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AHA! What i mean is, it is possible that ALL LIFE ON EARTH came from a distant world aeons ago...as in Aliens(us) settled on earth...just think about it...

Space Noah's ark? Hmmm...

There are also theories that fungus can travel through space on asteroids... so that humans can eat the mushrooms, and speculate about how exactly the mushrooms came through the atmosphere, just to get them to think about that all over again... while eating mushrooms.

Yeah, exactly like the the Arc...life is weird and wonderful...

It appears that planets are common enough, just hard to detect. it is quite probable that life does exist beyond our solar system. however, the idea that we'll all be one big happy federation as in star trek etc. is exceedingly unlikely, unless FTL travel can be invented, and also be somewhat practical. Just my depressing 0.02$.

That and i don't think that we could speak a common language...

r3n3g8b0y wrote:Yeah, exactly like the the Arc...life is weird and wonderful...

I would not doubt the possibility that life came to earth in an extremely primitive form, using the advantages of this planet to propagate. To think that DNA could somehow travel the possible light years to get to us, doesn't really add up for me though.

Also, if another intelligent form of life managed to send, said primitive DNA here to earth; I would really have to wonder why. Perhaps it was just simple enough to require little more than something along the lines of what we do with our long range satellites. Dunno really, maybe some very strange, but advanced being got it into their head to play Johnny Appleseed for some reason. Running around the universe, or just launching 'seed' all over the place... which sounds... yeah... hmmm.

CaptainCommunsism wrote:It appears that planets are common enough, just hard to detect. it is quite probable that life does exist beyond our solar system. however, the idea that we'll all be one big happy federation as in star trek etc. is exceedingly unlikely, unless FTL travel can be invented, and also be somewhat practical. Just my depressing 0.02$.

I suppose if you approach it with expectations it is a bit depressing... for our offspring I guess. Not exactly like I am going to be missing out on spaceships within my life time. If I feel really angry later in life though, I could shake my fist at the people that will probably be living on the Moon in a few decades or so.

DAMN MOON PEOPLE!!!

I would expect something a little less hollywood than Star Trek though. Perhaps Star Wars, but with less lasers, and more phasers... oh, and nukes too. Nukes do a pretty good job of being used in space... just sayin'.

True, and we should start living on the moon soon...i mean there are no disadvatages and we could finally have more room on earth...

We have room in the Sahara desert.

Of course there's ROOM on this planet, but just not enough and not in the right places...

The moon is the right place?

I think I have the answer to both sides of the debate: +++www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html+++

Lets pull this thread in order and join our ideas:

Space is frikkin' huge. There has to be chance that there is at least another planet with similair conditions, and similair history. What happened on the surface is speculation...

Forget all human norms when discussing about aliens. It's like a cat trying to have a decent conversation with a crab about trees...

Alien life is most likely to be carboin-based. It is the most reactive, most stable elemet that forms 3+ bonds essential for complex chemical functionsm like life...

Tools...can be of any form, shape, function or origin...The essential part being that it is an external object to the body, and being used intentionally. Heck, even non-intelligent animals use tools...

Though wildly different, aliens cannot be extravagantly formed. Fish have a naturally optimal form for surviving in water. It ain't gonna be otherwise on any other planet with a large fluid environment. As evolution has shown all forms must be of maximal efficiency, so extravagant forms (one leg, land-tentacles) are not gonna exist>

I'm sure you have much more ideas than poor me alone!

Turbo10k wrote:I think I have the answer to both sides of the debate: +++www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html+++

nice idea, but a lot of speculation and fiction...

Turbo10k wrote:Lets pull this thread in order and join our ideas:

Space is frikkin' huge. There has to be chance that there is at least another planet with similair conditions, and similair history. What happened on the surface is speculation...

certainly true..

Turbo10k wrote:Forget all human norms when discussing about aliens. It's like a cat trying to have a decent conversation with a crab about trees...

Alien life is most likely to be carboin-based. It is the most reactive, most stable elemet that forms 3+ bonds essential for complex chemical functionsm like life...

