Alien Life Breakthrough

[Freakbro]

We know that life was formed on our planet from ingredients that arrived here via meteorites

Well, thats our latest assumption yes, which seems logical from evidence we've found.

, so I don't see how the prospect of it occurring on other planets is such a big deal.

The idea that life is common across the universe isn't such a big deal, actually proving it with evidence would be.

Now, finding intelligent life would be a big deal,

Yes, but starting on that journey by finding 'any' life is pretty important. It'd also narrow down some of the variables in the drake equation, as intelligent life in the universe could be very rare.

Hell, it's pretty rare on this planet... *looks across the pond*

Life on other worlds isn't incompatible with religion.

I'm sure religious leaders will twist themselves into pretzels explaining why this was always the case to try and keep themselves relevant.

 

[GGizmo]

Depends which individual of which sect of which branch of which religion you speak to. Seeing as every single person has a different interpretation of their own religion (mainly due to the idea of other continents, let alone other planets or what life even is was alien at the time they were invented) the chances of any two people agreeing on anything to do with it is almost impossible.

Ahh another attack on religion.

It absolutely is, that ship sailed centuries ago. All the way back in the Middle Ages, Nicholas of Cusa (a German Catholic Bishop, mathematician and astronomer) was affirming the possibility of intelligent life on other planets.

I'm saying that too.

 

[Penfold101]

Jatravartids?

A man of culture!

Show me the aliens!



We know that life was formed on our planet from ingredients that arrived here via meteorites, so I don't see how the prospect of it occurring on other planets is such a big deal. 'Oh look, that thing which happened on our planet, might have happened on another planet too.' Uh... OK? But isn't that exactly what we expected anyway? It's a perfectly natural process after all.

Now, finding intelligent life would be a big deal, but date the only intelligent life we've found in the known universe is our own.



It absolutely is, that ship sailed centuries ago. All the way back in the Middle Ages, Nicholas of Cusa (a German Catholic Bishop, mathematician and astronomer) was affirming the possibility of intelligent life on other planets.

Confirming extraterrestrial life of any sort would pretty much change the course of humanity. All the evidence we have, such as the abundance of it on Earth in so many forms with so much adaptation over am Astro physically short time would suggest it’s probably plentiful elsewhere, including our own solar system, but actually PROVING it is a different matter entirely.

Intelligent life? That would be on another level.

Not sure what Nicholas of Cusa has to do with this - he came about 1300 years after the final book of the Bible was probably written, and didn’t invent the religion.

 

[Rai200]

I wonder what tariffs Trump will impose on them?

Same as the penguins I imagine.

 

[aardvark]

Some form of spectroscopy..something something something...circus music...phone ringing...more words.....

..ahh..yes...of course.

i expect infared or raman. uv spectroscopy wouldn't be very accurate for those compounds.

Its an odd one - those chemicals can certainly be formed without life, so i'm not sure why they jumped to a conclusion.
I wonder what else the data shows and how they analysed it.
Is there a link to a journal paper i can read or has it not been published?

 

[mid_gen]

The Fermi Paradox is probably the biggest puzzle left in science. To actually get confirmation that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy would actually make things seem a bit more sane and rational, rather than us being all alone, which is increasingly quite odd.

 

[d_brennen]

The Fermi Paradox is probably the biggest puzzle left in science. To actually get confirmation that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy would actually make things seem a bit more sane and rational, rather than us being all alone, which is increasingly quite odd.

Agreed, I would not be surprised if life or past life was found on Mars, and the icy moons of Jupiter currently. It's tantalising to think I might live long enough to see proven exobiology.

R.e. the Fermi paradox, we know more and more every day as a species. I wouldn't say it's "increasingly" odd, we have been at this science business for just a few hundred years and only just breaking into the electronic era really. Give it 5000 years and lord knows (oh, the ironing) where we'll be

 

[mrk]

Remember this discovery is of the state of 18b when it was 120 years ago, today, if it is actual life, may be gone, or teeming even more.

And the only reason some feel that we may be alone is because it's hard to imagine the sheers size of space, the distance between galaxies or even planets in a single solar system is unimaginably big. It takes months for normal rockets to get to Mars from here, and that's using the most optimum launch trajectory which only comes round so often, otherwise the time is even longer. On a galactic scale, these timeframes span into the thousands if nor hundreds of thousands of years, and many even into the millions.

A visual perspective:

 

[Manbatius]

Regular aliens or demnon aliens? as those guys, they are the worst.

 

[Hagar]

Nvm

 

[Oz!asM!dwinter]

When we sending Katy Perry to investigate?

Send David Lammy along on a fact finding tour to evaluate exactly how much the UK owes them in reparations

 

[Demon]

i expect infared or raman. uv spectroscopy wouldn't be very accurate for those compounds.

Its an odd one - those chemicals can certainly be formed without life, so i'm not sure why they jumped to a conclusion.
I wonder what else the data shows and how they analysed it.
Is there a link to a journal paper i can read or has it not been published?

I thought JWST is 600nm - 28500 nm, so it's vis-IR only and the accuracy or other will largely be dependant on what isobestics exist with all the other myriad of compounds on that planet and in the stars that they use as part of the light gathering process.

As for DMS/DMDS being abiotic, that is true but it does take industrial processes to create, and I'm guessing they try to rule out some of those as well.

We use atomic absorption in the medical industry for detecting oxy-haemoglobin, the absorption spectra for oxy-haemoglobin is very wide, we just use a narrow sliver around some isobestics in the medium we are looking at (blood) and whilst the exact scale requires calibration, the signature is very clear, but then we have a pretty confined medium.

