Men are from Mars, but who is from Venus ... ?

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classic33

Leg End Member
It's often been said when we've looked for life elsewhere, we've restricted our search to lifeforms that we're familiar with. And that by restricting what we search for, we may be missing what is in plain sight.
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Location
Inside my skull
It's often been said when we've looked for life elsewhere, we've restricted our search to lifeforms that we're familiar with. And that by restricting what we search for, we may be missing what is in plain sight.

It is more that they’ve been looking for conditions they think are necessary for life. So temperature, presence of water etc. But having now seen bacteria and other life forms living in volcanoes oxygen free the search is widened.

It’s also about the resolution and speed of the instruments now in space. Some signs of life you cannot detect from Earth because there’s our own atmosphere getting in the way.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
It is more that they’ve been looking for conditions they think are necessary for life. So temperature, presence of water etc. But having now seen bacteria and other life forms living in volcanoes oxygen free the search is widened.

It’s also about the resolution and speed of the instruments now in space. Some signs of life you cannot detect from Earth because there’s our own atmosphere getting in the way.
Some have argued that the Mars rovers were set up only to search for life we thought could exist. The next ones will have been reprogrammed to allow the search to include silica based life, not just carbon based.

We'd need a similar return to Venus to find out if other life forms could exist. High pressure, highly sulphuric deep underwater vents have lifeforms that thrive round them.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
I don't think we were missing the possibility of life forms in strange places. The great Arthur C. Clarke himself had long since postulated the possibility of airborne life, possibly quite sophisticated and developed forms that never see or touch a solid surface - after all, such primitive cellular life forms exist at high altitidues on earth. Its more a case that the detection of the phosphine, and the work done to eliminate the possibility that it had come form other planetary sources, was simply a fairly recent event.
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Location
Inside my skull
Some have argued that the Mars rovers were set up only to search for life we thought could exist. The next ones will have been reprogrammed to allow the search to include silica based life, not just carbon based.

We'd need a similar return to Venus to find out if other life forms could exist. High pressure, highly sulphuric deep underwater vents have lifeforms that thrive round them.

Surely this depends on the definition of life? What silica based life forms do you know of? Besides silica is a compound , do you mean silicone? In which case just search for breast implants on Venus.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Never say never, but silicon based life is less likely due to the manner in which the atoms behave with tempersture and pressure - carbon is far more reactive, molecures are much more energetic and liable to combine with others. Physics is physics wherever you are (unless you are in a black hole)
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
It's life Jim, but not as we know it :rolleyes:
Bones bricklayer.jpg
 

Baldy

Über Member
Location
ALVA
I don't think we were missing the possibility of life forms in strange places. The great Arthur C. Clarke himself had long since postulated the possibility of airborne life, possibly quite sophisticated and developed forms that never see or touch a solid surface - after all, such primitive cellular life forms exist at high altitidues on earth. Its more a case that the detection of the phosphine, and the work done to eliminate the possibility that it had come form other planetary sources, was simply a fairly recent event.


Think it was actually Carl Sager who first came up with the idea.
 
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