NEWS: Sci-fi Fans Everywhere Rejoice, Despair

Methane isn't an element. And I'm not really sure how you can say water is the only compound to play a part in evolution. It's a solvent, there are lots of solvents, and different chemical reactions fare better in different solvents. But that has little to do with evolution anyway, it's chemistry.

They would all be short. the gravity is stronger than earth.

Woot I want to live there. though i guess i'm goign to have to live long enough to travel there. Robot body here I come.

This article was hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

I understand why the assumption is made, but it's an assumption nonetheless, and one that might not pan out.

For one thing, water is a great solvent for polar molecules in our atmosphere. On colder planets, liquid methane or liquid ammonia might also be great solvents. There's no better or worse when it comes to solvents. That's judging from the point of view of the solute. Why couldn't life evolve from compounds that dissolve in methane? Most of organic chemistry doesn't work in water. I used to work in a synthetic organic lab, and 99% of the reactions we ran had no water involved. Most had strict requirements for ultra-dry conditions. For example, the Grignard reaction, arguably the most important reaction in synthetic organic chemistry and one of the best ways to build a carbon chain, won't work at all, if there's even a trace of water present. Lots of chemistry happens without water.

While carbon, again under our atmospheric conditions, readily forms long chains, lots of other elements can be made to as well. Silicon (just one step down the periodic table) also has potential to form long, chained compounds. Lots of inorganic polymers exist as well, for example those from compounds containing nitrogen and phosphorus.

Two of the main features that define life are as follows: the ability to reproduce and the abiltiy to sustain chemical reactions far from equilibrium. There was an interesting article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry a few years back that showed that simple mixtures of inorganic salts in water could form membrane-like structures with solutions separated inside from out, that were able to reproduce to some degree and sustained a chemical reaction away from equilibrium. While not considered alive, the experiment showed that it is possible to at least recapitulate some of the features of life without any organic (i.e. carbon-containing) molecules present.

So there are multiple, reasonable ways in which the assumption of a necessity for water or carbon or both can be a bad one. Maybe it's still an expedient strategy to look for conditions that we already know can support life, but you might miss a lot in the process.

SHOTGUN.

The hell if i am cramping into the back of a toyota for 196 million years. Where are we going to stop to pee?

I think us finding a more advanced race, be it peaceful or not, would probably be the best thing for Humans.

Advanced + Peaceful = Humans unify and become a single body instead of the divided cluster fuck that we are, ushering in a new era of prosperity and peace.

Advanced + Imperial = Humans work together to survive, or become slaves. Or worse.

Or they could be like, "Yeah we've known about you since you lived in caves, and we've never really been that impressed. Now leave us alone."

But think about it, what do you do when you are at the computer, and a moth/gnat/fly flies in front on the monitor? Nine times out of ten I swat it personally.

Overall, I think Humanity NEEDS to be dropped a notch.

"We" are at the top on Earth, and we have destroyed everything else, including ourselves, with time.

Someone bigger and badder needs to put us in line, or wipe us out.

Fine, I will grant you the point that I employed poor syntax. I am aware that methane is a hydrocarbon and not an element.

I said it's the only major compound because no other compound that I know of is as universally needed for all life. The whole point of this, in my mind, is that while it's certainly possible that life could evolve based on other compounds, the one we know about is water, and so it makes the most sense to focus exploration on worlds that could contain water. We're barely exploring yet, anyway.. it's not like we've got the Enterprise out there warping past all the non M-Class planets. We point our telescopes and look for the familiar.

Thank you for the definition, I am aware of the general usage.. what I was "WTFing" was the idea that somehow NASA or ESA scientists are part of a group that is biased towards non-water based life. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Anyway, I doubt you'd get any of these scientists to say that life COULDN'T evolve with another element. What they do say is that, from the available data, water appears to be the cornerstone. We have people complaining about unnecessary spending for the Mars rovers.. how much public support do you think there would be for sending a lander to IO to see if, maybe, magically, somehow, there is sulfur-based life?

Who wants to start a band called The 581's? I call contortionist!

i saw that magenta text for "red dwarf" and i hoped among hopes, clicked...and you delivered!

maybe 581-c will send out an arcade game looking for starfighters. or maybe they're peaceful, sexy and make delicious cupcakes and play in metal bands.

i'm hoping for option 2.