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Hollywood films and science fiction literature fuel the belief that aliens are monster-like beings, who are very different to humans. But new research suggests that we could have more in common with our extra-terrestrial neighbours, than initially thought.
In a new study published in the International Journal of Astrobiology scientists from the University of Oxford show for the first time how evolutionary theory can be used to support alien predictions and better understand their behaviour. They show that aliens are potentially shaped by the same processes and mechanisms that shaped humans, such as natural selection.
The theory supports the argument that foreign life forms undergo natural selection, and are like us, evolving to be fitter and stronger over time.
[...] The paper also makes specific predictions about the biological make-up of complex aliens, and offers a degree of insight as to what they might look like.
[...] 'There are potentially hundreds of thousands of habitable planets in our galaxy alone. We can't say whether or not we're alone on Earth, but we have taken a small step forward in answering, if we're not alone, what our neighbours are like.'
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-31-aliens-may-be-more-us-we-think
[Also Covered By]: phys.org
Darwin's aliens (open, DOI: 10.1017/S1473550417000362) (DX)
Evolutionary exobiology: towards the qualitative assessment of biological potential on exoplanets (DOI: 10.1017/S1473550417000349) (DX)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:25AM (1 child)
Why, yes. Yes, he did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:34AM
Lazy reporting, just read some of the more approachable science books and selected one that would sell well. A+ for butt sniffing?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:36AM (1 child)
If an ecosystem develops around self-replicating processes, then natural selection should come into play - but, in a different environment and with a different starting sequence, natural selection would be expected to come up with some dramatically different forms. Bilateral symmetry might be a something that frequently wins the natural selection game - two feet is the minimum required for running style locomotion, and two is also the minimum number for stereoscopic vision, directional hearing, and single failure backups. Five digits on the extremities would seem to be a more arbitrary evolutionary feature, or digits at all depending on the environment. You don't have to go extra-terrestrial to find variations like squid, octopi and elephant trunks.
Something that environment might play a big role in is the balance of the senses, in an atmosphere opaque to "visible" light, other senses would take the forefront, including all sorts of variations on the EM spectrum, pressure and pressure waves, particulate identification, and stranger things that we aren't likely to conceive of due to our limited experience in the Universe.
I think the interesting aliens won't be coming from Goldilocks zone planets with oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres and plenty of water, the interesting ones will come from different temperature zones, hot and cold, utilizing different chemical processes. Those aliens will also probably be easier to co-exist with in the same solar system.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:57PM
You may have already read it by now, but there's a graphic novel called Expedition-2358 which explores a lot of what you're describing (note that's the *abbreviated* name; it has an excessively long subtitle I can't remember).
I'm not sure if it's still in print atm. If something you're interested in, there's probably still an ebook version or used copies floating around on ebay or similar.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:44AM (17 children)
yes, just like us, extinct in 10,000 to 15,000 years.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:01AM (4 children)
That's incredibly optimistic.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:46AM (2 children)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:11AM
Maybe it is a reference to a length of time that homo sapiens sapiens (+ a few Neanderthal genes) [wikipedia.org] or modern civilization [wikipedia.org] has been around.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:52PM
There are 7+ billion of us. Even if there's a global nuclear war that ends modern civilization it won't wipe all humans out. At least tens of thousands will still survive. We might even still outnumber the current population of many other primates.
Some of those survivalists would probably be enjoying it and doing well (assuming enough people die, otherwise they might get laughed at ;) ). While some tribal/aboriginal people in the middle of nowhere might not even notice much except the weather not being "normal". Many might die of cancer earlier but that won't stop them all from breeding successfully. Lots of Hiroshima survivors lived till quite long. Look at those affected by Chernobyl - not everyone died at "extinction rates". Plenty are still living 30 years later. Radiation is good at killing a significant percentage of a population but you need a LOT more radiation to cause extinction.
As for Nuclear Winter, humans have lived through the last ice age.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:14PM
Because they have Trumpulians
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:01AM (11 children)
I think h. sapiens has already made it past the 15,000 year mark, we've even survived 5000+ years of agriculture and city building. Electricity was probably the beginning of the end for us, starting with Tesla - after that the rate of technological progress and change really picked up, almost simultaneously with the halting of natural evolution.
