Inhabited Planets

[Rick O'Shez]

My space-alien friends are atheists, so be warned!

 

[Ouroboros]

What?
You think there was a period when the majority of the earths surface was below freezing for more than a few weeks?
Uh, no. The coldest of the ice ages still left most of the planet temperate most of the year. There has never been a period when a huge chunk of the earths surface wasn't in between 5C and 60C. That is a tiny speck of the temperature spectrum between the solar face of Mercury and Pluto. And that is a small part of the difference between the surface of the sun and deep space, which account for the huge majority of the universe.
Tom

What I read is that during the Neoproterozoic the temperatures were down to -20º all the way down to the tropics. I agree that there are certain ranges of temperature that is beneficial for our form of life, but it doesn't mean that this Earth hasn't gone through some really rough times (5-6 extinction events, one of them, "The Great Dying" killing over 90% of all species). We just happen to live in a very great and comfortable time, the past 10,000 years. It can change, and it will change again. Also, it doesn't mean that there might be other forms of life that can live in other conditions. They have found creatures that live in ice.

http://time.com/3681478/antarctica-fish/

Those animals probably consider their own climate to be perfect for them.

 

[Demonslayer]

Yup, and here's yours. Dress warmly.

Mormon God is wise, I'm a skier so I'm happy to take a snowy planet. I've already got the proper gear, thanks Mormon God!

 

[columbus]

A number of unanswered questions exist, including whether the Earth was a full snowball, or a "slushball" with a thin equatorial band of open (or seasonally open) water.

The geological time frames under consideration come before the sudden appearance of multicellular life forms on Earth known as the Cambrian explosion, and the most recent snowball episode may have triggered the evolution of multi-cellular life on Earth.

So, before life developed photosynthesis or gastrointestinal systems ice ages were more encompassing.
How much colder would the planet have to get to be sterilized? 5C?
Had this happened since life developed vascular systems, would there be vertebrates?
Sapience?
The questions remain.
Tom

 

[jonathan180iq]

What?
You think there was a period when the majority of the earths surface was below freezing for more than a few weeks?
Uh, no. The coldest of the ice ages still left most of the planet temperate most of the year. There has never been a period when a huge chunk of the earths surface wasn't in between 5C and 60C. That is a tiny speck of the temperature spectrum between the solar face of Mercury and Pluto. And that is a small part of the difference between the surface of the sun and deep space, which account for the huge majority of the universe.
Tom

During the period of planetary accretion, before the atmosphere was churned out by the release of various different types of gasses, there of course would have been drastic temperature changes between daytime and night time. The Solar System is filled with numerous examples of this. Just think of the night time temps on Mercury, which dip down to nearly -300* F.

 

[Ouroboros]

A number of unanswered questions exist, including whether the Earth was a full snowball, or a "slushball" with a thin equatorial band of open (or seasonally open) water.

Sure.

My reaction was really about the "Not once in billions of years..." Which isn't so. Neoproterozoic was less than 1 billion y.a.

The geological time frames under consideration come before the sudden appearance of multicellular life forms on Earth known as the Cambrian explosion, and the most recent snowball episode may have triggered the evolution of multi-cellular life on Earth.

Probably so.

So, before life developed photosynthesis or gastrointestinal systems ice ages were more encompassing.
How much colder would the planet have to get to be sterilized? 5C?

Tardigrades can survive freezing temperature, drought, and space.

Had this happened since life developed vascular systems, would there be vertebrates?
Sapience?
The questions remain.
Tom

Perhaps not, but could there be other kinds of life based on chemical reactions unknown to us? I think there could be. We just don't know about them. We don't even know about all elementary particles that might exist in this universe or all the forces, and we don't know what makes consciousness or awareness to arise except from some form of information processing system.

Also, think of that methane/ethanol and amino-acids/lipids and more are found in space. Those are considered organic matter. Exactly what is required and how this is done, we don't know. What is then the requirements to assemble lifeforms from that organic matter that is in space? Well... we don't know. Our knowledge is limited to this world and how this one works. It's perfect for us, but it doesn't mean that's the only way a biosphere could exist. NASA is sending a mission to Europa (the moon) to find out if there's life under its icy surface. Why? Because there's a possibility there could be some.

 

[columbus]

But life has proved to be very adaptable on this planet.

Within a tiny temperature range. That's what I keep pointing out. People keep pointing out that it was a tiny bit larger a few hundred million years ago as if that is significant to the likely hood of ET.
Tom

 

[Ouroboros]

Within a tiny temperature range. That's what I keep pointing out. People keep pointing out that it was a tiny bit larger a few hundred million years ago as if that is significant to the likely hood of ET.
Tom

I was rather pointing out that "billions of years" was wrong.

 

[columbus]

Perhaps not,

What are the odds?
Deist mentor made a claim about what were "conservative" odds.
I'm saying nobody knows.
Tom

 

[columbus]

I was rather pointing out that "billions of years" was wrong.

Y'all resemble Young Earth Creationists. You go on about the minutiae, while carefully dodging the evidence and the big picture.
Tom

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I was rather pointing out that "billions of years" was wrong.

And I was pointing out that we do not know whether or not temperature range is really a limiting condition, nor how limiting, because we have only our sample of 1. Certainly, however, there will be other worlds that orbit their stars at a distance that will keep their surfaces within a narrow temperature range that would be hospitable to life. Maybe many, maybe a few. But more study may eventually help in resolving those questions.

