NASA discovered a shrimp below 600 feet of antarctic ice. What does this tell about life on other planets?
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M$2 Answers
Also, since we pass methane gas when we eat certain foods, when Europan life passes gas, they pass water vapor, and the smell of water vapor is displeasing to them. methane is odorless to them.
Of course this is all what COULD happen. Not what is LIKELY to happen.
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M$
True, but -to keep up with your analogy- as you know you have a TV in your bedroom, doesn't that indicate you *CAN* have a TV in any other bedrooms? Even better, in any other room, provided certain conditions are met?
The same would apply to this shrimp. Apparently, certain conditions are met below the ice shelf, which are less strict than we previously thought them to be.
For one, it was long thought that light was a precondition to life. Apparently, this shrimp has been done perfectly well, without any light.
It may prove we should be less strict with dismissing areas as 'too inhospitable to sustain life', simply because humans wouldn't be able to live there.
Plus, who says there cannot be any life based on methane, instead of carbon and water?
I dont know. To me it does take a bit of an imagination stretch, since science has identified about 2 million species on this planet and everyone of them either breathes oxygen or carbon dioxide, and every single one of them needs at least SOME water to survive. The odds that it could happen in nature seem to be next to impossible.
We do have some really really smart science engineers, but I'm not sure even they could pull off something so overwhelmingly in the favor of water. Would be very interesting if they could. My guess is that they'd have to figure out how to create life. The reason I say that is because they're pretty unsuccessful when it comes to creating new species from existing ones. Yeah, we can clone animals now. We have been able to create new breeds of exisiting species, but they are still pretty much the same animal.
Dogs for instance. The American Kennel Club lists 153 different breeds. This doesnt include extinct or wild dog breeds. They are all still dogs, and have the same basic traits that all other dogs do. There's variety, but they're all dogs. They've never been cats, mongeese (yeah i know thats not the right way to say the plural form of mongoose, but it sounds funnier), or perigrine falcons. They'll always be dogs.
I suppose there perhaps might possibly be a potential way to maybe get a new species from a dog...but the odds, once again, aren't even close to being in favor of that ever happening.
Same would be true of an organism being created, in nature or in a laboratory, that needed sulfur or methane to survive, but did not need water.
You are right, I just looked it up, and they are not sulfur-based, merely sulfur-dependant. Just like we are both water and oxigen dependant...
Still, wouldn't be too much of a mind-stretch to come up with a pure sufur-based organism. I guess our science engineers should be able to pull that off.
You're definitely right about the shrimp not 'proving' life outside Earth. I totally agree with you on that part.
However, it DOES force us to widen the range of possibilities a bit, as it is yet another example of how versatile life actually is. If I remember correctly, biologists even found life based on sulfur, around active vulcans.
But indeed, more, and more convincing proof is definitely needed before extra-terrestrial life becomes a reality. (or even a possibility)
There is no life based on sulfur in the same way like on earth is water-based. There are organisms that can life very near sulfiric environments that will kill most other life forms. That life still needs water.
OK. So life could be based on methane. Or any of the other chemical compounds that abound in the universe. But that is pure speculation. We can only prove that life requires water. When combined with the speculation about what is under the ice of Europa (and we are not even sure that the ice is frozen water either) we start to get into a whole lot of what ifs. I am not totally dismissing the idea of extra-terrestial life but a shrimp under the ice of planet that is teeming with life does not convince me that other planets/satellites are also full of life. I'll have to wait for something a bit more concrete.
I like your train of thought. So, any organism on Europa would probably be not only smaller, but still way slimmer, right? Because the smaller diameter of Europa, and the much lower gravity on its surface.
Anything is possible in the imagination. It would be ironic however, since liquid methane dwelling shrimp would fart water vapor and they'd live in FAR colder temperatures than ANY liquid water dwelling shrimp, that they could be 16 times LARGER. Who knows.
This is backwards thinking. If the planet has lower size and lower gravity, then the lifeforms will be bigger not smaller. They will have less gravity to contend with, which is one of the limiting factors, especially for land animals. Similarly, a lifeform on a massive planet would have to be tiny to avoid being crushed.
Actually, they couldnt fart water vapor, because liquid methane would be so much colder than liquid water, which is even colder than gaseous water. Poor critters would have to fart ice. Ouch.