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Aliens

He guesstimated it, of course.

In 2004, there was a discovery of iron-breathig microbes.

Rust-breathin bacteria

That's right. They live off metals, and make electricity. Now, who's to say if there was a planet exactly like that, it'd never have life? Here on Earth it does.

Given them being untouched from the outside world, and allow nature to take its course... years from now, there could be complex life forms in a world with that as the entire planet.

There may not be life on every planet. But there may also be a chance of life on every planet.

Just because a planet MIGHT have life doesn't mean it will. Any planet might have incredibly unique life - but any planet might also have no life.

I'd say on each world, there is a 50/50 chance of life existing. Life as we know it is a different question, but... life, definetly, can exist anywhere. I mean, there's life on Earth that needs no water, and no oxygen.

Complex life is also gonna be elsewhere, as is intelligent life. The only thing with those two are that there is a lesser chance of complex life, and even LESS chance of intelligent life.

Either way, it's out there somewhere most likely.
 
The idea that life can form almost anywhere is a valid one, but I think that if we're going to look for life out there, a good starting point is to look for Earth-like planets and go from there.
 
I believe aliens exist. There are too many stars and too many planets for them not to. I highly doubt that we'll actually meet any during our lifetime, or ever, but if we do, I hope they don't go all agro and blow us up. If they do, it'll probably because humans shot at them first. Blasted humans, blowing everything up. Anyway, I am sick of scientists going life can only exist under Earth-like conditions. Really, who's to say that aliens can't eat rocks and poo butterflies? Ridiculous example, but you get what I mean.
 
Also, oxygen is a component of nucleic acids. No organism on Earth lacks nucleic acids. Thus, no organism on Earth can survive without oxygen.
 
That depends on whether you mean the element oxygen or the MOLECULE oxygen. Most common referral is the latter, in which case you are wrong. But this is semantics.

I mean, oxygen atoms are in CO2 too.
 
Of course I mean the element oxygen. If I meant the molecule, I would use the term "oxygen gas" or "molecular oxygen".
 
Yes, Watershed, how dare you question opal's knowledge of science, with your measly chemistry degree. opal's a professor, you know, or so he tells me. He could be marking your thesis next year. If you mean the molecule, you use the term "oxygen gas" or "molecular oxgyen". Even little children know that.
 
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opaltiger said:
Of course I mean the element oxygen. If I meant the molecule, I would use the term "oxygen gas" or "molecular oxygen".
Click to expand...

Problem is when people are referring to "living without oxygen", they mean living in anaerobic conditions completely. The fact that oxygen is contained in other molecules is irrelevant, since nobody is implying anything about elementary oxygen (lots of other elements are required for life too, like C, H, N, S, P, and a bunch of metals). But nobody is saying "we can live without carbon". All organic molecules are made of carbon, but when we talk about carbon in trivial usage, nobody means elementary carbon. They mean C(s), ergo, carbon solely. (of course with carbon the problem arises that you have several stable forms like graphite, diamond, etc).

Elementary oxygen is bound to so many other things (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur) that it is useless to refer to oxygen in the form of the elementary substance. While you are technically correct it doesn't serve any purpose other than confusing people. When researchers are looking for oxygen, they are looking for the molecular form in which it is common on earth. Besides that, you are rarely going to find O on its own. Oxygen would be a radical in that form and react with pretty much everything.

Even molecular oxygen reacts with almost anything given the right circumstances. Almost every metal that exists, with the exception of a few things like gold, is directly oxidized in air, and the process speeds up in water. If you find elementary oxygen, it could just be ferrous oxide or something, or silicon oxide, or aluminium oxide, or whatever. All that means is that once upon a time, in the beginning of the universe, there may have been a bunch of oxygen on a planet that immediately reacted away with the minerals.

Bottom line: if you say "life can't exist without oxygen", you're correct, but you're being unnecessarily trivial and odd about conventions. It's much, much more convenient to define "oxygen" semantically as molecular oxygen because you would always find oxygen around as a diatomic molecule. Solely "O" atoms don't exist. If people are looking for oxygen they are looking for oxygen compounds.
 
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I really have to say I would love the idea of friendly aliens(None come to mind) or Hostile aliens, (such as the Irkans). <Invader Zim. but I would never, in any way, want to see the Na'vi. I hate them.
 
I don't think it's unlikely. Even with what we call modern technology, we can only see so far from the earth. There could be four, or five hundred other celestial beings out there like our sun. We don't know. In any case, it's definitely possible. I'm told ice was found on Mars. I have also heard that there's oxygen in the atmosphere of multiple planets. I am unsure about creatures like humans, but I cannot believe that there isn't even bacteria off of the surface of this planet.
 
They fly around on mini-dragons and dismantle giant fucking tiltrotors. Are we talking about the same aliens here? How are the Na'vi not awesome?
 
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