nonsensical/incomprehensible/possibly terrifying **** in space thread

[Robbie3000]

I remember my environmental science teacher back in high school. He used to work at NASA and he was explaining that if aliens existed they would look NOTHING like a humanoid and probably not cute and cuddly like we see in the movies. Their shape could surpass the craziest looking monsters we've seen in our nightmares.

Whole class was all , , and

What if other life is not even carbon based? Doesn't even require water or for that matter even oxygen? We spend so much time looking for planets like ours, but life could even be based on something like silicon.

 

[acri1]

What if other life is not even carbon based? Doesn't even require water or for that matter even oxygen? We spend so much time looking for planets like ours, but life could even be based on something like silicon.

This is really one of those things that's hard to speculate about because we can't really look outside of ourselves. All life on earth is carbon-based, so nobody really knows for sure if non-carbon based life is possible, much less likely.

The thing about Carbon is that it has a rich chemistry relative to other elements and is more likely to form complex molecules. Some people have speculated that Silicon-based life might be possible, but it's not as abundant as Carbon.

So it's hard to say...from what we know it seems like Carbon-based life would be much more likely than anything else, but who knows.

The most commonly proposed basis for an alternative biochemical system is the silicon atom, since silicon has many chemical properties similar to carbon and is in the same periodic table group, the carbon group. Like carbon, silicon can create molecules that are sufficiently large to carry biological information.[18]

However, silicon has several drawbacks as a carbon alternative. Silicon, unlike carbon, lacks the ability to form chemical bonds with diverse types of atoms necessary for the chemical versatility required for metabolism. Elements creating organic functional groups with carbon include hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and metals such as iron, magnesium, and zinc. Silicon, on the other hand, interacts with very few other types of atoms.[18] Moreover, where it does interact with other atoms, silicon creates molecules that have been described as "monotonous compared with the combinatorial universe of organic macromolecules".[18] This is because silicon atoms are much bigger, having a larger mass and atomic radius, and so have difficulty forming double bonds (the double bonded carbon is part of the carbonyl group, a fundamental motif of bio-organic chemistry).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry#Non-carbon-based_biochemistries

 

[Malta]

I always wondered, what if there was a star out there around the same size as the ones in posted in the op, but had planets scaled to the size of it like our own and had creatures living on it that were thousands of miles in size

Like, Galactus type sized muthafukkas actually could exist in the universe

 

[acri1]

I always wondered, what if there was a star out there around the same size as the ones in posted in the op, but had planets scaled to the size of it like our own and had creatures living on it that were thousands of miles in size

Like, Galactus type sized muthafukkas actually could exist in the universe

Nah...any planets that big wouldn't be rocky like earth, they'd be gas giants (like Jupiter) and wouldn't be able to have life.

Also, I doubt lifeforms that giant can even exist because they'd fall victim to the Square/Cube law (look it up if you don't know what I'm referring to).


...just saying.

 

[Poetical Poltergeist]

I always wondered, what if there was a star out there around the same size as the ones in posted in the op, but had planets scaled to the size of it like our own and had creatures living on it that were thousands of miles in size

Like, Galactus type sized muthafukkas actually could exist in the universe

Crazy shyt to think about...

Or what if....there are creatures on a far away planet..that look just like us. Living an alternate history. When we die we are reincarnated on a different planet..since we are able to exist here why can't we, meaning conscience beings, exist somewhere else in the universe. Why isn't that possible? Or does that even make sense?

 

[Conz]

everytime i try to think of space I think about our oceans. the fact there is still tons of area on our own planet we haven't discovered is amazing.

 

[Conz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZq-HGutdHE

Space is mind boggling man, I always end up with brain farts trying to comprehend the vastness of the universe.

this guy's youtube is phenominal.

i need to hit the lottery and just read 8 hours a day. i just watched 6 of his videos and had to stop b/c i wanted to watch every video even close on the net.

 

[Hawaiian Punch]

Nah...any planets that big wouldn't be rocky like earth, they'd be gas giants (like Jupiter) and wouldn't be able to have life.

Also, I doubt lifeforms that giant can even exist because they'd fall victim to the Square/Cube law (look it up if you don't know what I'm referring to).


...just saying.

Can the square cubed law even be applied to dinosaurs? Seriously I just don't think that you make a plausible argument. Also wouldn't it be possible that a mercury sized planet would be able to support mega sized creatures?especially since the effects of gravity would be greatly lessened.

