

Is There A Giant Life Form Lurking In Our Solar System? Possibly, Say Scientists - Articulate
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/08/14/211945779/is-there-a-giant-life-form-lurking-in-our-solar-system-possibly-say-scientists

======
dm2
I'm still having a hard time contemplating the fact that WE exist.

Sitting in front of our flat monitors with access to nearly all information
which is stored all around planet Earth.

Phones that connect us to billions of people.

Brains large enough to hypothesize the creation of the universe.

We can create rockets that send probes to other planets and even the edge of
our solar system.

We regularly travel around in amazing personal vehicles that allow us to
travel at over 100 mph in about 10 seconds.

The fact that each one of us had about one quadrillionth percent chance of
even being born, yet here we are.

The fact that we can even talk and communicate effectively is amazing.

We can imagine future technologies and have goals to work towards such as
immortality, brain-computer interfaces, teleportation, and mining asteroids.

We have so much to be thankful for. Everything is amazing.

WTF. [0]

I have a dog that can't do anything but eat, pee, poop, and play fetch. What
kind of activities do other organisms do that humans can't do? Other than
telepathy, and flight, and breathing without oxygen, and energy creation
through sunlight.

Yet we still make fellow humans and animals suffer daily. We eat shit food and
get depressed and some people even try to kill themselves. We have concepts
like good and evil and actually hate other humans just because they are not
exactly like our culture or have more stuff than we do. We have enough nuclear
missiles in the ocean to eradicate life on earth.

Terraforming mars will be fun. I hope that I live to see the start of that
adventure. The next 100 years in general will be very fun. I'm extremely glad
that I get to be a part of this awesome world at this extraordinary time in
human history. Please, nobody fuck it up too bad.

My point is, regarding the article, ANYTHING is possible. God is possible,
ghosts are possible, flying spaghetti monsters are possible but until I see a
video with convincing explanation or accredited scientists agree that
something is very likely, is there really any point of just making up stuff?

Mars having a thriving self-sustaining human-like civilization underground is
possible. Aliens living among us for several years is possible. No scientist
will say that either of those hypothesis are absolutely impossible, but there
is no point in proposing it unless you're writing a science fiction
novel/movie/comic book.

~~~
GuiA
> WTF. [0]

Did you forget a footnote? :)

~~~
jjcm
Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but this is probably a reference to
reddit's r/trees subreddit's way of noting how high the user is. It's a 0-10
scale, 0 being entirely sober. In this context he would be saying that it's
mindblowing, despite not being high.

------
rgbrenner
The entire article is based on this sentence

"Thus, life on Titan could involve huge (by Earth standards) and very slowly
metabolizing cells, in which case biomass densities would be higher than
calculated above."

which the author interprets as

"a life form in our solar system that's not a puny, dumb little thing, but a
huge dumb thing. Like dog-sized. Or maybe Volkswagen-sized."

I'm sorry.. but a "huge by (earth standards) cell" doesn't mean dog sized. It
means a few times an earth sized cell. Otherwise, why compare it to a cell at
all?

~~~
joshuahedlund
Yeah with "giant" and "lurking" I was hoping for hints of a planet-sized
creature existing in dark matter or some interdimensional plane or extreme
wavelength or something. Title is a bit link-baity.

~~~
Articulate
it hadn't even crossed my mind that it would be something that big... but now
that you say that, I wish that it had been some gigantic solar-system sized
being... now I am totally let down- damn you Robert Krulwhich... damn you.

------
anigbrowl
I feel like I've been trapped in the corner at a cocktail party by someone who
insists on showing me bad drawings on a cocktail napkin. This guy's writing
style is so annoying that I couldn't even make it to the end of the article.
Attempting to parse this has left me feeling slightly dumber than 5 minutes
ago.

~~~
Articulate
Well depending on your background, & education it may have felt dumbed down
but I have a lot of respect for Robert Krulwhich his RadioLab co-host won a
McArthur "genius" award, and they have done (in my opinion) an excellent job
of bringing science alive for people that either don't have the aptitude or
didn't cross paths with the type of people that can inspire you to learn more
about the universe.

~~~
Articulate
This commencement speech that he gave had a major impact on me
[http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-
blog/2008/jul/29/tell...](http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-
blog/2008/jul/29/tell-me-a-story/)

------
Charos
To be cynical, a lot of things are possible. It's possible that anaerobic
bacteria still live in small pockets beneath the surface of Mars. It's
possible, if unlikely, that extremophiles survive on the sweltering surface of
Venus, or floating in its sulphurous clouds.

Of course, the fact that these things are possible is still incredibly cool.
While this article lacks much technical substance, this is the kind of
thinking that gave us Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot. I hope enough people retain
this author's sense of scientific curiosity and excitement for discovery.
While cold logic, expected-value calculations, and cynicism are important in a
research setting, outside of the lab it's important for people to be able to
get excited about little (or big!) things like this.

We _can_ have scientific progress and childish glee coexist. Thank you for
posting this.

~~~
jerf
Floating in the clouds of Venus, sure. There's some semi-Earthlike zones in
the cloud layer. On the surface, very probably not. It is unlikely that there
is any structure that could pump entropy out of the cell faster than the
horrific surface environment of Venus would be pumping it in. (More
conventionally known as heat, but I find this formulation helps focus on the
fact that "too hot" really is an intrinsic problem for life, not merely an
incidental one that might be overcome by more chemistry.) I'm not even 100%
convinced that a technological solution is possible that could work over
geologic time frames, let alone adding the restrictions of abiogenesis on to
the structure. (Though on the topic of abiogenesis, it's difficult to see how
to apply any of the current thoughts on that to an atmospheric environment;
Venusian extremophiles would also probably be immigrants from Earth.)

