GRcade

Moggy wrote:

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

My money is on Earth.

rinks wrote:My hope is that Beagle 2 has, over the course of 17 years in isolation, gone full-on Ultron. By tomorrow morning it will have launched an attack on the invader Perseverance.

Peter Crisp wrote:

rinks wrote:My hope is that Beagle 2 has, over the course of 17 years in isolation, gone full-on Ultron. By tomorrow morning it will have launched an attack on the invader Perseverance.

Meet the real Borg.

Like the Star Trek version but all super British so they don't actually kill you they just stand about awkwardly trying not to bother anyone and sometimes asking if you're ok.

Xeno wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56133281

Perseverance hanging from the sky crane.

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

Moggy wrote:

Meep wrote:I'm not hugely optimistic about finding even traces of life on Mars. Too much radiation without a magnetosphere. Probably more likely to find something under the Europan ice where it's shielded.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

SillySprout wrote:

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

For sure. But are you including moons within this? Europa feels prime candidate for something potentially more sophisticated, but proving it wont be easy.

On Mars, I suspect we may be fortunate enough to find some evidence that life may have been present in the past, though I suspect absolute proof is unlikely, and certainly anything which is living on the planet right now is likely to be too deep underground for the latest visitors to reach. I can't wait for the day that absolute undeniable proof of life is found though.

VlaSoul wrote:

Squinty wrote:Honestly, I would be surprised if at least one planet in the solar system doesn't have microbial life on it.

This is the question right? How common is life really and in what windows of geological time can it survive? I suspect that simple forms of life, like RNA worlds, are probably not too uncommon in the universe, but more complex life is likely rarer. I haven't got my hopes up for finding anything in this solar system though.

VlaSoul wrote:[
Most extremophile organisms aren't always good line to follow with xenobiology imo
Deinococcus is a bacteria genus, which is already a relatively complex lifeform and as such has evolved complex DNA repair mechanisms. The question is can simpler forms of life, or organic assembly, sustain themselves for long enough in these environments to propagate? Indeed, can they even form in these conditions at all? I speak of the RNA level here but perhaps even that isn't a good analogue.

Meep wrote:I think most of the times life generates it usually fails due some internal instability, environmental factor or it just destroys itself before it ever reaches a more advanced state. For example, in the early days on life on Earth about 98% of all life was wiped out due to oxygen pollution. There are probably x number of planets for every Earth were the fatality was 100% and they are now just toxic wastelands.

Squinty wrote:That's the great filter. People are wonder when our next filter event will happen. It will probably be climate related, resource wars etc.

OrangeRKN wrote:Can't wait for the full video!