For Panspermia Proponents

[drgoodtrips]

Seems to me this article supports the titular hypothesis for the origins of life on Earth:

http://spacefellowship.com/2009/08/18/nasa-researchers-make-first-discovery-of-lifes-building-block-in-comet/

“Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet,” said Jamie Elsila of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Our discovery supports the theory that some of life’s ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.”

[Michael]

Wow that's very cool! :)

Although it doesn't really teach us anything new, it rather seems to confirm a longstanding theory about the orgin of life on planet Earth.

Indeed, this does throw a curveball at the ID theory as well and that's double-plus-good! ;)

The other ramification of this finding is that the probability of life existing on some other planets is definitively possible (as opposed to pure speculation).

[drgoodtrips]

Yeah, I find it pretty exciting myself. I wonder if it means a potential boost for the public opinion of SETI and Carl Sagan's legacy.

As a general libertarian, I very much struggle with the idea of public expenditure on space exploration. I tend to want to support it, which violates my general principles on letting the free (managed) market sort things out. However, I think it's so important and the government is in a unique position to have both resources and a (mostly) pure academic/exploratory interest. The private sector will only address it if strip mining on the moon meets some cost-benefit analysis. But, the public sector addressing it tends to lead to wonderful private sector developments and technologies.

So, I hope that findings like these serve to sway some people where it matters that we ought to keep exploring.

[Michael]

Yeah, I find it pretty exciting myself. I wonder if it means a potential boost for the public opinion of SETI and Carl Sagan's legacy.

As a general libertarian, I very much struggle with the idea of public expenditure on space exploration. I tend to want to support it, which violates my general principles on letting the free (managed) market sort things out. However, I think it's so important and the government is in a unique position to have both resources and a (mostly) pure academic/exploratory interest. The private sector will only address it if strip mining on the moon meets some cost-benefit analysis. But, the public sector addressing it tends to lead to wonderful private sector developments and technologies.

So, I hope that findings like these serve to sway some people where it matters that we ought to keep exploring.

I definitely don't share your enthusiasm for 'public sector' here as that includes the US military-industrial-complex. Heck, those people make the private sector moon strip-miners look benign by comparison.

[andrewl]

Seems to me this article supports the titular hypothesis for the origins of life on Earth:

http://spacefellowship.com/2009/08/18/nasa-researchers-make-first-discovery-of-lifes-building-block-in-comet/

While i like the theory of panspermia and think it quite likely, it unfortunately does not solve the deeper mystery of where life originated in this universe. It merely pushes its origin off earth, but how did it get on that comet?

Andrew

[drgoodtrips]

I definitely don't share your enthusiasm for 'public sector' here as that includes the US military-industrial-complex. Heck, those people make the private sector moon strip-miners look benign by comparison.

I'm inclined to think that there is enough pure science motivation with NASA and subsidized university applications as to be insulated from the military sphere somewhat. When I talk about my enthusiasm, I don't mean for things like "Star Wars". I'll grant you that the military certainly keeps an eye on whatever the eggheads are doing and looks for ways to weaponize it.

[drgoodtrips]

While i like the theory of panspermia and think it quite likely, it unfortunately does not solve the deeper mystery of where life originated in this universe. It merely pushes its origin off earth, but how did it get on that comet?

Andrew

Well, it's a step in the right direction. If we come to establish a good working theory that the answer lies somewhere in space, that narrows things down (a tiny bit).

[andrewl]

Well, it's a step in the right direction. If we come to establish a good working theory that the answer lies somewhere in space, that narrows things down (a tiny bit).

Or it would explode the possible answers to overwhelming levels.

At least if we were certain life somehow originated on earth it would only be a matter of mixing the right chemicals and conditions to eventually create it in the lab. But if life originated off earth we cannot ever be sure where it came from, or when, for that matter.

[SMadsen]

Indeed, this does throw a curveball at the ID theory as well and that's double-plus-good! ;)
Want to bet a twenty that threads on this topic will be flooded with replies like this: "It only provides evidence that comets are intelligently designed"?

Nothing rubs ID'ers the wrong way except the word "unconstitutional". That's the only thing standing in their way.

Or it would explode the possible answers to overwhelming levels.

At least if we were certain life somehow originated on earth it would only be a matter of mixing the right chemicals and conditions to eventually create it in the lab. But if life originated off earth we cannot ever be sure where it came from, or when, for that matter.
Fortunately, a sure thing in science is purely a practical concept.

That an answer may raise a million other questions merely poses more challenges, not obstacles. There is nothing to prevent us from answering questions of the natural world, except dogma and other kinds of more or less deliberate loss of ingenuity. But of course you know that.

[Lily]

Joni Mitchell was right, we are stardust.

[Zarquon]

I think even if on earth life did come from a comet, it would eventually have to have begun with the 'Primordial Soup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Origin_of_organic_molecules)'(Abiogene sis), the best prevailing explanation.

[JHC]

While i like the theory of panspermia and think it quite likely, it unfortunately does not solve the deeper mystery of where life originated in this universe. It merely pushes its origin off earth, but how did it get on that comet?

Andrew

How ya doing Andrewl?

Glycine isn't life. It is just one amino acid of 20 and it is the absolute simplest. We call it organic because of it's chemical composition which includes carbon (NH2CH2COOH). Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Carbon and Oxygen - that's all there is to it. Hydrogen and oxygen are relatively abundant in the universe with carbon and nitrogen among the top 10.
The way these happened to bump into one another and combine to form a glycine molecule makes it a pretty cool find but, like Goodtrips (I think) said, it's not as if we didn't expect to eventually find it. The more we know about the universe the better idea we have of where to look. The implications are that there are places in the universe where density of the elements required to create life are sufficiently conducive to do so. For instance, even though H is the most abundant element, the individual atoms are so few and far between statistically, that without certain conditions existing, the probability they would ever be in close enough proximity to have an attraction are extremely small.

Life did almost certainly originate on earth. The same basic amino acid natural construction has been synthesized in the lab. I remember the Carl Sagan episode talking about it. The question, err, one of them, is did it originate anywhere else too?

As far as infinite regression goes, we can and have asked where the elements come from and with any luck, that huge collider in Cern (the Large Hadron Collider), will give us a little more insight into that regression too.

[JHC]

OMG, I almost forgot to bring up Stephen Hawking's new documentary in which he warns not to look for alien life because if we find them, they will likely be as rotten as we are but much smarter.

[Michael]

OMG, I almost forgot to bring up Stephen Hawking's new documentary in which he warns not to look for alien life because if we find them, they will likely be as rotten as we are but much smarter.

:rofl:

A candidate for "BPOTW" honors! :D