Tools...can be of any form, shape, function or origin...The essential part being that it is an external object to the body, and being used intentionally. Heck, even non-intelligent animals use tools...

Though wildly different, aliens cannot be extravagantly formed. Fish have a naturally optimal form for surviving in water. It ain't gonna be otherwise on any other planet with a large fluid environment. As evolution has shown all forms must be of maximal efficiency, so extravagant forms (one leg, land-tentacles) are not gonna exist>

I'm sure you have much more ideas than poor me alone!

yeah, so IF the aliens with the huge heads DO EXIST that means they're highly developed...why? Because they are smart(huge brain)and that means they don't have to be big or strong to survive because their technology is highly advanced...and that means they would be the Tau of the "Real Universe"

stay tuned kiddies

Turbo10k wrote:so extravagant forms (one leg, land-tentacles) are not gonna exist>

Ummm...



One leg, land tentacle... two headed alien from space?

Life is weird man, I can only begin to imagine how strange stuff can actually get. Look in the ocean first, it will blow your fragile little mind... in such delightful ways.

One idea that sounds pretty freaking awesome, is a sort of jellyfish that floats on gaseous planets. It could ride currents like a hot-air balloon, and it would pull energy from the sun, using a translucent stomach filled with algae like scum. Damn, that sounds so freaking weird.

Wrexasaur wrote:

Turbo10k wrote:so extravagant forms (one leg, land-tentacles) are not gonna exist>

Ummm...



One leg, land tentacle... two headed alien from space?

Life is weird man, I can only begin to imagine how strange stuff can actually get. Look in the ocean first, it will blow your fragile little mind... in such delightful ways.

Mutations are nature's mistakes...no one is perfect, not even nature, and this snake won't survive without help...

r3n3g8b0y wrote:Mutations are nature's mistakes...no one is perfect, not even nature, and this snake won't survive without help...

Do you mean Gods mistakes? Nature does not make mistakes, it just evolves.

There are frogs that can change sexes, how the hell did that come about? It is not like all frogs can just do that. That initial change, just like this 'mutation', allowed those frogs to adapt the their environment accordingly.

I cannot imagine a single adaptation that would not work somewhere, for some reason. Spiders using flowers to trap prey, and drown it? Sure, and why not add a little makeshift scuba tank onto that little bugger. Now he is going to kick ass and take names... hardcore nature status.



I can't remember what the other ones name is right now, but it stays inside flowers, and uses them as traps.

I knew what I was writing. Snakes don't have a leg, they're riding on their scaled bellies...Their legs have devolved into miniature non-functional bones around two thirds down.

That is a one legged (no legged really) land tentacle beast. Pretty strange if you ask me.

Snakes can also swim in the water, so then they could be called one legged, water tentacle beasts.

I also see no reason why a land based animal (perhaps some sort of creature that lives in phases, in different environments; or a creature that lives on both land and in water.) could not have a specific use for tentacles. Heck, on a planet that was humid enough, octopus could probably evolve to live in marshes, both in and out of water.

Life is only limited by what is the most effective way to deal with a specific environment. We see animals on this planet, that can survive in multiple environments; though the extremes of that (extremophiles) usually are pretty limited in how they can evolve. The tube worms you find in underwater vents, are more than likely to just die off when the vent does; practically no way to evolve out of that. Perhaps the ability to go dormant, and act like some sort of barnacle perhaps.

In the right type of environment, giant whales could evolve to feed off of minerals coming out of vents; and something along the lines of the thermophile tube worms, could simply hitch a ride.

One idea that sounds pretty freaking awesome, is a sort of jellyfish that floats on gaseous planets. It could ride currents like a hot-air balloon, and it would pull energy from the sun, using a translucent stomach filled with algae like scum. Damn, that sounds so freaking weird.

