Aliens!

danniemcq

iamstop wrote: »

why is it on a PC World website?

Viral ad for new Alienware PC?

danniemcq

Wait i think i read somewhere yesterday or had a really weird dream last night that they have found an atmosphere on one of Saturns moons (second largest would google but lazy) that has oxygen and Co2 but the oxygen level is 5 trillion times less than here on earth but it's still something.

it may have been yesterdays Independent (not the ****e irish one the English one)

Oops after reading over thread again instead of skimming its what OisinT said i'm sure

sbsquarepants

Jesus, hold the front page! Somebody really needs to sit nasa down and explain the meaning of the word exciting to them! I do not want to be disturbed by any of this alien nonsense unless it either has a ray gun, is a giant lizard, or looks like the lady aliens in V (new or old version).
Germs? Pfft, my soap pump is covered in them (apparently)

FreudianSlippers

Promac wrote: »

titan/rhea - these things all look the same to me.

But isn't CO2 more interesting than O2? O2 would mean we could potentially go there and have something to breathe but CO2 would imply something is already doing it.

Not necessarily, CO2 can be found via carbonate dissolution from volcanoes or geothermal activity.

For example, Venus has an atmosphere that is almost entirely CO2.

FreudianSlippers

danniemcq wrote: »

Wait i think i read somewhere yesterday or had a really weird dream last night that they have found an atmosphere on one of Saturns moons (second largest would google but lazy) that has oxygen and Co2 but the oxygen level is 5 trillion times less than here on earth but it's still something.

it may have been yesterdays Independent (not the ****e irish one the English one)

Oops after reading over thread again instead of skimming its what OisinT said i'm sure

Well, one thing that means it may not be Rhea is that it's nothing new really.
Two Jovian moons, Europa and Ganymede, also have rich O2 and CO2 atmospheres - much more so than Rhea even.

Why is this a big deal? Well, all 3 of these moons are covered in a fairly thick layer of ice, but it is thought there may be water (liquid) underneath. O2 presence means that there is a possibility that there is life under that water.

It's also significant because we've now found 3 moons in our solar system with O2, CO2 and H2O (frozen). These are the building block of our carbon-based life - it means the possibilities for evolution of any life on some planet or moon in our Galaxy is almost certain (not to mention our Universe).

Angron

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Jesus, hold the front page! Somebody really needs to sit nasa down and explain the meaning of the word exciting to them! I do not want to be disturbed by any of this alien nonsense unless it either has a ray gun, is a giant lizard, or looks like the lady aliens in V (new or old version).
Germs? Pfft, my soap pump is covered in them (apparently)

Off topic, but that ad annoys the crap out of me. You're about to clean your hands anyway, what does germs on the pumps even matter!

Anyway, if there is even a chance of finding anything, NASA would jump on it I spose.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

germs , yeah right
how about trees

http://piglipstick.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-there-life-on-mars-conspiracy.html

Son Of A Vidic

Promac wrote: »

http://www.pcworld.com/article/212000/are_the_aliens_coming_nasa_to_hold_press_conference_on_major_astrobiology_discovery.html

Finally something with more intelligence we all can vote for.

Lightshow

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Jesus, hold the front page! Somebody really needs to sit nasa down and explain the meaning of the word exciting to them! I do not want to be disturbed by any of this alien nonsense unless it either has a ray gun, is a giant lizard, or looks like the lady aliens in V (new or old version).
Germs? Pfft, my soap pump is covered in them (apparently)

Brilliant!

Nasa need to claim that ANY news from them is exciting to cover for the fact that their funding has been decimated. Shuttle's being decommissioned, no replacement in sight, no plans for further manned exploration. No excitement.

FreudianSlippers

1. Pamela Conrad (a geobiologist) was the primary author of a 2009 paper on geology and life on Mars

2. Felisa Wolfe-Simon (an oceanographer) has written extensively on photosynthesis using arsenic recently (she worked on the team mentioned in this article)

3. Steven Benner (a biologist) is on the "Titan Team" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; they're looking at Titan (Saturn's largest moon) as an early-Earth-like chemical environment. This is likely related to the Cassini mission.

4. James Elser (an ecologist) is involved with a NASA-funded astrobiology program called Follow the Elements, which emphasizes looking at the chemistry of environments where life evolves (and not just looking at water or carbon or oxygen).

PeterIanStaker

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Let me guess, you have that movie ?

Rule 34, dude:cool:

Sea Sharp

It'll be some over excited geek standing up to say they've found evidence to say that 'maybe' the chemicals needed for life have been found on a comet.

/Cue massive bitch slap across his face from somebody in the press room.

FreudianSlippers

Sea Sharp wrote: »

It'll be some over excited geek standing up to say they've found evidence to say that 'maybe' the chemicals needed for life have been found on a comet.

/Cue massive bitch slap across his face from somebody in the press room.

it's definitely not this, sorry.

Standard Toaster

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/

'Alien' life-form discovered here on Earth, its DNA unlike anything ever seen.

NASA Finds New Life
Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.
At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first time that this has been confirmed. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.
But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.
No details have been disclosed about the origin or nature of this new life form. We will know more today at 2pm EST but, while this life hasn't been found in another planet, this discovery does indeed change everything we know about biology. I don't know about you, but I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean. [NOS—In Dutch]

Pretty cool, re-writing-biology-books kinda stuff.

ps
I, for one, welcome our new arsenic-based overlords etc etc etc

MingulayJohnny

It's dry stuff. Ask the Dogon in Africa or the Navajo nation in America about our cousins from the stars. Microbes don't seem that startling to me. It's tragic how they can spend billions on probes and missions that could have been better used elsewhere when another arm of the government has been aware of advanced races for decades:rolleyes:.

aidan_walsh

Microbes don't seem that startling to me.

Come back and say that the next time you're complaining of one of about 10 billion illnesses.

RonMexico

Aliens that can thrive in toxic environments?



Maybe NASA will announce that the vaults in Anglo are actually supermassive black holes and Seanie Fitz is a space-alien.

Setun

I always found it strange when people used the presence of oxygen on other planets as a potential indicator for extraterretrial life. Is it not an obvious possibility that an alien race might ****ing hate oxygen, but love a bit of poisonous gas or something instead? Basically that just because life has evolved a particular way to require a certain amount of elements on earth doesn't mean it should be the same on Rhea/Mars etc?

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist.

SugarHigh

Phosphorus, along with hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, make up the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it. Wolfe-Simon has discovered a bacteria that swaps out phosphorus with arsenic. The discovery that a life form can be comprised of something other than the six fundamental building blocks of life changes everything.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/eureka/article7040864.ece
This really opens up the search for alien life because you are no longer limited by planets which contain the traditional building blocks of life.

NASA are holding a press conference at some stage today to release more details.

Nice one.

squod

It's life Jim.........

Sitec

woops.

Overheal

Completely new life form discovered.

...in my pants.

Shryke

Very cool.

Mr Freeze

Oh the creationists aint gonna like this one!!! Or will they??

Jumpy

They will love it.

Birneybau

Dr. Hibbert "Is the alien Carbon based or Silicon?"

Homer "The 2nd one, Ziliphone"

krudler

God clearly made it, duh

TeddyTedson

Oh no, not NASA again!

Jumpy

IN ROD WE TRUST.