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Extraterrestrial life on Europa or Enceladus could be 'indigenous,' study says
Fox News ^ | December 17, 2019 | Chris Ciaccia

Posted on 12/17/2019 8:13:09 AM PST by Bubba_Leroy

If there is life in the Solar System outside of Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus are two of the most likely spots to hold them.

However, any extraterrestrial creatures on these celestial objects probably are not related to us, according to a new study.

The research, presented at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union by Purdue University geophysicist Jay Melosh, looked at the idea of "lithopanspermia," an idea that life hopped from one planet to another via rocks that were ejected into space, according to Space.com, which first reported the news.

[snip]

In June, NASA said it would send a mission to one of Saturn's other moons, Titan, which could also be home to life. Launching in 2026, the mission, known as Dragonfly, will see a rotorcraft fly "to dozens of promising locations" on Titan after it arrives in 2034.

Two months later, NASA confirmed it would launch a mission to Europa, a trek that could answer whether the icy celestial body could be habitable for humans and support life.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: astronomy; enceladus; europa; jaymelosh; lithopanspermia; nasa; panspermia; purdue; science; xplanets
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It is an interesting article discussing the possibility of life on two of Jupiter's moons and, if it exists, how it most likely got there ... until you get to the last sentence and the author jumps the shark. No, nobody is questioning whether Europa "could be habitable for humans." The only question is whether it could be habitable for some form of microbial life.

The question of whether some form of extremophile microbial organisms could have been spread from one planet to another is a genuine one. We know that some meteors that fall on Earth originated from Mars, and were blasted into space by asteroid strikes early in the development of the solar system. Presumably, pieces of Earth were similarly blasted into space by asteroid strikes and fall as meteors on other planets and moons in the solar system. We also know that some forms of Earth bacteria have survived for extended periods of time on the exterior of spacecraft in that we have sent into space.

Unless and until we actually either find life on another planet or figure out how to create a living organism from scratch in a laboratory, we have no way to know if life is common throughout the rest of the universe, rare and only evolving when countless different conditions are met, or if so many trillions of events had to occur for life to evolve that it exists only on Earth. Even if you accept that life exists on Earth because God created life, it does not answer the question of whether God chose to create life anywhere else.

If we find any sort of living organism anywhere else in our solar system, we then have to determine whether it evolved entirely independently from life on Earth or whether life in our solar system originated on one planet and was then spread to others. If life independently evolved anywhere else in our solar system, then life is probably common in the rest of the galaxy, wherever some basic conditions are met. If the rest of our solar system is sterile, then life is probably rare or Earth may be entirely unique.

1 posted on 12/17/2019 8:13:09 AM PST by Bubba_Leroy
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Uranus should also be checked for signs of life.


2 posted on 12/17/2019 8:15:18 AM PST by eclectic (Liberalism is a mental disorder)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

and if life everywhere in the Galaxy turns out to be White People ?


3 posted on 12/17/2019 8:15:47 AM PST by butlerweave
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Well, duh.....................


4 posted on 12/17/2019 8:16:19 AM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

5 posted on 12/17/2019 8:16:21 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Well I know they’re smart, but “indigenous” might be stretching it a bit.


6 posted on 12/17/2019 8:22:08 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (BLACK LIVES MAGA)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

The funny part is that Science has no explanation for the first living thing coming into existence. So far, only religion has an explanation - and it’s not a scientific one. Up to this point, the origin of life seems to be outside science’s swim lane.

i.e. One of our other planets could be almost identical to earth, yet have zero life on it, because science has no theory on how that could come about. They only have wild hypotheses.


7 posted on 12/17/2019 8:28:24 AM PST by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Archaea look like bacteria but are completely different from them. So different that they have been given their own Domain of life. That is, they are closer to us, the Eukarya than they are to bacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea

The used to be called “extremophiles” because they live in the most inhospitable of places, like next to oceanic volcanic vents, in extremely cold salt water, in total darkness.

They also consume things that bacteria do not, these range from organic compounds, such as sugars, to ammonia, metal ions and even hydrogen gas. Some get energy from sunlight, others from carbon.