I doubt we'll go extinct anytime soon, we may have a population shrink from 7 billion down to 70,000, but I think that as a species, we're clever enough to survive our own foolishness for quite a while.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by ewk on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:23AM (1 child)
but that hubris...
Don't get me started on that! :-)
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:11PM
Well, the real question is: if we do bork ourselves back to the stone age, will we come out on top in the next iteration, or will something evolve that can take us out? That something doesn't have to beat us at our own games, it just has to beat us at the basic games of life: obtaining food, procreating, and sheltering in-between.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:47AM (1 child)
Homo sapiens will go extinct in this very generation**. It will be replaced by Homo Faecebookensis.
---
** We must allow some exception, though. There are fortunate people in this world without access to Internet, they'll last one generation longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:05PM
That's true enough, like I said, it started with Tesla and has been all downhill since.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:49PM (6 children)
This is certainly a mistaken belief. Selective forces are alive and acting. There is still natural selection (a.k.a pruning selection), sexual selection and all other types of selection acting on the human population now. More important, the current times are one of the most interesting in terms of evolutionary development. Arguably, natural selection is pruning less of the population than before (more infants survive, disease kills less). This is complemented with an exponential expansion of the population retaining more genetic variation than would be the case in a population of constant size. Historically, biological innovation happened under such circumstances as the difficult step to accumulate several potential harmful mutations to arrive at biologically superior solution becomes more likely. As a result, speed of human evolution is much increased at the moment as compared to earlier times.
What I can agree on is that biological is outpaced by technological development and we will not see the results of this evolution on steroids happening now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:14PM (5 children)
What does "biologically superior" even mean for humans anymore?
What we are seeing in terms of population growth today is the explosion of children of people who are willing to have children, and as a "fitness function" I find that dubious, at best.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:04PM
LGBTQIAH2SPAO [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:52PM (3 children)
That's a question evolution will answer. My personal guess is it has to do with intelligence, but what do I know.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:07PM (2 children)
Looking around me, humans' intelligence seems to be (loosely) negatively correlated with number of offspring... it's one of my larger concerns about the future of the human race.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:59PM (1 child)
Yep, Idiocracy in action.
I submit that attractiveness counts for way more than intelligence (no matter what the women claim on the dating sites).
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:27PM
Well, at risk of perpetuating a stereotype - the beauty queens I have known all tend to have more than 2 children, usually early, and often by multiple fathers. Pretty much following the Erin Brokovich storyline: no use for school, they had other ways to "feel powerful" in the world.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)
We feel joy, grief, pain, we bleed green just like you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:25AM
"If you prick us, do we not bleed?" (The Merchant of Venus)
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Friday November 03 2017, @01:53AM
Thats not blood, you've just popped a zit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:59AM (2 children)
Speculative science fiction, eh?
(Score: 2) by lx on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:24AM
No. It's hard science.
With a sample size of 0.
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:42AM
it could be argued that this is a field with much more grounding in reality than string theory.
for instance the predictions are definitely easier to test.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:20AM (21 children)
There are already lots of lifeforms on this planet which are very NOT like us from our normal usage of "like us".
But if you're comparing with a nebula or a star I'm sure many aliens will be more like us than such stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:45AM
> There are already lots of lifeforms on this planet which are very NOT like us from our normal usage of "like us".
Everything we deem alive consists of bags of proteins, water and nucleic acids. We don't say viruses are alive but they consist of nucleic acids in an envelope of protein. All of it probably came from a single ancestor. Right-handed amino acids are a rarity.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:54AM (19 children)
There are already lots of lifeforms on this planet which are very NOT like us from our normal usage of "like us".
There are, but precisely none of them have developed written language or significant technology. We've done that because of a few big reasons: we're land-based, we have big brains, and we walk on two legs and have opposable thumbs (i.e., we can carry things around and manipulate them without having to choose between mobility and manipulation/carrying). Dolphins are apparently intelligent and we can communicate with them to a degree, but they have no practical way of manipulating their environment (flippers kinda suck at grabbing things) and are stuck in the water. Chimps are pretty smart too, but apparently not smart enough for written language (they can manage some simple sign language). And that's about it. Everything else is basically too dumb to come close to our level of technology, and certainly isn't going to be traveling between stars anytime soon.
