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60 years of silence - so far


CNN —

Waters may be flowing on the surface of a colossal planet that lies about 120 light-years from Earth, according to new evidence uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Been a long time coming, doing proper spectroscopy of exoplanets. Nice to see this field finally coming into its own.
My daughter did a science project on Cecelia Payne, who took that stuff to the next level when she determined the make up of stars. Now up out of the atmosphere, they probably can get some pretty accurate data.
 

CNN —

Waters may be flowing on the surface of a colossal planet that lies about 120 light-years from Earth, according to new evidence uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.

We should aim something at it ... a can of microbes and prokaryotic forms compatible with oxygen rich and anoxic environments.
If they grow up in a few billion years and evolve into intelligent species, they'll wonder how life started, and we can laugh. The nutbar freaks among them might posit that it was aliens seeding the planet, but they'll be dismissed out of hand or locked up.
 

CNN —

Waters may be flowing on the surface of a colossal planet that lies about 120 light-years from Earth, according to new evidence uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Been a long time coming, doing proper spectroscopy of exoplanets. Nice to see this field finally coming into its own.
My daughter did a science project on Cecelia Payne, who took that stuff to the next level when she determined the make up of stars. Now up out of the atmosphere, they probably can get some pretty accurate data.
My career has been doing astronomical spectroscopy, from ultraviolet through infrared, including targets such as molecules and dust in the interstellar medium, Solar System planetary and cometary atmospheres, and more recently carbon in Earth’s atmosphere, developing both ground-based and space-based instrumentation.
 

CNN —

Waters may be flowing on the surface of a colossal planet that lies about 120 light-years from Earth, according to new evidence uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Been a long time coming, doing proper spectroscopy of exoplanets. Nice to see this field finally coming into its own.
My daughter did a science project on Cecelia Payne, who took that stuff to the next level when she determined the make up of stars. Now up out of the atmosphere, they probably can get some pretty accurate data.
My career has been doing astronomical spectroscopy, from ultraviolet through infrared, including targets such as molecules and dust in the interstellar medium, Solar System planetary and cometary atmospheres, and more recently carbon in Earth’s atmosphere, developing both ground-based and space-based instrumentation.
I used an IR FT spectrometer when I worked on IR systems to measure optics. And Zygo interferometers. Interesting things.
 
An exoplanet that has an atmosphere of 78% Nitrogen and 20% oxygen could easily be uninhabitable by humans if the remaining 2% were to include a certain amount of chlorine, for example. Or of carbon monoxide. Or of a fairly large range of organic poisons, that might hypothetically be deployed by the local biology as a competitive edge over evolutionary rivals.

The terrestrial biochemistry to both produce and tolerate oxygen was a major boost for the species that first evolved that pair of abilities, and oxygen production now dominates the plant kingdom and is common in such widespread life forms as phytoplankton; while oxygen tolerance is almost completely universal amongst terrestrial organisms.

An exoplanet on which Cl2 production and tolerance were similarly widespread, would be a very unpleasant place for humans, and for their crops and livestock.
Are any of those stable, though? Most of the nasty stuff is rather reactive, would it stay in the atmosphere if something widespread wasn't continually producing it? Even oxygen can only exist in the atmosphere due to production, it is eliminated by reaction but slowly enough that the vast quantities pumped out by photosynthesis can maintain the supply of oxygen.

The non-reactive toxic stuff isn't exactly prone to sticking around in the atmosphere.
You answered your own question.

Terrestrial life has evolved to produce a pretty vicious poison - oxygen - and to tolerate it. As a consequence, the Earth has a very unusual atmosphere, which contains almost 20% of a molecule that is only present because of terrestrial life.

An exoplanet without life would not be expected to have an oxygen rich atmosphere; Conversely, an exoplanet with alien life could easily have an atmosphere that is rich, not only in oxygen, but also in other unstable toxic chemicals, such as (for example) chlorine.
But why would life produce such a molecule? We have an oxygen atmosphere because plants need carbon and the only available source was carbon dioxide. Producing oxygen is an expensive reaction, it wouldn't be done if there wasn't a biological need driving it.

What would life do that produced large amounts of chlorine as a byproduct? Where would it even get it's hands on large amounts of chlorine? Likewise, carbon monoxide--what's the reaction? If you're going to take an oxygen why not take both? And if you're trying to liberate energy, why not add both? CO is not a molecule that's going to be friendly to whatever created it.
 
An exoplanet that has an atmosphere of 78% Nitrogen and 20% oxygen could easily be uninhabitable by humans if the remaining 2% were to include a certain amount of chlorine, for example. Or of carbon monoxide. Or of a fairly large range of organic poisons, that might hypothetically be deployed by the local biology as a competitive edge over evolutionary rivals.

