Oxygen detected on Saturn's Moon Rhea

Yeah it's definitely too late for me... but if I had a good enough telescope I'd be staring right at Uranus!
 
MattinSTL said:
Yeah it's definitely too late for me... but if I had a good enough telescope I'd be staring right at Uranus!
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Fry: Did you build the Smelloscope?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: No, I remembered that I'd built one last year. Go ahead, try it. You'll find that every heavenly body has its own particular scent. Here, I'll point it at Jupiter.
Fry: Smells like strawberries.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Exactly. And now, Saturn.
Fry: Pine needles. Oh, man, this is great... hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus.
Leela: I don't get it.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.
Fry: No, no, I, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here.
 
Yeah.. that Media Advisory for the presser at 2pm EST / 11am PST ton Thursday is sending all sorts of speculation across the internet.

Of course I'll just be boarding a flight that leaves Seattle at 11.35am. If I'm lucky, I'll catch the news at the airport; or perhaps on WiFi in the air if we have it.

- Mikko
 
I'm willing to bet that OUR first perceptible encounter with "alien life and/or the evolution of life" is going to be finding water with some of the elements of protein in it... i.e. some amino acids, or other "predecessors" to actual protein... outside of that, if we come in contact with intelligent life I don't think we'll even know unless they want us to know. If a man can hide from another man using sticks and mud for camo, what do you think that same guy may try in 100 million years... to get a closer look at that SAME man, at that level of development (us) that we were just talking about?

Then of course the sci-geeks will equate a string of amino acid in water, with discovering the alien version of Winston Churchill disclosing the mysteries of the universe.

IMO... if we ever come across "intelligent" life... we probably won't be glad we did... even unintelligent life that makes it here (one way or another) may be the worst thing ever. From everything we know about life (not just human life, sorry, "the matrix") is that there really ISN'T a limiter on how well a species can do without predatory regulation... and for all we know AIDS could very well be no worse then "the sniffles"... in universal terms.

Or if there is higher-conscious universal life... on what basis do we expect them to be even remotely close to our level? IF there was an intelligent life that we encountered... not only are the odds incomprehensibly high that they'd be a MAGNITUDE smarter then us... (this is based on the simple time-line of our current level of development comprising a FRACTION of a hair's WIDTH, not length, on a developmental time-line that's as long as a football field! i.e. we JUST learned how to get off this rock in the past 40 years!) That's nothing... LITERALLY NOTHING, or .000000000000001 to the 10th of 1% of how much time another species could have on us... so... probably... zero chance. What do you think? They're going to meet us and say "Heyyyyy... COLOR TV!? Oh my God! We're still stuck with black and white!"... No. More then likely there would be an even larger span of intellect between us, and them, then there is between us... and a mouse, or bug, or whatever... and considering we can't even get along and communicate with other humans very well... I doubt such a meeting would be a good thing.

SETI should equal "search for extinction of these idiots"... :)

Sorry to be dark... but logically... that's the most likely outcome. It's funny to assume that some divine morality will be inherent in a highly advanced, intelligent species... (excuse me while I go try the veal)... and we all know that viral infections don't exhibit high morals either.

If we find life... or it finds us... that's probably going to be a really bad day.
 
I'm fairly certain if anything ever showed up here, we'd probably try to attack it. And I'm 99.9% certain it will win. Considering whatever life makes its way over here managed to get from their planet to Earth and we can't manage to get farther than our own moon, I would assume that they would be infinitely more advanced than we are. And such, we'd get our human butts kicked if there was ever a reason for an alien race to attack us. Pending it is intelligent and has defensive capabilities.

Even if life we encounter was a bacteria of some sort, look at the Mayans after the Spanish came over to say hello. Things didn't end well for the Mayans, and they were generally decimated by disease.

Either way, I agree with Mattin.
 
Mattykins said:
Pending it is intelligent and has defensive capabilities.
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If something "intelligent" can get here... and they didn't have defensive capabilities... but found a reason to "handle" us... they'd just take their futzbars that they normally use to get the seeds out of in-season blobber-doons... you know... when they're making dinner... and just point 'em at us.

Frank (why wouldn't an alien be named 'Frank'?)... (through a universal translator): "Wow... that guy just poked me with a stick, so I pointed my futzbar at him and I'll be damned! It flung the long seeds right out of him... just like an over-ripe blobberdoon!"

LOL! Honestly... if you want to play around with a scary thought... I honestly think the universe is probably TEEMING with life... and while the sci-guys would say I'm wrong about this... I think it's mostly vast distances (that equals time) that keeps us all safe from each other... so each of our little experiments can go on for eons, without some thug coming along and punching the ant farm.
 
I'm putting my money on Nasa calling a press conference to say life could potentially evolve on Rhea or something, and that's it.

But if intelligent alien life came to Earth... I just hope they don't start preaching about Space Jesus or something.


EDIT: I missed the word "don't".
 
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[...] to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
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"will" is a very very strong word to use in science. It generally means a 100% certainty of something happening.

The statement implies a "game changer" statement is going to be made. That's what got the press all riled up.

- Mikko
 
Alright people back down to earth. Too much movie watching about aliens.

Grant money is due to be voted on by congress and therefore nasa must make a "discovery" to keep the money rolling in. Everyone has house payments, car payments and kids to feed.
 
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