I'd love to see a paper myself, just from a cursory look around the hoops they have to jump through to get the spectra in the first place is crazy..

btw, as stated earlier in the thread, I'm very sceptical simply as the timing with such low confidence seems more the usual NASA having to beg for money from the incumbent government, something I hope they can justify for meaningful projects as I'm very much a fan of keeping our scientific knowledge advancements going forwards.

 

[mid_gen]

Agreed, I would not be surprised if life or past life was found on Mars, and the icy moons of Jupiter currently. It's tantalising to think I might live long enough to see proven exobiology.

R.e. the Fermi paradox, we know more and more every day as a species. I wouldn't say it's "increasingly" odd, we have been at this science business for just a few hundred years and only just breaking into the electronic era really. Give it 5000 years and lord knows (oh, the ironing) where we'll be

I say increasingly odd, as the more time and resources we spend looking for life, the fact that we aren't finding anything becomes all the more baffling.

But really, yes, we haven't listened to even a tiny, tiny fraction of the sky to date. Lots more searching to do.

 

[200sols]

I say increasingly odd, as the more time and resources we spend looking for life, the fact that we aren't finding anything becomes all the more baffling.

But really, yes, we haven't listened to even a tiny, tiny fraction of the sky to date. Lots more searching to do.

Maybe any intelligent life just dies out when it reaches a certain point during its progress, probably about 50 years after they invented social media and its always going to be nigh on impossible for us to confirm that some microbe slim is actually alive many lightyears away.

 

[Building Candy]

It has always struck me odd that we expect other forms of life to be around at exactly the same time as we are. Not only do you have the huge size of the universe but also 13 billion years of time to get through. Even Tesco looks deserted at 2am.

We have been around for a few thousand years, and realistically we probably dont have that in front of us. I think the odds of being near another life form within the exact time scale we are both existing, is tiny.

 

[keyser van someone]

Scientists: are you sure? lets check/confirm x10000
everyone else: omg we found aliens awesome let me check my chakras

"As of April 17, 2025, a total of 5,876 exoplanets have been confirmed."

If we found life on exoplanet #5876 then that would be a great ratio of planets with and without life. Life is on ~0.00017% of all planets? cool

Highly recommend watching Fraser Cain's videos for general space news updates - there are a lot.

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

If we found life on exoplanet #5876 then that would be a great ratio of planets with and without life. Life is on ~0.00017% of all planets? cool

Only if your 5876 exoplanets are a properly representative sample

 

[Demon]

Scientists: are you sure? lets check/confirm x10000
everyone else: omg we found aliens awesome let me check my chakras

"As of April 17, 2025, a total of 5,876 exoplanets have been confirmed."

If we found life on exoplanet #5876 then that would be a great ratio of planets with and without life. Life is on ~0.00017% of all planets? cool

Highly recommend watching Fraser Cain's videos for general space news updates - there are a lot.

Fraser Cain and Event Horizon are the two podcasts that I listen to regularly..

Others of note:
Coolworlds
Perimeter Institute
Then there are the usual Feynman, Susskind, Penrose lectures and interviews worth watching.

OK podcasts:
Dr Brian Keating (not always aimed at the actual science)
PBS Spacetime
Dr Becky Smethurst

Definitely Miss:
Anything with Neil Degrasse Tyson
Anything with Lex Fridman
Anything with Brian Cox


I suspect the Drake equation estimates are woefully optimistic and 5876 exoplanets is simply a nanoscale needle in a universe sized haystack.

 

[Slam]

thanks for the recommendations, I will check them out. agree about Neil Degrasse Tyson, I found him disappointing but I do actually like the way Brian Cox communicates things.
I'm still a beginner!

 

[Blackjack Davy]

We know that life was formed on our planet from ingredients that arrived here via meteorites, so I don't see how the prospect of it occurring on other planets is such a big deal. 'Oh look, that thing which happened on our planet, might have happened on another planet too.' Uh... OK? But isn't that exactly what we expected anyway? It's a perfectly natural process after all.

We don't "know" that ingredients from meteorites gave rise to life its just that certain things found in meteorites bear a striking resemblance to early chemicals found on earth its a stretch to assume one led to the other. Its the same with this discovery its just that a certain chemical that on earth is only associated with life has been found on another planet its also the same chemical that was found in the atmosphere of Venus which is about as unlikely a place to find life as you could imagine, its a leap to assume that there must be life we simply don't know enough about chemistry on alien worlds to say whether it formed naturally or not, in other words, its a stretch. But hey its all good publicity for their next funding round.

It has always struck me odd that we expect other forms of life to be around at exactly the same time as we are. Not only do you have the huge size of the universe but also 13 billion years of time to get through. Even Tesco looks deserted at 2am.

We have been around for a few thousand years, and realistically we probably dont have that in front of us. I think the odds of being near another life form within the exact time scale we are both existing, is tiny.

Ah you're conflating life with intelligent life as people often do, the two aren't necessarily connected life has been been around for an immense amount of time on this planet, intelligent life immensely less so the blink of an eye in the history of the earth

I suspect the Drake equation estimates are woefully optimistic and 5876 exoplanets is simply a nanoscale needle in a universe sized haystack.

Drake equation basically boils down to about one intelligent civilisation per galaxy, the future inventors of the warp drive have their work cut out to get to the Andromeda spiral even Star Trek confined itself to our galaxy alone the distance and probably time needed to jump intergalactic space is too much of a stretch even for Picard