 

[Blackking]

there is life that is not carboned based...

I made a post about it like 1 or 2 years ago..

 

[Blackking]

Let's not underestimate Allah... there are arsenic based forms on Earth.. other type on other worlds outside of our galaxy,

And we don't even know what else used to be right here on earth..

 

[OG_StankBrefs]

 

[Blackking]

In his famous lecture, "Life in the Universe," Stephen Hawking observed that what we normally think of as 'life' is based on chains of carbon atoms, with a few other atoms, such as nitrogen or phosphorous. We can imagine that one might have life with some other chemical basis, such as silicon, "but carbon seems the most favorable case, because it has the richest chemistry."

Several eminent scientists think otherwise, that life in the universe could have a myriad of possible biochemical foundations ranging from life in ammonia to life in hydrocarbons and silicon. Silicates have a rich chemistry with a propensity for forming chains, rings, and sheets. One of the founders on modern genetics, Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith (born 1931), an organic chemist and molecular biologist at the University of Glasgow, argued that layers of crystalline silicates functioned as a primitive form of life on early Earth, before they evolved into carbon-based life forms. Cairns-Smith is most famous for his controversial book, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life, that popularized his hypothesis that self-replication of clay crystals in solution might provide a simple intermediate step between biologically inert matter and organic life.

The Earth was formed largely out of the heavier elements, including carbon and oxygen. Somehow, Hawking observes, "some of these atoms came to be arranged in the form of molecules of DNA. One possibility is that the formation of something like DNA, which could reproduce itself, is extremely unlikely. However, in a universe with a very large, or infinite, number of stars, one would expect it to occur in a few stellar systems, but they would be very widely separated."

Other prominent scientists have warned that we humans may be blinded by our familiarity with carbon and Earth-like conditions. In other words, what we’re looking for may not even lie in our version of a “sweet spot”.

 

[Blackking]

Also,

They have Ciroc in outer space

"The discovery of vinyl alcohol is significant," said Barry Turner, one of the staff scientists at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory who made the discovery.

"It gives us an important tool for understanding the formation of complex organic compounds in interstellar space," he said. "It may also help us better understand how life might arise elsewhere in the cosmos."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1589028.stm

 

[LucaBrasi]

Dope thread breh's

Somehow this shxt got me super hype for "Interstellar" I can't wait a whole year breh's

 

[acri1]

Can the square cubed law even be applied to dinosaurs? Seriously I just don't think that you make a plausible argument. Also wouldn't it be possible that a mercury sized planet would be able to support mega sized creatures?especially since the effects of gravity would be greatly lessened.

Dinosaurs weren't "thousands of miles in size".

Of course the Square-Cube law applied. We're talking about theoretical animals millions of times bigger than dinosaurs were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law#Biomechanics

Biomechanics
If an animal were isometrically scaled up by a considerable amount, its relative muscular strength would be severely reduced, since the cross section of its muscles would increase by the square of the scaling factor while its mass would increase by the cube of the scaling factor. As a result of this, cardiovascular and respiratory functions would be severely burdened.

In the case of flying animals, the wing loading would be increased if they were isometrically scaled up, and they would therefore have to fly faster to gain the same amount of lift. Air resistance per unit mass is also higher for smaller animals, which is why a small animal like an ant cannot be crushed by falling from any height.

As was elucidated by J. B. S. Haldane, large animals do not look like small animals: an elephant cannot be mistaken for a mouse scaled up in size. This is due to allometric scaling: the bones of an elephant are necessarily proportionately much larger than the bones of a mouse, because they must carry proportionately higher weight. To quote from Haldane's seminal essay On Being the Right Size, "...consider a man 60 feet high...Giant Pope and Giant Pagan in the illustrated Pilgrim's Progress.... These monsters...weighed 1000 times as much as Christian. Every square inch of a giant bone had to support 10 times the weight borne by a square inch of human bone. As the human thigh-bone breaks under about 10 times the human weight, Pope and Pagan would have broken their thighs every time they took a step." Consequently, most animals show allometric scaling with increased size, both among species and within a species.

The giant monsters seen in horror movies (e.g., Godzilla or King Kong) are also unrealistic, as their sheer size would force them to collapse. However, it's no coincidence that the largest animals to ever exist on earth are aquatic animals, because the buoyancy of water negates to some extent the effects of gravity. Therefore, sea creatures can grow to very large sizes without the same musculoskeletal structures that would be required of similarly sized land creatures.