Well, I think this creature would run into a few problems. For one thing it needs to remain buoyant; when you're on a planet largely composed of hydrogen, what do you fill yourself with to remain floating? Hotter hydrogen, I guess, but now that's a further drain on energy. You did suggest floating on currents, which would help a lot. Still, a jellyfish has limited ability to move in the water; in a gas, it wouldn't be able to swim, it would need to jet itself around or something, which would probably be a little more difficult. It also needs to be able to perceive where the currents are... make sure that it's at the right height (the difference in pressure on a gas giant is huge), find food if it needs to do so to, reproduce in such a manner that it can be sure at least some of its offspring survives.

Another things that might come up is the availability of sunlight on a gas giant; assuming the gas giant is close to the sun (photosynthesis would never work on something as far away as Jupiter), I would think the jellyfish would have to be close to the surface of the planet to get enough sunlight; but that would put it in the thinnest part of the atmosphere, which would further contribute to the buoyancy problems, especially as I doubt there are any sort of sizable gas currents at that height.

I think life on a gas giant would be pretty damn hard, although your idea is a cool one.

at some day in the distant future there will only be ONE race on this planet...the one race that was strong/smart/powerful/big/whatever enough to survive..that's just how things go and imho that WILL NOT be the humans...we might be powerful/big/and technologically advanced..but we have one major problem...WE ARE DUMB! No other race on thi planet kills each other to such an extent and for no reason, no other race EVEN THINKS ABOUT polluting the environment and heating up our blue planet(No, not even sheep, that's not their fault.. )and no other race is as lazy and distant from nature as we are...money and machines can't outlast nature...

Orkeosaurus wrote:

One idea that sounds pretty freaking awesome, is a sort of jellyfish that floats on gaseous planets. It could ride currents like a hot-air balloon, and it would pull energy from the sun, using a translucent stomach filled with algae like scum. Damn, that sounds so freaking weird.

Well, I think this creature would run into a few problems. For one thing it needs to remain buoyant; when you're on a planet largely composed of hydrogen, what do you fill yourself with to remain floating? Hotter hydrogen, I guess, but now that's a further drain on energy.

The action of metabolizing the nutrients from the algae, along with the added assistance of the sun's heat, could stand to keep such a creature in a pretty consistent height. The creature would work in many ways like a jellyfish, just hanging around, letting the environment keep it at a safe height.

You did suggest floating on currents, which would help a lot. Still, a jellyfish has limited ability to move in the water; in a gas, it wouldn't be able to swim, it would need to jet itself around or something, which would probably be a little more difficult. It also needs to be able to perceive where the currents are... make sure that it's at the right height (the difference in pressure on a gas giant is huge), find food if it needs to do so to, reproduce in such a manner that it can be sure at least some of its offspring survives.

I suppose thinking of it as some sort of advanced plant, or some form of fungus, would make a bit more sense.

Another things that might come up is the availability of sunlight on a gas giant; assuming the gas giant is close to the sun (photosynthesis would never work on something as far away as Jupiter), I would think the jellyfish would have to be close to the surface of the planet to get enough sunlight; but that would put it in the thinnest part of the atmosphere, which would further contribute to the buoyancy problems, especially as I doubt there are any sort of sizable gas currents at that height.

Well, if the creature was large enough, it could have an 'anchor' that would hold it in a specific current; while the main 'head/stomach' would be close enough to light to gain energy. Sort of like a piece of floating seaweed, pretty complicated to actually make sense of though.

I think life on a gas giant would be pretty damn hard, although your idea is a cool one.

I actually heard about this specific idea in a program about future animals. I will try and find the name of it, if I remember, I got it from netflix no problem.

Here you go mate. A bit silly overall, but still quite fun. At some point, I am going to start designing creatures, so I can make a book or something out of it. Just like those books from when you were a kid, but with aliens instead.

WE ARE DUMB! No other race on thi planet kills each other to such an extent and for no reason,

People have reasons for killing each other. And how do you know killing each other is detrimental to the survival of the species as a whole?

no other race EVEN THINKS ABOUT polluting the environment

Tell that to the blue-green algae that first introduced oxygen into the atmosphere. (Although I guess they didn't think about their actions, technically...)

and heating up our blue planet(No, not even sheep, that's not their fault.. )

It's been a lot hotter than it is now.

and no other race is as lazy and distant from nature as we are...money and machines can't outlast nature...

