-(.
Whoops!
That's what I get for not looking it up. I'll buy a vowel and go with M32 (or was I thinking of M33?).
Do it soon as possible. It's okay to be a cog in the industrial machine for a while, but somebody needs the free time to keep an eye on M31.
I see our destiny as more of dispersing each to a different planet in the universe rather than moving in a tight cluster to a safer part of the jungle. All the same, if we are to discover a mechanism for travelling to another galaxy, we need to begin questioning our school teachers with some intensity.
Yes, from the mortal man's point of view, he probably could have done most anything, but he told us in his most elaborately protected and certified word, that he didn't. I believe him. Those that choose not to believe him continue to pretend that they have hope of finding the origin of life in some other location. Why? What is the advantage in desiring God to be a liar?
Yes, but you won't be able to afford to retire...
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