(Score: 4, Funny) by edIII on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:37AM
If they aren't, you may have just ordered yourself a whole lot of probes.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:36AM (2 children)
If the only interesting life forms are the ones capable of interstellar travel, then as far as we know there are no interesting life forms (the article speaks of "habitable planets" not of interstellar travel).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:20AM (1 child)
"As far as we know".
As far as we know, it isn't possible to go faster than the speed of light, which is a basic requirement of interstellar travel. From that we can conclude that we won't be able to detect anything going faster than the speed of light - if we were, the first such detection would destroy the theory that it isn't possible.
So yeah, as far as we know there are no life forms capable of interstellar travel, because we aren't capable of detecting them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:13PM
No, it isn't. The next star is only four light years away; a travel to that star is, by definition, interstellar travel. Also, sending a generation ship is interstellar travel; there's nothing in the definition that says the crew must be the same on arrival as on departure. Also, there might just be aliens that are very long-lived; if you live for several millennia, a century-long space travel doesn't sound too bad. And finally, thanks to relativistic time dilation, it is theoretically possible to reach an arbitrarily distant star in your lifetime, just not in the lifetime of your relatives that didn't come with you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:31PM (11 children)
I've gotta go with Douglas Adams on this one, again:
Sure, we've sent a few hundred of our species above the atmosphere (like: 0.00002% of people alive today...), and a few dozen probes to the planets, even a couple that have escaped the sun's gravity. But, in reality, as an average member of the species, which is the more sustainable strategy? Dolphins appear to have been "doing their thing" for millions of years without risking their own extinction, and without causing an extinction level event for the planet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:58PM (2 children)
but if you are born as a dolphin, there is a much bigger chance to die as an infant, there is a much bigger chance that any infection will be lethal, and there is a much bigger chance that you are hunted and killed for food by humans. and you can't jerk off.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:12PM
Using one's fins to jerk off is utterly uncivilized. The nature provides reefs and stinging anemones for that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by pvanhoof on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:22PM
They don't use their flippers, but they do have dildo's ..
"Dolphins have long penises that they can manipulate like it was an arm. Masturbation is fairly commonplace and there have even been reports of dolphins using live, wriggling eels to give some extra pleasure to the experience.
With that said, it might not be too much of a stretch that a dolphin has been spotted masturbating with a decapitated fish. That’s right, it is just going to town on the fish's dead, headless body. The dolphin looks like he's having a fantastic time. I’ll just let you have a look:"
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/self-love-animal-kingdom/ [iflscience.com]
http://www.youtube.com/embed/TvLZxG6pB6U [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:00PM (7 children)
Dolphins are being killed off by humans, and one species (in China) is thought to be extinct now. Their long-term strategy clearly is inferior to the humans'. It might work OK on a planet without any technological species, but Earth isn't that planet.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:03PM (6 children)
Which is inferior remains to be seen. Humans have demonstrated the clear ability to destroy any living thing on Earth, including themselves, but does that make them superior? If any one of a dozen recent historical events had gone differently, it could have been the dolphins living free and easy right now and the humans scrambling to avoid starvation. If humans can continue the miracle of the last 100 years of technological progress forward for another 10,000, then, yes, I think we can be judged "superior" to dolphins. The judgement will be a lot easier (for me, at least) if humans manage to carry dolphins and a significant portion of the Earth's present biodiversity along with them into the future. That's something that dolphins have done for millions of years, whether by intention or accident.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:11PM (5 children)
It really doesn't matter if humans survive or not. If the dolphins are made extinct by humans (even if that event destroys human civilization too), then the dolphins' strategy obviously was not superior, as it was a failure to compete and survive.
A good human analogy for this is Hawaiian culture. By all accounts I've read, pre-contact Hawaiian culture was free and easy: food was abundant, they lived in a paradisical land, they had free sex, they surfed, war was non-existent, disease wasn't a problem, etc. What happened? They were overrun by a European-derived civilization. Sure, the European civilization meant life was no longer free and easy, they got stupid Christianity and its prudism forced on them, they got diseases, war, poverty, not even owning their own land any more, etc., but their own civilization wasn't able to fend off this threat, which is why their strategy failed.
A free and easy way of life is great, up until some other culture comes and destroys it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:36PM (4 children)
What I've gleaned of pre-contact Hawaiian culture is that: yes, the tourist myths are true to some extent, time to surf, plenty of poi to eat, etc. but it was also a pretty harsh dictatorship, something that gets soft-pedaled now that their culture has been steamrollered.