I doubt there's any other species on earth that has ever worried about where they will be in a few hundred years. If they even think of the preservation of their species as a concept.


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Wrexasaur wrote:The action of metabolizing the nutrients from the algae, along with the added assistance of the sun's heat, could stand to keep such a creature in a pretty consistent height. The creature would work in many ways like a jellyfish, just hanging around, letting the environment keep it at a safe height.

The difference is a jellyfish is in a much better fluid; a creature made nearly entirely of water will have a pretty neutral density in water, but it will fall in hydrogen.

I suppose thinking of it as some sort of advanced plant, or some form of fungus, would make a bit more sense.

Well, a fungus is traditionally non-photosynthetic. The problem is that reclassifying it isn't enough to really change the problems it has. Either it moves or it doesn't, and it needs to reproduce and grow in some fashion.

Well, if the creature was large enough, it could have an 'anchor' that would hold it in a specific current; while the main 'head/stomach' would be close enough to light to gain energy. Sort of like a piece of floating seaweed, pretty complicated to actually make sense of though.

I don't think that would work well on a gas giant, though. These planets are huge; their atmosphere is huge. Imagine this seaweed anchored to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and you still will have covered hardly any distance. Near the bottom, the heat and pressure are probably liable to pulverise any sort of organic material.

I actually heard about this specific idea in a program about future animals. I will try and find the name of it, if I remember, I got it from netflix no problem.

Here you go mate. A bit silly overall, but still quite fun. At some point, I am going to start designing creatures, so I can make a book or something out of it. Just like those books from when you were a kid, but with aliens instead.

That is interesting. You say future animals, though; are we talking about a terrestrial planet for the jellyfish? Because I think that would be more doable than a gas giant. It could be filled with a lighter gas than nitrogen, or perhaps some sort of heat-trapping mechanism...

Wasnt able to read through every post so not sure if someone already said it..

Next year (2010) we will know if "Alians" exist... according to the aztec calander we will be visited by our space friends in 2010... This also means that if they dont show... the calander is wrong and 2012 is not the end of the world... on the other hand what if they do come?

Orkeo wrote:That is interesting. You say future animals, though; are we talking about a terrestrial planet for the jellyfish? Because I think that would be more doable than a gas giant. It could be filled with a lighter gas than nitrogen, or perhaps some sort of heat-trapping mechanism...

I think that would end up making more sense really. Like Jellyfish that evolved to float, out of one body of water to other. Floating migratory jellyfish... what freaking planet are we on? It would be really cool if the jellyfish formed a sort of colony when it was in water, so it would be less likely to randomly fill up with gas and float away. Then seasonally it would separate, and shed it's substructure so the individual jellies could float to the next feeding grounds.

If the gas it produced lasted only a certain amount of time, or it slowly released it, the winds along a shoreline could take it along a relatively accurate trajectory. I am sure that a lot of jellies would get lost, but think about them in the millions or something. That way they could cut the odds a bit, and several of these creatures would form, and reform in different areas of the planet. Maybe one type has slightly smaller jellies, that produce more gas, and are able to travel much farther distances; over mountain passes and what have you.

Maybe some of these jellies adapt to fresh water, by landing randomly in a small lake. Over time they could change size yet again, and adapt their gas producing style, so they could hop around in marsh land or something. Heck, they could even evolve a tiny jet that could be used to lazily navigate through trees and stuff. Not sure how they sense the trees... but oh well, it is still pretty cool.

Buttlerthepug wrote:Wasnt able to read through every post so not sure if someone already said it..

Next year (2010) we will know if "Alians" exist... according to the aztec calander we will be visited by our space friends in 2010... This also means that if they dont show... the calander is wrong and 2012 is not the end of the world... on the other hand what if they do come?

Dude, the mayan calendar actually has dates AFTER 12/21/12...so it can't be the end of the world...

r3n3g8b0y wrote:

Buttlerthepug wrote:Wasnt able to read through every post so not sure if someone already said it..

