Ill just keep track : Yes: I No : Living things are popping up in the strangest places these day-hostile environments that no one ever thought could support life. Viable microbes were discovered in Antarctic ice that's been buried for over 200 000 years. And now entire ecosystems have emerged that are even more extreme in nature. In southern Romania near the shores of the Black Sea, researchers have stumbled upon one of the most bizarre and isolated ecological niches of the world. The cave of Movile harbours an ecosystem that exists completely independently of photosynthesis-the only such terrestrial ecosystem known. The 300-meter-long cave was discovered by Romanian scientists in 1986, and has no natural entrance. Scientists believe that the cave has been isolated from the photosynthetic world for approximately 5 million years, and the entire ecosystem is chemoautotropic in nature-instead of sunlight, the energy source for the ecosystem comes from microbes exploiting sulphur in the caves' water. To date, they've identified 48 different invertebrate species thriving in this subterranean environment, 33 of which have been found no where else in the world. Many of them are sightless anthropods-blind spiders, predatory leeches and water scorpions. These organisms have followed different evolutionary paths than their aboveground cousins; they've lost their pigmentation, grown extensive antennae, and dispensed with not just their vision, but also (in some cases) their eyes. Underground hot springs, rich in hydrogen sulphide, provide the energy and nutrient sources upon which this ecosystem thrives. The situation in Movile is remarkably similar to those found at several locations on the ocean floor, along the mid-oceanic ridges at depths of 2 kilometres or more. Researchers in small submersibles were shocked to discover thriving ecosystems clustered around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. The mineral- and sulphide-rich water is heated by the underlying magma and spews upwards through cracks in the ocean floor. Temperatures are in excess of 350°C. These columns of superheated water are black in colour and can extend to great heights, like underwater Old Faithfuls. The colour lends them their name: "black smokers". Inside and all around these columns live sulphide-eating bacteria that thrive at high temperatures. Like the bacteria in the Movile cave, these black-smoker bacteria form the base of a food chain entirely independent of photosynthesis. The 3-metre-long tube worms, along with the mussels and shrimp that thrive here, depend upon the chemosynthesis of these bacteria to exist. In many cases, the organisms rely upon a symbiotic relationship with the sulphide-munching bacteria found in the specialised organs that have replaced their digestive systems. Over 300 different organisms in these strange environments have been identified so far. Some scientists hypothesise that geothermal vents such as these may have been the initial incubators where life first developed. The organisms found at the deep-sea vents and in the sulphur-rich cave at Movile, along with others found near hot springs, soda lakes, salt pans, Antarctica's dry valleys and the Antarctic ice sheets, are classified by biologists as extremophiles. Depending on the extreme environmental conditions, these organisms may be categorised as thermophiles (thriving in hot conditions), endoliths (living in rock), acidophiles (preferring high acidity), or a number of other classifications. Microbial life has occupied just about every conceivable environmental corner on Earth-from rock buried three kilometres under the Earth's surface to the tops of clouds Recent work done at the University of Innsbruck has shown that bacteria can actually live and reproduce in clouds, and may alter Earth's climate and even cause rainfall. Just as the bottom of the Earth's oceans or the interior of the Earth's crust are considered to be extreme and unlikely homes for life, the cold temperatures and low nutrients of the cloud tops were also considered to be unlikely microbial condominiums. However, when Birgitt Sattler and her team from the University of Innsbruck examined samples taken from a cloud, they found that each millilitre of the resulting meltwater was literally swimming in bacteria-approximately 1500 (ppm). When studied under conditions similar to those found in the clouds, these bacteria thrived , reproducing and making new DNA. Under these conditions, the bacteria have to be