The terrestrial biochemistry to both produce and tolerate oxygen was a major boost for the species that first evolved that pair of abilities, and oxygen production now dominates the plant kingdom and is common in such widespread life forms as phytoplankton; while oxygen tolerance is almost completely universal amongst terrestrial organisms.

An exoplanet on which Cl2 production and tolerance were similarly widespread, would be a very unpleasant place for humans, and for their crops and livestock.
Are any of those stable, though? Most of the nasty stuff is rather reactive, would it stay in the atmosphere if something widespread wasn't continually producing it? Even oxygen can only exist in the atmosphere due to production, it is eliminated by reaction but slowly enough that the vast quantities pumped out by photosynthesis can maintain the supply of oxygen.

The non-reactive toxic stuff isn't exactly prone to sticking around in the atmosphere.
You answered your own question.

Terrestrial life has evolved to produce a pretty vicious poison - oxygen - and to tolerate it. As a consequence, the Earth has a very unusual atmosphere, which contains almost 20% of a molecule that is only present because of terrestrial life.

An exoplanet without life would not be expected to have an oxygen rich atmosphere; Conversely, an exoplanet with alien life could easily have an atmosphere that is rich, not only in oxygen, but also in other unstable toxic chemicals, such as (for example) chlorine.
But why would life produce such a molecule? We have an oxygen atmosphere because plants need carbon and the only available source was carbon dioxide. Producing oxygen is an expensive reaction, it wouldn't be done if there wasn't a biological need driving it.

What would life do that produced large amounts of chlorine as a byproduct? Where would it even get it's hands on large amounts of chlorine? Likewise, carbon monoxide--what's the reaction? If you're going to take an oxygen why not take both? And if you're trying to liberate energy, why not add both? CO is not a molecule that's going to be friendly to whatever created it.
 
We have an oxygen atmosphere because plants need carbon and the only available source was carbon dioxide.
Both plants and animals need sodium.

We get it from sodium chloride, leaving the chloride to react with other metallic ions, or with water, to produce various salts, and/or hydrochloric acid. In the case of terrestrial mammals, we produce a fair bit of HCl which we use internally for digestion; It's not a big stretch to imagine an organism using it externally for defence. Or using it as a basis to make Cl2. Bleaching your rivals to death isn't the kind of thing evolution would resile from.

Bombadier beetles us hydrogen peroxide as a weapon, and that's nasty stuff too.

Many of our favourite chemicals evolved as defensive weapons, including caffeine, nicotine, and various opiates.

Hydrogen sulphide is a toxic gas that's produced by some terrestrial microbes - a planet with a sizable sulphur reducing component to its biosphere could be not just smelly, but lethal, if sufficient H2S is being produced*.

There are plenty of biological toxins; Some are gases. Some inorganic toxins could easily be made by living organisms as part of an evolutionary arms race.





* At lethal concentrations, hydrogen sulphide cannot be smelled, as one of the first effects it gas is to paralyse the olfactory nerves. If you're working with the stuff, the time to get really worried is when you can't smell it.
 
An exoplanet that has an atmosphere of 78% Nitrogen and 20% oxygen could easily be uninhabitable by humans if the remaining 2% were to include a certain amount of chlorine, for example. Or of carbon monoxide. Or of a fairly large range of organic poisons, that might hypothetically be deployed by the local biology as a competitive edge over evolutionary rivals.

The terrestrial biochemistry to both produce and tolerate oxygen was a major boost for the species that first evolved that pair of abilities, and oxygen production now dominates the plant kingdom and is common in such widespread life forms as phytoplankton; while oxygen tolerance is almost completely universal amongst terrestrial organisms.

An exoplanet on which Cl2 production and tolerance were similarly widespread, would be a very unpleasant place for humans, and for their crops and livestock.
Are any of those stable, though? Most of the nasty stuff is rather reactive, would it stay in the atmosphere if something widespread wasn't continually producing it? Even oxygen can only exist in the atmosphere due to production, it is eliminated by reaction but slowly enough that the vast quantities pumped out by photosynthesis can maintain the supply of oxygen.

The non-reactive toxic stuff isn't exactly prone to sticking around in the atmosphere.
You answered your own question.

Terrestrial life has evolved to produce a pretty vicious poison - oxygen - and to tolerate it. As a consequence, the Earth has a very unusual atmosphere, which contains almost 20% of a molecule that is only present because of terrestrial life.

An exoplanet without life would not be expected to have an oxygen rich atmosphere; Conversely, an exoplanet with alien life could easily have an atmosphere that is rich, not only in oxygen, but also in other unstable toxic chemicals, such as (for example) chlorine.

