The Life of Super-Earths - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Dimitar Sasselov, CfA In 1543 Copernicus showed that our planet isn't the center of the universe. Centuries later, we know that just as Earth is not the center of things, the life on it is probably not unique either. Or is it? Tonight, learn how the search for "super-Earths" - rocky planets larger than our own that orbit other stars - may provide the key to answering essential questions about the origins of life here and elsewhere. You'll also hear how we face a moment of unprecedented potential - a convergence of pioneering efforts in astronomy and biology to peer into the unknown and determine how unique Earth life truly is. February 16, 2012
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How strange we will look for other beings? And how much stranger will be the picture of our doings...
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@DiamondChrome42 "scientists have also found extinct bacteria on Mars that aren't found on Earth so that also says things...." i am not sure that this has been verified.But what I just wanted to say that they might be very different on their biochemistry they might tend to be similar morphologically in dependacne on physical environmental pressure.So you might find in an ocean also animals fith fish form, with something like teeth or similar aparati.
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@DiamondChrome42 I think what we can also predict is similar adaptions to the environment . So alien life might be very different but will remind somehow to what we know from earth.
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@DiamondChrome42 yes i agree, it will take time humans are still busy navel gazing, eventually we'll realize that life is just information processing and it can appear in many forms not just in the ways we expect. Same goes for intelligent life... what is intelligent after all? what's more intelligent from an evolutionary perspective .... live free in the oceans like dolphins do or build bombs and rockets and kill each other like humans do... maybe there are lots of intelligent species out there
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@DiamondChrome42 Wow, I appreciate your analogy of our brain as an eco-system. Thanks.
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