able to survive freezing temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation while having very limited access to nutrients. Daniel Jacob, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard University has suggested that these cloud microbes could have significant impact upon climate, including a role in the production of high-altitude ozone. Others have suggested that the bacteria may seed clouds with ice crystals, triggering the formation of raindrops. Some species of bacteria are hardy enough to withstand even the rigours of unprotected space travel. Scientists from the University of Maryland launched two different types of microbes on a short sub-orbital hop into space. The microbes were deposited upon a small patch on the surface of a rocket carrying a payload of NASA instruments for a solar-radiation study. The rocket and its microbe passengers achieved an altitude of about 320 kilometres and spent approximately 10 minutes in space. The microbes were exposed to a vacuum and one sample of each was completely exposed to the solar radiation (a second culture of each was partially sheltered from the radiation). Both types of microbes had surviving members, with one strain of bacterium proving to be extremely hardy. Both these microbes (a bacterium and an archaea microbe) were selected for the mission because they were extremeophiles. The bacterium (which was more successful) was selected because of its ability to withstand incredible levels of radiation, while the archaea was chosen for the trip because some scientists hypothesise that this type of chemosynthesis-reliant organism may have developed and survived under the surface of ancient Mars. Life is hardy. Life is robust. Life is sneaky. It seems that just about everywhere we look on the Earth we find life, from miles beneath the crust to the tops of clouds. The past thirty years have forced scientists to re-evaluate how living organisms operate and what their needs are. In the 1960s, biologists would have told you that organisms require light, water and some form of nutrient input. Today that has changed-instead of sunlight, other energy sources can be considered. Water may not be the only solvent that can be used. And the environments and conditions that organisms can survive or adapt themselves to, are truly astounding. Our modern culture is intensely interested (perhaps even slightly obsessed) with the notion of alien life , the "mysterious other". In the past, the "other" was someone from a different culture or a faraway land, imagined or real-think of the tales of Marco Polo and other adventurers. Today, those "others" are imagined aliens with giant eyes and bulbous foreheads, or perhaps Klingons and Wookies. However, these imagined "aliens" are not really that different from us-in a way, they display a serious defecit in our collective imagination; this "other" is just a version of us with more hair, or lumps of latex, or longer fingers. We can find the truly alien here on the Earth. At the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico are giant methane deposits that poke through the sea bottom as mounds of methane hydrates. Populating these mounds are strange methane ice worms, tunnelling through the ice and apparently grazing on chemosynthetic bacteria. These one- to two-inch-long flat worms manoeuvre using two oar-like appendages, and tunnel into the mounds-perhaps playing an as yet unknown role in the development and evolution of the deposits (which have a tremendous potential as a future energy source for an ever energy-hungry globe). The realisation that organisms can exploit geothermal energy sources has quietly revolutionised our ideas of where other life may be found. When the Viking landers returned inconclusive or negative results during their tests on the surface of Mars in 1976, many scientists thought that the notion of "Martians" had finely gone the way of science fiction. However, in recent years we have seen the discovery of possible fossilised Martian bacteria in meteorites, in addition to some very compelling evidence that liquid water once flowed upon the surface of Mars. Combined with our growing understanding of the Archaea microbes and extremophiles, the argument in favour of life having once existed on Mars has grown. Others have pointed out the possibility of Archaea-like organisms living within the crust of Mars, where some liquid water may still be present, and where some energy is available from the decay of radioactive isotopes.