If you take a hypothetical case of two spacefaring species: one sterilizes any new habitable planet they find before even attempting a landing, while another observes, learns, and eventually, when possible, forms a harmonious union with the new civilizations they find. A) If these two start out as "first movers" in space travel on opposite sides of a galaxy, which one do you think will be more capable when they do eventually contact each other? B) Which one would you call superior?
Just because the British and other European empires were a bunch of insecure, blood thirsty, conquest mad hooligans, and they happened to briefly rule the Earth does not mean that their methods are the best, or even the most powerful in a longer game than one-rock domination.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:58PM (3 children)
What I've gleaned of pre-contact Hawaiian culture is that: yes, the tourist myths are true to some extent, time to surf, plenty of poi to eat, etc. but it was also a pretty harsh dictatorship, something that gets soft-pedaled now that their culture has been steamrollered.
How so? According to what I've read, and what I heard from a tour guide there once, people generally lived in little villages, marriage and monogamy didn't exist (except among royalty, that was different and bloodlines were guarded), and things were pretty easy. However, there were certain zones that were off-limits to non-royalty, and anyone venturing there would be immediately killed. So yeah, that kinda sucks I guess but some no-go zones doesn't sound bad compared to the rest. I haven't heard of anything else really horrible about their culture.
A) If these two start out as "first movers" in space travel on opposite sides of a galaxy, which one do you think will be more capable when they do eventually contact each other?
It's impossible to say for sure, but I'd like to think the harmonious one will be more capable because they'll be like the United Federation of Planets: strength through diversity (plus, not killing off productive potential members of society--i.e. more manpower). But that could be a pipe dream. These days, China is looking like the next superpower and they're not diverse at all culturally, while the diverse US is going down in flames and the even more diverse EU is too disorganized to be a world power.
B) Which one would you call superior?
Depends on your metric. If superiority is based on who survives, it's whichever one wins the inevitable war between the two. If your measure of superiority is "which society would I rather live in", I'd rather live in the harmonious union, assuming it survives for my lifetime. But look at Hawaii: is it better to live as a Hawaiian or a European imperialist? If your life as a Hawaiian ends (of old age) before European conquest, then that's preferable to me. But if it comes after European conquest, being on the side of the conquerors is better; being a slave or serf is never a preferable life.
Just because the British and other European empires were a bunch of insecure, blood thirsty, conquest mad hooligans, and they happened to briefly rule the Earth does not mean that their methods are the best, or even the most powerful in a longer game than one-rock domination.
Their methods may not be the most pleasant, but if they end in success (even if that's because of brutality and atrocities) and survival over other competing cultures, then it is the successful strategy. Yeah, it sucks, but I can't see any advantage in being conquered or exterminated. We can talk about how great some exterminated cultures were, by certain measures, but survival against a conquering society obviously wasn't one of their strengths.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:50PM (2 children)
My visit to Hawaii was brief, and Oahu only, but we did a lot of research on the Big Island and considered moving to HPP or thereabouts pretty seriously for a while. The condition there, outside Hilo, today too much resembles the Florida I grew up in: out of control immigrant growth. It was sad to grow up in it once, I don't want to go watch another paradise drown in obnoxious outsiders. The unforgivable no trespassing zones were just one (big!) example of royal privilege, I remember that there were others, but this is reaching back decades - specifics are fuzzy. Plenty of Hawaiians today are happy to not have to grow, grind, and eat poi, but, otherwise, life as the 50th state is certainly not quite up to par with the stories of old, for the natives. Today is, perhaps, a minor improvement from the sugar plantation days that ended around the 1970s.
The "strength through diversity" approach would seem to be a strong advantage, in the long game. In the short run, if you can deliver a single competitor a knockout blow, then, sure, small game over, you won. If you can manage to learn from, and occasionally join forces with, your competitors - that's likely to be a winning strategy when one big fuzzy entity starts to encounter another big fuzzy entity and knockout blows aren't really possible. Humans may turn this extinction level event into a doozy, but I don't think we'll be capable of taking out all the microbes - that's an "opponent" that's just too diverse for us to exterminate, they'll keep coming back from the niches, no matter how badly we skew the environment.