Such an atmosphere would be inimical to terrestrial organisms, despite its oxygen content.

There's no good reason to expect any exoplanet to have an atmosphere that humans can breathe. Our atmosphere is basically a part of the global extended phenotype; It's a reflection of the biosphere that maintains it in its current composition - and it has changed repeatedly over time as various biological factors have come and gone.

Right now, humans are pushing up the carbon dioxide level. What effect that will have on our species survival remains to be seen. But there's no doubt that a hypothetical time traveller could go to Earth's past and find the air unbreathable, and no reason to expect that the same won't be true at some (hopefully distant) future date. And if the very atmosphere shaped by Earth-like organisms is only occasionally able to support H. Sapiens, the idea of an exoplanetary atmosphere being able to do so, at any random time in its lifecycle, is absurd.

To travel for decades through the instantly lethal void of space would be bad enough, but even worse for any proposed colony is to get to your new outpost, only to find that you're still confined to (and utterly dependent upon the ongoing integrity of) your spacecraft or cumbersome suits, because there is no breathable air.

And you need to enclose your crops and supply them with earth air, and earth soil, because the local soil bacteria would rapidly poison the air if you used it.

Sterilising megatonnes of topsoil and then seeding it with terrestrial microbes and other organisms sounds like a lot of hard work. Probably better to just stick to trying to colonise Antarctica or Siberia.


The premise of HG Wells, War of the Worlds.
 
An exoplanet that has an atmosphere of 78% Nitrogen and 20% oxygen could easily be uninhabitable by humans if the remaining 2% were to include a certain amount of chlorine, for example. Or of carbon monoxide. Or of a fairly large range of organic poisons, that might hypothetically be deployed by the local biology as a competitive edge over evolutionary rivals.

The terrestrial biochemistry to both produce and tolerate oxygen was a major boost for the species that first evolved that pair of abilities, and oxygen production now dominates the plant kingdom and is common in such widespread life forms as phytoplankton; while oxygen tolerance is almost completely universal amongst terrestrial organisms.

An exoplanet on which Cl2 production and tolerance were similarly widespread, would be a very unpleasant place for humans, and for their crops and livestock.
Are any of those stable, though? Most of the nasty stuff is rather reactive, would it stay in the atmosphere if something widespread wasn't continually producing it? Even oxygen can only exist in the atmosphere due to production, it is eliminated by reaction but slowly enough that the vast quantities pumped out by photosynthesis can maintain the supply of oxygen.

The non-reactive toxic stuff isn't exactly prone to sticking around in the atmosphere.
You answered your own question.

Terrestrial life has evolved to produce a pretty vicious poison - oxygen - and to tolerate it. As a consequence, the Earth has a very unusual atmosphere, which contains almost 20% of a molecule that is only present because of terrestrial life.

An exoplanet without life would not be expected to have an oxygen rich atmosphere; Conversely, an exoplanet with alien life could easily have an atmosphere that is rich, not only in oxygen, but also in other unstable toxic chemicals, such as (for example) chlorine.

Such an atmosphere would be inimical to terrestrial organisms, despite its oxygen content.

There's no good reason to expect any exoplanet to have an atmosphere that humans can breathe. Our atmosphere is basically a part of the global extended phenotype; It's a reflection of the biosphere that maintains it in its current composition - and it has changed repeatedly over time as various biological factors have come and gone.

Right now, humans are pushing up the carbon dioxide level. What effect that will have on our species survival remains to be seen. But there's no doubt that a hypothetical time traveller could go to Earth's past and find the air unbreathable, and no reason to expect that the same won't be true at some (hopefully distant) future date. And if the very atmosphere shaped by Earth-like organisms is only occasionally able to support H. Sapiens, the idea of an exoplanetary atmosphere being able to do so, at any random time in its lifecycle, is absurd.

To travel for decades through the instantly lethal void of space would be bad enough, but even worse for any proposed colony is to get to your new outpost, only to find that you're still confined to (and utterly dependent upon the ongoing integrity of) your spacecraft or cumbersome suits, because there is no breathable air.

And you need to enclose your crops and supply them with earth air, and earth soil, because the local soil bacteria would rapidly poison the air if you used it.

Sterilising megatonnes of topsoil and then seeding it with terrestrial microbes and other organisms sounds like a lot of hard work. Probably better to just stick to trying to colonise Antarctica or Siberia.


The premise of HG Wells, War of the Worlds.
That guy's always stealing my best ideas. :mad:
 
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We have an oxygen atmosphere because plants need carbon and the only available source was carbon dioxide.
Both plants and animals need sodium.

