DailyDirt: Nature Abhors A Vacuum
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Studies have shown that spore-forming bacteria can survive in space under certain conditions, so it doesn't seem so implausible that life -- as we know it -- has accomplished interplanetary travel successfully. Extremophiles living in unexpected places also seems to suggest mounting evidence that life exists on other worlds, even though we have no direct proof of extraterrestrial beings (yet). Here are just a few links related to the growing field of astrobiology.- NASA microbiologists have classified a new genus (not just a species) of bacteria that can survive in the clean rooms designed to prevent spacecraft from contaminating the rest of the solar system with terrestrial organisms. The bacterium Tersicoccus phoenicis was first found in 2007 in a clean room made for the Mars lander Phoenix, and it's been seen again in another clean room 4,000 km away that housed the ESA's Herschel space telescope. [url]
- When the universe was just 15 million years old, the 'Goldilocks' conditions for supporting life might have existed nearly everywhere -- 10 billion years before life on Earth likely began. No one is actually certain if planets even existed when the universe was that young, but if there were, liquid water and nice ambient temperatures were probably not that hard to find. [url]
- The asteroid that killed off all the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago hit with such force that rocks from Earth could have been ejected out of our atmosphere -- to travel as far as Saturn. Rocks from our planet could have carried life to Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn (as well as the moons of those planets), so if we ever find life elsewhere in our solar system, it might have come from Earth. [url]
- Biomolecules may have formed on asteroids when our sun was much younger and warmer than it is now. The 'Goldilocks' zone for our sun may have included the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but our sun has cooled with age and the asteroid belt isn't a very likely place to find liquid water anymore. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: asteroids, astrobiology, bacteria, et, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial life, extremophile, life, microbe, planets, seti, space, tersicoccus phoenicis
Companies: esa, nasa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
this filled me with terror asking myself the question, what if we are alone in the universe because everyone else was already here and died out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Life OUT THERE
[ link to this | view in thread ]