Presolar Stardust diamonds?

Lucutus

This may be of interest...

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5729

amp

Great name for a band too.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

amptest...*slap*

Very interesting study, could lead to a better understanding of the process of early star formation. And I think "Naked Singularity" would be a better name for a band, in any case :P

Occy

][cEMAN**

Oooooh yeah I love it.
Diamond = carbon based
Humans (life on earth) = carbon based

ATTACK OF THE DIAMOND MEN!! NOOOOOOO *ahem* sorry.

Hey if Diamond has formed from carbon then I say this has gotta be more evidence of life on other planets - I mean you KNOW they have the elements needed.....

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

But you'd still need water...I mean, that's what's been lacking so far in all this talk of extraterrestrial carbon forms. Until a proven source of water in a compatible oxidizing atmosphere exists somewhere, "Attack of the Diamond Men" will just have to be confined to ][cE's B-movie fantasies[tm]

Occy

][cEMAN**

A comet's tail is made of ][cE.
][cE melts to form water (very unusual if it were pure water without any form of life in it)

Water + Carbon +life in the water = organism.

Also with planets being created and forming crusts and lava etc you get sulphur (if that's one of the main chemicals in it) which stay in the atmosphere and trap heat in order to warm life and cultivate growth and those chemicals add to basic organic life forms as well.

bonkey

Originally posted by ][cEMAN**
A comet's tail is made of ][cE.
][cE melts to form water (very unusual if it were pure water without any form of life in it)

Not that unusual.

SciAm did an interesting-ish article this month about the possibgiliy of life elsewhere, which looked at the "habitable" regions - not just where the habitable region in a solar system is, but also where the habitable region in the galaxy is believed to be.

Obviously, the flaw in all these arguments is that they presume life must take a similar form to our own. Yes, yes, I know that carbon-based life is the most probable, but it is not (AFAIK) exclusionary.

Concerning Iceman's notion of water not being that uncommon, please bear in mind that it is not the problem of getting tiny amounts of water onto a planet....the problem is keeping it there.

Recent models of the earth's development show large amounts of warming and cooling which alternately flooded and droughted large amounts of the planet. Apparently, the conditions for our ecosystem to have evolved, maintaining an atmosphere etc are very selective.

Look at Mars. it is highly probably that Mars once did have water. However, a variety of conditions evaporated that water away. Note : Mars is further than the sun than we are, and its water evaporated, while ours didnt.

So, remember, its not just a case of *having* water, its a case of *keeping* water, along with oxygen (again, practically none on Mars), CO2, and all the others....

Also, carbon is turned to diamond in a natural process that we cannot emulate properly yet. This process occurring elsewhere is an indication that extreme conditions exist elsewhere capable of producing this. We know that carbon (and pretty much every other element) exist out there....this does tno indicate life in any way.

What it does indicate is that certain conditions are present in star-formation....which is of course what the main point of the article was

jc

][cEMAN**

Yeah naw I know hehehe

I'm messing - I mean c'mon of course it's possible to have these elements with no possibility of life. Mars is a great example of that.

But it you look at the probabilities where there are x amount of solar systems and a % of those will have a planet the same class as earth and same distance/size etc then work out the probability that something like a stray meteor would collide with it which may have some organic life on it in a frozen state you start to see that it seems possible if not highly probable.

Add to that then the fact that there are scientists who have worked out that life may have existed when the earth was formed and the outter layers cooled and ice formed minimum 5M thick around the entire planet then Heck yeah it's REALLY probable.

It depends on you r POV - is life chemistry and probability or devine intervention?

I think a little of both but either way it HAS a lot to do with probability. Now think on life - it's not really natural - it's not automaticaly formed when planets are......so it's something that technicaly goes wrong.

Murphy's law - anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.

It's life Jim but not as we know it.......