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What if we're looking int the wrong places?
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What if we're looking int the wrong places?Posted:
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Okay, let me start this off by saying I have pretty much no knowledge of what planets need to support life, besides the basics. Anyway, here I go.
In our search for alien life, could we be looking in the wrong places? What if we overlook planets that dont have conditions very similar to us? What states that all life needs to be supported by the same, or very similar conditions we have? Obviously, theres some planets that its understandable to pass up on, when they're big, hot balls of magma, or like, all water or something.
But why does being too far away from it's star negate a planet from the possibility of supporting life? As of now, we are only comparing to our own conditions. Obviously we can't search every single planet, but for all we know, we could've passed up on several planets that could support life, or that even have life on it.
In our search for alien life, could we be looking in the wrong places? What if we overlook planets that dont have conditions very similar to us? What states that all life needs to be supported by the same, or very similar conditions we have? Obviously, theres some planets that its understandable to pass up on, when they're big, hot balls of magma, or like, all water or something.
But why does being too far away from it's star negate a planet from the possibility of supporting life? As of now, we are only comparing to our own conditions. Obviously we can't search every single planet, but for all we know, we could've passed up on several planets that could support life, or that even have life on it.
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Joined: Aug 06, 201211Year Member
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Reputation Power: 374
We could be looking in the wrong places.
From what we've observed though, every organism on Earth requires water to survive, there has been no life detected on any planets in our solar system besides Earth.
This makes it logical to try and find other planets with water on, rather than focus on dry ones which are unlikely to have life on.
If you have a rocky, dry, desert planet and a wet, forested planet next to each other, you are obviously going to look at the wet planet for life first because from experience it is the most logical choice for finding life.
The other planet could have life on it, but the chances are significantly lower, this is why they overlook many of the planets we find.
It's not that they're comparing the conditions on Earth to other planets, it's that they're comparing the conditions needed by life on Earth to other planets.
From what we've observed though, every organism on Earth requires water to survive, there has been no life detected on any planets in our solar system besides Earth.
This makes it logical to try and find other planets with water on, rather than focus on dry ones which are unlikely to have life on.
If you have a rocky, dry, desert planet and a wet, forested planet next to each other, you are obviously going to look at the wet planet for life first because from experience it is the most logical choice for finding life.
The other planet could have life on it, but the chances are significantly lower, this is why they overlook many of the planets we find.
It's not that they're comparing the conditions on Earth to other planets, it's that they're comparing the conditions needed by life on Earth to other planets.
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