Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Monday March 03 2014, @01:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the its-life-Jim-but-not-as-we-know-it dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"What If We Have Completely Misunderstood Our Place in the Universe ? A Harvard astronomer has a provocative hunch about what happened after the Big Bang. Our universe is about 13 billion years old, and for roughly 3.5 billion of those years, life has been wriggling all over our planet. But what was going on in the universe before that time ? It's possible that there was a period shortly after the Big Bang when the entire universe was teeming with life. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb calls this period the 'habitable epoch,' and he believes that its existence changes how humans should understand our place in the cosmos. The full article is here"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @03:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @03:24AM (#9887)

    since the background temperature of the universe is so high, the local temperature gradient on any world with liquid water is going to be very small.

    That is only true if the world is floating around in the uniform, high background temperature, but you're never anywhere close to an equilibrium state as you mentioned two paragraphs above. You have a nice, hot star pumping energy into the system.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @04:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @04:09AM (#9898)
    Yes, but with a high background temperature the available gradients will be smaller ("close to equilibrium"...). That's not favorable for the formation of life...