Oddly enough, one kind of Archaea can inhabit the human gut, and actually improve our nutrition by consuming the waste products of bacteria, which otherwise would inhibit them, so the bacteria digest food better, with more nutrition for us.

This being said, if there is life on other worlds, it is far more likely to be based on Archaea, both in its basic and maybe *evolved* form.

There are more bacterial cells in the human body then there are human cells. So imagine an Archaea-evolved being permeated with a multitude of different kinds of Archaea.


8 posted on 12/17/2019 8:37:01 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Liberalism is the belief everyone else should be in treatment for your disorder.)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Europa is where your “missing” socks go.


9 posted on 12/17/2019 8:45:09 AM PST by fruser1
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To: Bubba_Leroy

It could be if there were any but there ain’t any.


10 posted on 12/17/2019 9:06:12 AM PST by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: fruser1

We’ll be the Pirate Twins again.....


11 posted on 12/17/2019 9:07:03 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: fruser1

Those missing socks are driving me up the wall. We have a new washing machine and a new dryer. And yesterday one of socks went missing. I checked every item to make sure the sock was not stuck somewhere. This is totally UN-explicable. I am now wondering if this house is haunted LOL.


12 posted on 12/17/2019 9:25:07 AM PST by entropy12 (You are either for free enterprise or for government price fixing. Can't be for both as convenient.)
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To: entropy12

The Sock Gnomes got them.


13 posted on 12/17/2019 9:26:00 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

No way God would use such a lame font.


14 posted on 12/17/2019 9:28:27 AM PST by Yardstick
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To: Bubba_Leroy

Leave the monolith alone!


15 posted on 12/17/2019 9:29:05 AM PST by BipolarBob (No border walls. No voter IDs. No Electoral College. You figured it out yet?)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

There is NOTHING in our solar system which can support intelligent & evolved life like we have on planet earth. They either lack oxygen or water or are too hot or too cold.It is a waste of resources to search for life in the our solar system. Not even primordial bacteria have been found on the moon or mars, the 2 places where spacecrafts have landed.

Then there is this vast universe. It is so huge, we have no clue where it ends and where it begins. May be there are no boundaries and the universe goes on for ever. Then there zillions of galaxies in the universe, and most are so far away, the light has not even reached us on earth. These galaxies have numerous suns in each. And those suns have numerous planets and satellites. The total number of terrestrial bodies are beyond human brain’s imagination.

So, with very basic laws of probability, there are huge number of planets out there which have the right temperatures, water & air to sustain evolving life. There is zero chance intelligent life has not evolved somewhere in zillions of planets.

But then think of how sparse just this milky way galaxy of ours is. The nearest another sun from our solar system is so many light years away, it will require many generations of humans to reach there, assuming we are capable of building a space craft to sustain many generations of humans and cover the zillions of miles.

So I am going to stick my neck out and posit that we will NEVER COME ACROSS alien intelligent life. Because everything so freaking far away. We are stuck on planet earth and before our Sun expands are fries all life on earth in a few billion years, just enjoy the beautiful planet earth. It looks amazingly beautiful from space!


16 posted on 12/17/2019 9:45:55 AM PST by entropy12 (You are either for free enterprise or for government price fixing. Can't be for both as convenient.)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

The solar wind has been blowing microbes from Earth out into space for billions of years. Who knows what could happen. It’s quite possible that any life elsewhere in the solar system did come from Earth.


17 posted on 12/17/2019 9:51:39 AM PST by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL!)
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To: entropy12

Not to the Klandarks of Aldebaran VII it doesn’t!


18 posted on 12/17/2019 9:54:41 AM PST by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL!)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

In Heinlein’s “The Puppet Masters”, the parasites (slugs) came from Titan.


19 posted on 12/17/2019 9:58:53 AM PST by saminfl
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To: entropy12
We have a new washing machine and a new dryer.

You need to slow down the drier drum speed, it's creating a worm hole......

20 posted on 12/17/2019 10:03:41 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (Never take a centipede shopping for shoes)
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