couldnt fit soo here is the rest: The Jovian moon Europa is an even stronger candidate in the life sweepstakes. Europa resembles a gigantic cue-ball, with a smooth white surface. When Voyager I and II arrived at Jupiter and captured images of Europa, they revealed a near smooth blank world slightly larger than our own Moon. Europa appears white and smooth because its surface is entirely ice. A close view reveals that it is criss-crossed by cracks and seams, and none of the features have much of a vertical extent. Planetologists realised that the surface of Europa was incredibly young-otherwise it would have been pockmarked with craters and vertical features like the other icy moons of Jupiter. Somehow, Europa was being resurfaced frequently, and all the vertical features were being erased quickly. A close view of the cracks and seams showed that the ice near the cracks was slightly different in nature, and seemed to be more recent. Images taken by the Galileo space probe revealed that some of the ice on the surface resembled rearranged jigsaw puzzle pieces, a pattern seen when arctic ice flows are examined from space. All of this evidence is consistent with the notion that Europa has a sub-surface liquid ocean, approximately 10 to 100 kilometres beneath the surface. Fresh water wells up through the cracks, resurfacing Europa. Any major impact on the surface of the world would crack the crust, allowing fresh water to flow in and erase the crater. The jigsaw appearance merely reflects the collisions of different chunks of surface ice floating upon the hidden ocean. But why would Europa even have this hidden ocean? Jupiter is the largest of all the planets in our solar system. A bloated gas giant composed mostly of hydrogen, it utterly dominates its moons. Unlike the Earth, Jupiter has many moons (at last count 28, most of which were small). Four are quite large-the Galilean satellites, first discovered by Galileo in 1610. These large moons all orbit relatively close to Jupiter. Because Jupiter is so massive, it exerts a very strong gravitational force upon its moons. If there were only one moon, the tidal forces from Jupiter would circularise and synchronise the orbit of the satellite. However, as these moons orbit Jupiter, the orbits get nudged slightly by the gravitational pull from their neighbours, breaking their tidal lock, causing a small "wobble" in the orbit of the moon-so the orbit is not circular. The interior of the moon gets alternately squeezed and stretched, generating friction. When this happens to Europa, the result is tidal heating, warming its interior to such an extent that its interior is largely liquefied water. It's even worse for the moon Io, which is closer to Jupiter. This rocky world receives nudges from three different Moons, and because it is closer to Jupiter, the tidal effects are even greater. Io is pockmarked with volcanoes and has the youngest surface of any body in the solar system. In the case of Europa, the tidal heating from the nudges of the moons Callisto and Ganymede heat the interior-a potential energy source. Recent results from the Galileo space probe indicate that the both Ganymede and Callisto may also have subsurface oceans due to their tidal heating, although probably not nearly to the extent of Europa's. The similarity between these oceans and the mid-ocean vents here on the Earth are compelling, as is the similarity to the hidden ice lakes of Antarctica, such as Lake Vostok. As with Mars, we have to consider how organisms could thrive under these conditions. This does not mean that there is life under the Europan ice, but the possibility is tantalising and one that cannot be ignored. The ubiquitous nature and incredible adaptability of life here on Earth indicates (to me at least) that the possibility of life even in our own astronomical backyard is not necessarily inconceivable. At the same time the temptation to make sweeping generalities about the nature of extraterrestrial life (and whether or not it even exists) is a strong one. However, we are ultimately basing that on a sample of one planet (the Earth)-which does not really help in the construction of any comprehensive argument. Any discussion of these eventualities and possibilities are fraught with our own biases and perceptions-we can't help but carry our own cultural baggage. But I think it's a safe bet that the first true "alien" organism we will face won't look like a human with lumps of latex stuck to his forehead. In all likelihood it will be a microbe, and it will have a lot more in common with the bugs in your gut than the bug-eyed aliens of The X-Files
Yeah. I'm not about to read that all, but it's probably old news. There's always been speculation that we aren't alone in the universe. I mean, it's next to impossible. There are too many solar systems.
I dont know what you are trying to ask. And im not about to read all of that either. I hope that you didnt type that out, and you just copied it.
wow thats true... ya i do belive in other life because in 1987 the united states sent a spacecraft with all of earths discveries and belifes and everything known to mand on a giant disk....... so that leads me to belive that there is life out there just wating.... maby one day we'll find something just like earth,look at titan the latest find of moving water and sand on a moon of Jupiter?? who knows who knows Overlord
LOL LMAO 3Diablo7, i bet NO body read that post of yours... u wasted your time doing it..... LOL!!! that takes like 2 hours to read, and i dont like reading..... you could just put "do u believe that theres a life in a different planet?" u didnt have to put all those junks...
Why u on a forum if you dont like reading!! All hes really asking is do you think there life out there YES:NO