As for China, I think they're winning at the moment due to their willingness to learn from us and adapt: beat us at our own game, so to speak. Maybe they're retaining enough ethnic pride to turn on the world one day, do to Europe, Australia and the US what they did to Tibet, maybe not - that's a tough call at the moment, I think we're at least a century away from such attempts, if they ever even try.
The nations of the Earth are, today, big fish in a very small pond, and the king of the hill, destroy your enemies lest they live to defeat you another day strategy very much applies. 100 Billion stars in the galaxy, and hundreds of potentially habitable bodies orbiting each one, or drifting through space unassociated with a particular star. 100,000 light years from one side to the other. That's a very different game than one rock that you can orbit in 90 minutes, and a single biosphere that can be severely crippled with just a couple of tons of plutonium.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:11PM (1 child)
100 Billion stars in the galaxy, and hundreds of potentially habitable bodies orbiting each one, or drifting through space unassociated with a particular star. 100,000 light years from one side to the other.
Minor quibble: I thought the Milky Way had about 1 trillion stars in it at last count. The nearby Andromeda galaxy (I think some parts are nearer to here than the far side of our own galaxy even) has several trillion. However, not all those stars have potentially habitable bodies; According to this [wikipedia.org], stars too close to the core are too likely to be near supernovae and other events to make life likely, though some criticize the idea of a galactic habitable zone altogether, with one criticism being that stars may move great distances through the galaxy over time rather than just staying in one spot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 03 2017, @02:51AM
My quibble with "habitable zones" is: habitable by what?
Too much heat for life? The undersea thermal vents have stretched that thinking. Too much radiation? Maybe for DNA, but maybe other structures thrive on it.
I don't keep up with the latest star counts (and I suspect the old "what is a star?" question will drastically affect the count)... The main point is: it's huge, multiple orders of magnitude more huge than anyone on Earth is likely to truly comprehend. What's the difference if we have 15 stars per human in this galaxy or 150? Or, whether 10% of them are too close to the core for us to survive or 50%?
I think one of our bigger problems, lately, is that nobody really even comprehends 7 billion people... it's too abstract, and scary, to really contemplate.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:03PM
None of which seem to be mentioned in the paper.
The paper makes claims like this: "Like humans, we predict that they are made-up of a hierarchy of entities, which all cooperate to produce an alien."
Which while being more specific than vague stuff about evolution (that were made earlier in the paper) and entropy still gives great scope for aliens that aren't really like us.
The title and editorialization for this story is not backed by the paper.
(Score: 1) by rylyeh on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:50PM
Male dolphins have been known to masturbate by wrapping a live eel around their penis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin/ [wikipedia.org]
If that's not tool use, what is?
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 2) by terryk30 on Friday November 03 2017, @03:10AM
Don't forget about this [theonion.com]...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:30AM (9 children)
Stop and think for a minute about the Oort cloud - if you can "make your own star" in the form of a controlled fusion reactor, the Oort cloud has hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies rich in volatiles like water and organic chemicals. If we graduate to moderately capable sub-light speed space travel, the Oort cloud would seem to be a great area to populate: lots of space, lots of resources, relatively little solar radiation to worry about, and if we get good at living in our own Oort cloud, then colonization of nearby stars should be relatively easy: seems a safe bet that they would have similar Oort clouds.
Living in the Oort like that for a few thousand generations should lead to all kinds of adaptations, primarily: ability to deal with low gravity, low ambient light, and perhaps bodies that can deal with much lower temperatures. When we eventually do meet aliens, what are the odds of them coming directly from a rare, hot rocky planet vs an icy cloud?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:04AM (8 children)
I'm sorry, I don't see the attraction of the Oort Cloud for colonization unless you really want to get away from the inner system for some reason (e.g., the Alliance controls it with an iron fist).
First of all, assuming we can make a reliable fusion reactor, you need fuel for it. That usually means deteurium, He3, etc., not just H2 hydrogen. Stars can get away with simple elemental hydrogen because they have enormous mass and use that to force fusion. The fuel we'd need isn't that abundant, though there is supposedly a bunch of He3 on the moon. Of course, it's there because of the radiation from the Sun, so you're not going to find it in the Oort cloud. So where do you think fuel to keep these colonies going is going to come from?
Second, life in the Oort cloud would have little appeal outside your closed habitat. There's very little light that far from the Sun, so the views are going to suck. You can just stay in your closed habitat, but why bother going all the way to the Oort cloud for that? It's much easier to build colonies closer to the Earth, or even in space.