Next year (2010) we will know if "Alians" exist... according to the aztec calander we will be visited by our space friends in 2010... This also means that if they dont show... the calander is wrong and 2012 is not the end of the world... on the other hand what if they do come?

Dude, the mayan calendar actually has dates AFTER 12/21/12...so it can't be the end of the world...

Well I personally dont believe it is the end of the world on 12/21/12 but since it has seemed to become such a popular belief I just thought Id bring it up Dont feel much like going into my personal beliefs though lol...

Another thing that I just remembered... Theres 2 videos (they might have just been audio) where they were talking to astronauts, in one of them they said something about there being things up their that will not be hostile, they know your conducting experiments and will leave you alone unless you are hostile. The second one was an astronaut up one the moon and all he said was "theyre here"

Ive just heard of those two things... not sure if either of them are true or not but its something to think about

A gas giant doesn't have to be pure hydrogen...There are gases like methane, helium, nitrogen and such that will allow a hot-hydrogen jellyfish to float easily. Also, it go deeper into the atmosphere, just have a surface area large enough to accommodate its needs. This could lead to a creature with tree-like structure: A floating gas sac making up its central body, a stalk rising up, carrying an immense lily-shaped photosynthetizing leaf, and the bottom part acts as weight to balance it and also house reproductive organs.

Another thing came in mind when someone mentioned a hot giant, near its sun. It would have frikkin' huge convection currents along its equatorial convection cells (google it, even earth has them but on a smaller scale). A jellyfish creature could have a parachute-like structure that unfolds near rising currents, making it climb to cooler, higher layers of the atmosphere. There, it would soak up as much solar energy as possible, making reserves of chemical energy akin to fat or starch. This would weigh it down, and it sinks along with the cooler air down to hotter layers of the atmosphere. There, it dies and releases its seeds. The cycle starts again when the seeds are transported upwards again with their newly made 'parachutes' capturing new hot rising currents...

Once the polar warp gates completely break down we will all be overrun by chaos anyway.

Bacteria and other single cell organisms will have no problem floating in a gas giant.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Once the polar warp gates completely break down we will all be overrun by chaos anyway.

Bacteria and other single cell organisms will have no problem floating in a gas giant.

Floating is hardly it. They get blown in all directions, but due to their numbers (billions) some will be blown in the right direction, grow and reproduce before being blown in the wrong direction.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Once the polar warp gates completely break down we will all be overrun by chaos anyway.

Bacteria and other single cell organisms will have no problem floating in a gas giant.

Funny thing is, this probably makes the most sense.

Just wait until our drones go to Jupiter, and find a spaceship eating bacteria, that floats around the planet.

Turbo10k wrote:A floating gas sac making up its central body, a stalk rising up, carrying an immense lily-shaped photosynthetizing leaf, and the bottom part acts as weight to balance it and also house reproductive organs.

http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/jupiter_worldbook.html

NASA wrote:The temperature at the top of Jupiter's clouds is about -230 degrees F (-145 degrees C). Measurements made by ground instruments and spacecraft show that Jupiter's temperature increases with depth below the clouds. The temperature reaches 70 degrees F (21 degrees C) -- "room temperature" -- at a level where the atmospheric pressure is about 10 times as great as it is on Earth. Scientists speculate that if Jupiter has any form of life, the life form would reside at this level. Such life would need to be airborne, because there is no solid surface at this location on Jupiter. Scientists have discovered no evidence for life on Jupiter.

I can't imagine a large organism doing very well in that type of environment. Perhaps the upper part of such a creature, would be calcified or something. Apparently the coldest temperature recorded on earth was -128.6 degrees; in which, I am pretty sure you would literally freeze in an instant. Your heart would just stop. I can't imagine life surviving in temperatures almost twice as cold as that.

Orkeo also mentioned that Jupiter would not have sufficient sunlight to power photosynthesis. Another problem with photosynthesis, is the fact that most plants are actually very inefficient at converting energy. Maybe something like a floating cactus could do well; they are pretty adaptable little plants.

Like ocean currents?