 

[Town Heretic]

I merely broke off the date, not our tender relationship. It happens all the time around here, and not only with myself.

Still, you can't fault me for seeing the humor in it.

Only if the fellow values my opinion so much that it matters. But thank you for the compliment.

?????? Boy, I've got to bone up on these throws coming in from left field.

If it's easy it's probably worth the effort (if you're wondering, yes).

Make you a deal: I'll make an effort to be funnier, or smarter, or both if you make an effort to edit your script a bit. Wading through lengthy, polysyllabic prose ain't going to win friends or influence people.

It varies with me. For instance, once I was arguing with a right wing fundamentalist who offered:

"The southern states have a problem with wild pigs. They ruin the land. Perverts are like that. They have ruined America."

My rebuttal?

"Do you laugh a lot? And by "a lot" I mean do you?"

And when another said, "[Obama's] the gayest president we've had."

I responded with, "Do you even know how many of the early presidents wore hose and wigs?

I mean around the house...and, of course, the Senate."

So it varies.

 

[Parsimony]

So then let's just agree on a likely percentage. That should be pretty easy, right?

Fine, we'll take NASA's data on 100 billion galaxies and multiple that by 1 billion planets per galaxy (their estimate), and if ONLY .0000000001% of those are habitable, we're still talking 1 billion potential civilizations!

Without any math available to calculate the odds of abiogenesis, any given numbers are complete speculation. The odds could be one in a googolplex for all we know. I would like to think there are aliens out there, but I have no way of knowing yet.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And we may not want to find intelligent life. What if it is way more advanced than us,,,,and doesn't like us. Personally though I do tend to believe that with the vastness of space it would be more improbable than not that we are alone. It really would be a terrible waste of space, and from a religious aspect it seems to put a limit on Gods creative power.

Some see it as our destiny to colonize the stars, the Bible talks about humanity eventually numbering the same as the stars in the heavens- which it correctly compared to the number of grains of sand on Earth- which would take more than one Earth!

Otherwise- we know everything in creation was contained in a primeval atom, a tiny spec, the universe's size was dictated by the math in the design, not the number of trips God had to make to Home depot.. i.e. what was he wasting?

If for the same 'price' you could create a space-saver 'energy smart' compact universe, a minimalist Truman show dome just big enough for us to rattle around in- or a vast awe inspiring cosmos- that, incredibly, we can actually see and marvel at.. drawing us beyond ourselves, testing our curiosity and comprehension to it's very limits...

the latter seems much more consistent with a divine creation does it not?

 

[Sonofason]

The .000001% was a very small, very conservative number. As was the initial number of planets within a mere 1,000,000,000 galaxies. Chances are, the percentage is much higher, especially since NASA at space.com has stated that Hubble has identified at least 100 billion galaxies, instead of my use of 1 billion.

I tried to keep it simple because we were getting into so many zeroes that my calculator looked at me funny...

So its basically an uneducated guess. I'm not saying there is no life elsewhere. But there certainly is no reason to assume there is.

 

[David1967]

Some see it as our destiny to colonize the stars, the Bible talks about humanity eventually numbering the same as the stars in the heavens- which it correctly compared to the number of grains of sand on Earth- which would take more than one Earth!

Otherwise- we know everything in creation was contained in a primeval atom, a tiny spec, the universe's size was dictated by the math in the design, not the number of trips God had to make to Home depot.. i.e. what was he wasting?

If for the same 'price' you could create a space-saver 'energy smart' compact universe, a minimalist Truman show dome just big enough for us to rattle around in- or a vast awe inspiring cosmos- that, incredibly, we can actually see and marvel at.. drawing us beyond ourselves, testing our curiosity and comprehension to it's very limits...

the latter seems much more consistent with a divine creation does it not?

Amazing to contemplate Isn't it?

 

[Neo Deist]

there is a rough consensus of 10^22 maybe ^24 for the number of stars - perhaps a few more for the unobservable to the extent we can even consider that 'extant'

but that's talking about the region of 100s of billions of trillion stars

(incidentally the Bible compares the number of stars in the heavens with the number of grains of sand on Earth- which was considered a wild exaggeration until we learned it was surprisingly accurate)

We certainly know there are some very long odds in making a planet habitable for complex life- simply identify two different parameters that each have a modest improbability of 1 in 100

those compound each other into 1 in 10000- there go 4 of your 24 zeros already. You get to zilch very quickly this way.

So your whole argument is basically, "the Bible did not say so, therefore I don't believe it"?

 

[Katzpur]

There better be, each dead Mormon gets their very own private planet. It's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

Jeesh! How ignorant can you get?

 

[Katzpur]

Looking into Kolob a bit, and noting the nearness of the two, heaven must be some kind of physical place.

Yeah, it is. It's a physical place where a physical God resides.

 

[Katzpur]

From what I've read there are many such planets.

In Mormonism? Or BSG?

Mormonism.

What Mormonism teaches is really not all that complicated. We believe that God created "worlds without number." That means there are a lot of worlds out there. "Out where?" should be the next question. And the answer to that is that we don't know. Mormonism does believe in a multiverse concept, although that term isn't specifically used. Maybe God created other universes besides ours. Are we completely alone? I don't believe we are. Do you?