The simple fact is, if we have the tech to make closed habitats, the easiest thing to do will be to build large free-floating stations in some orbit not far from Earth, spin them for artificial gravity, and collect energy from the Sun. There's plenty of resources right here, on the Moon and nearby planets, or in the asteroid belt, or in asteroids that stay in or venture through the inner system. Radiation from the Sun is a problem, but in the Oort cloud cosmic radiation will be a problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:28AM
there is supposedly a bunch of He3 on the moon. Of course, it's there because of the radiation from the Sun, so you're not going to find it in the Oort cloud.
Helium-3 is primordial. The Sun is making helium-4, not helium-3. The tiny amount that arrives on the Moon via the solar wind is offset by what solar heat drives off.The outer planets ought to have more helium-3 than the Moon does. They can retain it more readily because they are cold. [deepdyve.com]
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:58AM (3 children)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:25AM
a good chance that many of them won't have all that many volatiles
Why would that be?
There was a story the other day [soylentnews.org] about the discovery of water ice on Ceres, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. Comets, which spend much of their time in th eouter Solar System, have substantial volatiles. I would expect the general trend to be the farther from the Sun, the more volatiles.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:09PM
Pluto is a pretty nice lump of ice and dust to work with, and it's not a planet because there are so many other Oortian objects out there of similar and larger mass.
No, they're not close together, but that isn't such a bad thing. The resources on Pluto should support a sizeable colony, say 100K residents, maybe much more if fusion fuel is abundant.
My main point is: we're using up the third rock, and we're all stuck here together. As a long term strategy, I'd rather have 7 billion humans spread across 7000 different colonies in the Oort clouds of 100 nearby stars, instead of 7 billion humans stuck on a single rock. It might take months, years, or lifetimes to travel between colonies, which should give the colonies opportunity to diversify, instead of homogenizing.
In my travels, I have enjoyed much more visiting places with different languages, cultures and foods, the ubiquitous McDonalds? not so much.
And, while physical visitation is not going to be easy, or even practical for most residents, light speed communication should work quite well.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @10:54AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:48PM (2 children)
As for isotopes, while we are shying away from the endeavor, we've been capable of manufacturing all kinds of isotopes for 60+ years. Not saying that our current practices are efficient, or practical, but with practice they should improve. And, as for what raw materials exist in the Oort, I doubt we have even a fraction of an idea of what we could find there.
As for environments, yeah - tropical beaches will be in short supply, but with your own sun(s) and lots of water if a tropical beach is the priority, one should be manufacturable in a lifetime or less, which is a heck of a lot faster than they happen on Earth.
One HUGE advantage in the Oort is the lack of solar radiation, so radiation shielding is less of a requirement - not that radiation shielding at Earth's distance from the sun is impossible, but it is a big deal, and will be a similar (often harder) problem in the liquid water zone around other stars.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:56PM (1 child)
As for isotopes, while we are shying away from the endeavor, we've been capable of manufacturing all kinds of isotopes for 60+ years.
Using energy to manufacture isotopes to fuel reactors to create energy isn't going to work. We already can't figure out how to make fusion reactors energy-positive, even when the isotopes are a given. You could create the isotopes in the inner system using solar energy (like how they're naturally created on the Moon), and then transport them to the Oort cloud to fuel the reactors, but if you're going to do that, why not just stay in the inner system?
And, as for what raw materials exist in the Oort, I doubt we have even a fraction of an idea of what we could find there.
We haven't even bothered doing much serious investigation on mining raw materials here in the inner system or the asteroid belt. You want to skip all that and go way out to the Oort cloud, where there's probably far less total volume of material, and no apparent source of energy?
As for environments, yeah - tropical beaches will be in short supply, but with your own sun(s) and lots of water if a tropical beach is the priority, one should be manufacturable in a lifetime or less, which is a heck of a lot faster than they happen on Earth.
If you can manufacture artificial environments like that, why do you need to go to the Oort cloud? You can keep your space habitats here in the inner system.
One HUGE advantage in the Oort is the lack of solar radiation, so radiation shielding is less of a requirement
Except (IIRC) cosmic radiation is a much bigger deal in the Oort cloud because you don't have the Sun's magnetic field protecting you. You're going to need shielding wherever you go.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:19PM
So, I think you misunderstand me - I'm not saying we skip the inner system, I'm saying that's not where we ultimately end up.
