Astronomy / Space Life in our Solar System

Giskard

Giskard
Aside from here on Earth, I often think about whether there are currently other life forms in our Solar System right now.

I'd like to know what other people's thoughts are on this.

It seems to me, that there just MIGHT be! Personally, if we do ever discover anything, I would not really expect to see life forms much more complex than bacteria. Perhaps the tiniest, simplest patch of moss or lichen? A tiny dot clinging to existence in some crevice? Unlikely, but possible...?!

Having said that, I would just LOVE to see a probe land on Jupiter's moon Europa, drill through the ice and discover an ocean underneath, teaming with swimming creatures! Can you imagine the excitement you would feel??!! My god, it would be Earth shatteringly brilliant!
 

Orbitalai

Orbitalai
Maybe they already have been discovered when ED releases. (and wiped out by the empire to test a new weapon system)
 

Giskard

Giskard
Yep. That's the big hope! Just one example....that's all we need.

Maybe the Chinese will start upping their probe output in the next 20 years...that might help.
 

Nicodemus

N
Our best hope for finding life within the solar system is probably Europa, that's not to say we couldn't be surprised by a bacteria on Mars or Titan but that's a very very very slim chance.
 

jabokai

jabokai
Giskard said:
I would just LOVE to see a probe land on Jupiter's moon Europa, drill through the ice and discover an ocean underneath, teaming with swimming creatures! Can you imagine the excitement you would feel??!!
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Totally agree! I'd be digging out my wetsuit, fins and speargun in a hearbeat! :D
 

Alien

Alien
We'll find a life form somewhere, say some bacteria on another planet. Then we'll bring it back to Earth to study. Very strict quarantine conditions will be set up. And, minds immeasurably more arrogant than ours will surely **** things up and the alien bacteria will wipe us out ... all of us.
 

Giskard

Giskard
Ah I see. Well we can't let a little matter of the destruction of the Human Race stop us from looking!

We're probably just as likely to accidentally release some deadly home-grown virus strain and wipe out a few billion!

I'm a firm believer however, in the fact that we have become so numerous and varied, that there will always be some people who are resistant...Like the fact that there we have identified many individual people who seem to be naturally resistant to the HIV virus for example.
 

Oddball

Oddball
@Giskard....

Yes, that would be something really special. I don't think it will be too long before we find some forms of bacterial life.

Going off topic a little, but in all probability, there must be life forms around other systems. There have been so many exo planets found in their habitable zones that there is a really good chance of life evolving there.

Sara Seager reckons that we will find life on another world within ten years.
 

kmw

kmw
What's the chance that one of our missions has already carried a bacteria to another planet, so we might 'discover' something we have unwittingly sent there ourselves?
 

Juniper

Juniper
kmw said:
What's the chance that one of our missions has already carried a bacteria to another planet, so we might 'discover' something we have unwittingly sent there ourselves?
Click to expand...

Possible, but unlikely. They're pretty thorough about that kind of thing. :)

As for life within our solar system, I wouldn't rule out Saturn's moon Enceladus either, which has large water plumes rising on a regular basis & a confirmed subsurface ocean. Similarly Titan, which although ridiculously cold (probably too cold for complex chemistry, at least on the surface), is kind of a pre-historic Earth in deep freeze. It's the only other place in the solar system besides Earth where liquid exists on the surface.

There's also the mystery of the seasonal methane on Mars :)
 
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