We get it from sodium chloride, leaving the chloride to react with other metallic ions, or with water, to produce various salts, and/or hydrochloric acid. In the case of terrestrial mammals, we produce a fair bit of HCl which we use internally for digestion; It's not a big stretch to imagine an organism using it externally for defence. Or using it as a basis to make Cl2. Bleaching your rivals to death isn't the kind of thing evolution would resile from.

Bombadier beetles us hydrogen peroxide as a weapon, and that's nasty stuff too.

Many of our favourite chemicals evolved as defensive weapons, including caffeine, nicotine, and various opiates.

Hydrogen sulphide is a toxic gas that's produced by some terrestrial microbes - a planet with a sizable sulphur reducing component to its biosphere could be not just smelly, but lethal, if sufficient H2S is being produced*.

There are plenty of biological toxins; Some are gases. Some inorganic toxins could easily be made by living organisms as part of an evolutionary arms race.

While I agree these could be weaponized I can't see them producing enough of either to make a difference in the overall atmosphere.
 
While I agree these could be weaponized I can't see them producing enough of either to make a difference in the overall atmosphere.
Well, the whole point is that we can't see.

It'd be a bit embarrassing if we struggled across tens of lightyears of interstellar space, only to discover that the planet we were planning to colonise was trying to kill us, as a side effect of some local evolutionary arms race that took place a billion years earlier.
 
File my present post under Useless Trivia, or in the Nitpicking Circular File. It was 65 years ago I bested the other 2nd-graders at arithmetic. -- I guess I'm posting this to brag that I haven't completely lost my arithmetic skill!

Even on our own planet, if you condensed the entire history of the earth into a single calendar year, with the earth forming on Jan. 1, modern humans didn’t appear until about one-tenth of one second before midnight on the last day of the year, Dec. 31.

I pride myself on good numeric intuition and this claim seemed very unlikely to me. So I fired up a calculator. Modern man's emergence is usually dated to 200,000 years ago. If that's "one-tenth of one second" in the analogy, then 2 million years is a second, 120 million a minute, 7.2 billion an hour, and there's almost 173 billion years in the analogic day. Even assuming the analogic year is non-leap we must multiply by 365 to get 63 trillion years for "the entire history of the earth", about 14000 times as large as usual estimates for the Earth's age.

Sorry for nitpicking. Next I will look for misplaced commas.
I did a similar back of the envelope calculation sind time ago and came up with: non- avian dinosaurs went extinct at Christmas, human and chimpanzee ancestors parted ways in the late am hours of December 31, and written history began 15s before midnight.
 
Chemistry shold work here and a few hundred light years away, should it not?
 
One can trace the evolution of another mental feature, personality variation, by testing different species for personality variations. In us, the most successful theory is the "Big Five" theory: More on the "Big Five" Five-Factor Model of Personality | Internet Infidels Discussion Board

The Big Five traits fall into two supertraits, each one with an associated neurotransmitter. Subtraits I haven't found a consensus for, so I've listed two each, and a representative list of subtraits for each one. Here's a list that I've created from that thread:
  • Stability - serotonin
    • Conscientiousness vs. Impulsiveness
      • Industriousness: Achievement Striving, Competence, Self-Discipline
      • Orderliness: Deliberation, Dutifulness, Order
    • Agreeableness vs. Antagonism
      • Compassion: Tender-Mindedness, Altruism, Trust
      • Politeness: Compliance, Modesty, Straightforwardness
    • (-) Neuroticism vs. Emotional Stability
      • Volatility: Angry Hostility, Impulsiveness
      • Withdrawal: Anxiety, Depression, Self-Consciousness, Vulnerability
  • Plasticity - dopamine
    • Openness vs. Closedness to Experience
      • Intellect: Ideas
      • Esthetic Openness: Actions, Aesthetics, Fantasy, Feeling, Values
    • Extraversion vs. Introversion
      • Enthusiasm: Gregariousness, Positive Emotions, Warmth, Excitement-Seeking
      • Assertiveness: Activity, Assertiveness, Excitement-Seeking
Rather complicated, it must be conceded, but as with many other features, we can work out its emergence by looking across the animal kingdom.
 
Personality, nature or nurture?

Not all characteristics necessarily relate to survival. A lot of human behavior does not enhance survival.

Us humans appear to be failing the 'Dariwin Test'.
 
An exoplanet without life would not be expected to have an oxygen rich atmosphere; Conversely, an exoplanet with alien life could easily have an atmosphere that is rich, not only in oxygen, but also in other unstable toxic chemicals, such as (for example) chlorine.

Some scientists claim (outlining three scenarios) that lifeless planets might have an oxygen atmosphere.
While they are showing processes that could produce oxygen how long would it persist, though?
 
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