Of course we'll need to practice asteroid mining before we can venture beyond Neptune to do things there, but the better and better we get at living independent of Earth support, the more we will be able to go anywhere cold and make it warm. Much harder to go somewhere too hot and keep it cool.
Cosmic radiation is a thing, and the Sun's field is a protection, but cosmic radiation is much less "pulsey" than solar storms - once you've got the cosmic radiation tamed to an acceptable level, you should be able to run much longer between worrisome events. I think the Apollo missions all had solar flare abort contingencies, and the probability of needing to do one was pretty high on a mission that just lasted a few days.
The bigger picture of the Oort cloud is that it's more of a cosmic commodity, and if you're talking about what kind of advanced aliens you might encounter, odds are that they will be coming from the commodity resources, not rare and special rocks.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:04AM (3 children)
"We can't say whether or not we're alone on Earth"
The aliens walk among us already? Damn ... So are they like Greys or Reptilians or ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:11AM
How dare you! The proper term is undocumented immigrant!
#MextraterrestrialLivesMatter
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:52PM
...or Garry. I knew it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:02PM
Time Lords
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:21AM
I hear the experience tends to vary [youtube.com] somewhat.
(Score: 3, Funny) by KritonK on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:57AM (1 child)
As any Star Trek fan will tell you, aliens look like humans with only minor differences, such as differently shaped foreheads or ears.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:09PM
And the universal translator works, perfectly, in 99/100 episodes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:29AM
If not for some extraterrestrial impacts our family tree may never have developed, survived or evolved. And let's not forget about a few volcanoes.
We are very lucky to be here. Tens of millions of years ago some creature with a lucky mutation didn't get eaten before it reproduced and started us down the path to homo sapiens.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:30AM (4 children)
Looking in our own back yard, the most intelligent species (that are not us) don't look at all like us: Donphins and some species of squid.
And they evolved on the same planet that we did, they just did things differently. Squid never left the water. Dolphins (well, their ancestors) left the water but returned.
That's the amount of difference evolution gives on the same planet with the exact same starting conditions (we, dolphins and squid all share a common ancestor - and dolphins are more closely related to us than to squid). Now imagine evolution on a planet that's just a tiny bit different, with a completely different starting point (for evolution they probably need something with similar function to our DNA, but it will not be chemically similar at all).
The closer they are to us, the less likely we are to meet them. Because statistically the tighter the requirements, the more rare they will be. The ones that are most likely to pass our planet will be the ones we won't even recognize as "living", if we are even able to see them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:55AM (3 children)
The point regarding dolphins going back to the water made me think. Lot of our daily technological advances don't mix very well with water. Yet, dolphins have not developed other technologies to generate a "technosphere". Let's say aliens also would return to their oceans somewhere in their evolution, how would that influence their "technosphere" and our ability to make contact with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:02PM (2 children)
you can't have technology in water, because you cannot build precision tools.
or you need to learn how to take advantage of underground volcanoes in order to melt metal, but I'm not sure you can then convince the metal (while under water) to get into a precision tool shape.
water melting all around, turbulence and stuff.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pvanhoof on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:28PM (1 child)
A lot of underwater creators build their shelter underwater. Clams grow it, for example. I suppose other forms of 'technology' could then also be done underwater? We huumanz just didn't often need to create things underwater.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:22PM
Yep, the coral reef ecosystem is really impressive, and arguably the great barrier reef is a bigger construction than any human metropolitan corridor today - too bad they're all dying from rising temperatures and many are dissolving from acidification.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Friday November 03 2017, @01:19AM
>> like us, evolving to be fitter and stronger over time.
Not at all. I think that this has already stopped, and looking around, is even in full reverse now.
It's an inevitable consequence of the way that modern society has a bizarre drive to totally eliminate absolutely anything that could even be perceived to be a slight risk to humans safety,
and also views even the most unsuitable people reproducing as something to be loudly celebrated, as if they've achieved something difficult.
Together especially, that's a recipe for total disaster and is inevitably taking a giant dump in our genetic soup.
Simply put we've already almost totally eradicated natural selection in humans, but it's a fundamentally necessary mechanism for the process of evolution.