I am constantly amazed at the how life can be found on any environment on earth, and can survive any conditions it meets.
A little six-legged creature called the water bear, tardigrades, show they can survive even the open harsh vacuum of space and deadly radiation.
Why take water bears along in space?
From an article on Foxnews:
“Jonsson suspects that even the water bears that got through the space trip without any trouble may in fact have incurred DNA damage, but that the animals managed to repair this damage. Figuring out how they did that could inform medical research.
“One problem with radiation therapy in treating cancer today is that healthy cells are also harmed,” he said. “If we can document and show that there are special molecules involved in DNA repair in multicellular animals like tardigrades, we might be able to further the development of radiation therapy.”
I would be shocked if life did not exist on another planet as there are millions of planets with conditions similar to earth. If life can survive space it can survive anywhere.
Questions:
Do you believe there is life on other plants?
If you believe in God would finding life on another plant affect your religious beliefs?
If you don’t believe in God would confirmation that life only exits on Earth cause you to re-examine the possibility that God does exist?
More from the article:
“A tiny, six-legged critter that can suspend all biological activity in extreme environments survived a journey to space that would have instantly killed any human and most other life forms.
In the first test of its kind, researchers exposed the hardy segmented creatures, called water bears, to the open and harsh vacuum of space, with all its deadly radiation, on a spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. Many of them survived.
The water bears, known formally as tardigrades, have an ability similar to brine shrimp, also known as Sea Monkeys, which are familiar to many children for their ability to come to life after being sent to homes by mail-order.
Tardigrades are speck-sized things, less than 1.5 millimeters long. They’re in their own phylum but are thought to be most closely related to arthropods, which includes crustaceans, insects and spiders.
They live on wet lichens and mosses, but when their environment dries out, they just wait for a return of water. They also resist heat, cold and radiation.
The radiation resistance was most surprising to scientists.”
5 comments
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September 14, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Indian Lake Papa
I agree Ed, in this great expanse of a universe there must be other planets with life – maybe not. It wouldn’t shake my faith, but it sure would give me more questions to ask! If you ever get to the Cincinnati area, check out the Creation Museum in Ky! Cool! i was in awe of their planetarium presentation of the universe – it was primarily a scientific factual presentation of its vastness. I think you would find the museum interesting.
September 14, 2008 at 9:02 pm
edfromct
Papa, whenever I have traveled to different cities I always check out the museums.
I looked up the Creation Museum and see they have a beautiful Botanical Garden and a Planetarium, two things I enjoy.
I am lucky enough to live just 30 miles form Yale University. I have visited their Peabody Museum many times. Yale Professor Dr. John Ostrom did ground breaking work on the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
September 15, 2008 at 7:16 am
ric booth
Do I believe in life on other planets? Well, actually with God this is, of course, very possible and for that matter, He may have done just that to humble our star trekking dependents someday.
Without God, no. Statistically speaking, WE should not exist. All life on earth should not exist from a purely statistical analysis point of view. Life can persist in amazing extremes but life cannot germinate/begin from non-living material and then evolve to human beings (multicellular sentient beings) in the short time span the 14 billion year old universe.
The scientific community is investigating a theory called the multiverse (many parallel universes). We would need billions (perhaps trillions) of expansive universes just like ours to approach the 1 in gazillion odds that life would begin and evolve at the rate we see hear on earth.
So oddly enough, if life were discovered on other planets of other suns in our universe, even if it were only one other planet in our universe, it would reaffirm my faith in God who created all this.
September 15, 2008 at 11:54 am
edfromct
Ric, I had not heard the term “multiverse” before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I am way behind on current scientific theories. Of course I looked the term up in my source of all knowledge
Wikipedia. I do love Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
I like the term “Bubble Theory”, I don’t know much about it, I just like the way it sounds.
I also found the following interesting:
“The earliest known records describing the concept of a multiverse are found in ancient Hindu cosmology in texts such as the Puranas. They expressed the idea of an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods, inhabitants and planets, and an infinite cycle of births, deaths, and rebirths of a universe, with each cycle lasting 8.4 billion years. The belief is too that the number of universes is infinite.”
I would suspect that like you and Papa, for most believers finding life on another planet would not affect their religious beliefs.
September 15, 2008 at 5:28 pm
ric booth
Yeah Ed, like I mentioned earlier, discovering life elsewhere would only reaffirm my faith in God. I guess that would be a positive affect on my faith…