~~~
unclebucknasty
It has always intrigued me that we consider the possibility of other life
forms in a manner that is largely relative to our understanding of life on
earth and, hence, biology. But, even our understanding of DNA need not be
applicable to other life forms.

I don't see why there has to be any real limitation on conditions or
otherwise. As the article mentions, we have been surprised to find
extremophiles near thermal vents right here on Earth (which reach temperatures
roughly equivalent to the Venusian surface). There we find, for instance,
bacteria that rely upon hydrogen sulfide vs sunlight for energy. This is what
we consider a "harsh" environment of chemicals, heat, pressure, etc. However,
when we attempt to remove organisms from that environment to study them, they
usually die pretty quickly. In other words, ours is the harsh environment as
far as they are concerned.

Elsewhere, we have found organisms whose DNA was thought to be composed of
arsenic vs phosphorous. While this was ultimately refuted, for a period we
once again thought we'd discovered something that, in an instant, completely
changed our understanding of life.

So, I guess my point is that we assume life must conform to certain
requirements and/or conditions until we find life forms that violate our
assumptions. Given a Universe as vast and diverse as our own, I sincerely
believe that anything is possible and perhaps even likely.

~~~
jerf
Information theory is a fundamental constraint on any halfway sensible theory
of life. If you can't pump out entropy faster than it comes in, you will, by
definition, be randomized, which pretty much by definition is not alive.

I know people think they're being sophisticated when they insist no limits can
be placed on the form of life, but it's not true; it's naive. There are in
fact certain very powerful and generic limits that can be placed on life with
some powerful mathematics, such as the one I mentioned. It's fun to imagine a
life form in science fiction that lives on the surface of the sun, but in
reality they are not possible; there's no way they could retain any
interesting structure in such a high entropy environment. To argue otherwise
is basically to be arguing against thermodynamics. This basically puts this
position firmly on the "crank" side, not the scientifically knowledgeable one.

Also, the idea that there are no limits on what life can look like is
_observationally false_. The vast majority of places we look, we do not see
life. Even if we manage to find a few simple life forms in a few of the
slightly less hostile places in the solar system, it still won't change that
fact; life is observationally not abundant everywhere, regardless of
conditions. There definitely is a difference between conditions conducive to
life and those not. Even what we call "extremophiles" are only surprising in
purely local terms; in absolute terms in the Solar System, volcanic vents are
still _incredibly_ hospitable places compared to what is out there. In its own
way, trying to argue from extremophiles to the general case is its own
perversively parochial argument; the idea that extremophiles are actually
"extreme" is a very terra-centric viewpoint.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Wow.

> _" If you can't pump out entropy faster than it comes in, you will, by
> definition, be randomized, which pretty much by definition is not alive_

You're essentially just saying "if you can't stay alive, then you're dead".
It's a non-statement.

My point was that's a big _if_. There are environments in which we wouldn't
have thought it possible, until it was proven otherwise.

 _" I know people think they're being sophisticated when they insist no limits
can be placed on the form of life, but it's not true; it's naive"_

I don't think it particularly sophisticated to hold this view. I think it
simply acknowledges the limitations of our knowledge (limitations which have
been proven time and again). As a result, "naive" is actually the word I'd use
to describe those who believe that their prior observations represent the full
set of possibilities. The world was once flat and all of that.

So, ironically, I would say that your _entire argument_ is based on a profound
naivete. It is limited to what we currently understand/have observed and it
assumes that it is foolish to consider otherwise.

> _the idea that there are no limits on what life can look like is
> observationally false. The vast majority of places we look, we do not see
> life..._

What does that mean? I don't think that anyone's asserting that life must
exist in every single place we look; rather simply that some form of life
_could_ exist in virtually every single place we look, because we truly do
_not_ know what the bounds are. And, at a minimum, it almost certainly exists
in places that we don't expect. The more general point is that it's
extraordinarily presumptive to conclude that we know definitively what life
could be, based simply on our own observations to date.

> _the idea that extremophiles are actually "extreme" is a very terra-centric
> viewpoint._

Well, exactly. That's my point. We've dubbed them "extremophiles" because of
our own limited reference point at a particular place in time. Their existence
is simply evidence of our limited observational knowledge in the past.
Ironically, enough, that's a term that is still generally accepted because
even in spite of them showing us that we were wrong about life at some point,
we still can't quite wrap our minds around the fact that we were wrong.

Now, you are simply arguing from a slightly evolved set of observational
knowledge that happens to accommodate the existence of those "extremophiles".
But, you're simply saying "OK, we might have been wrong once. But, we can't be
wrong again". It's really an odd argument to make. And you're adding that
volcanic vents aren't such a bad place to live after all. Well, yeah. Because
we now know that life exists there. You can follow that line of reasoning
until we find life at the center of the Sun.

------
Eliezer
Rarely have I wished so much for a downvote button on top-level posts.

~~~
derpitation
Let's at least turn this into a teachable moment by drawing attention to Nick
Bostrom's "great filter" argument.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnkAcdRgcI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnkAcdRgcI)

------
jostmey
Evolution.

It is why native alien life is unlikely to exist in our own solar system. You
see, once life gets started, this process we call evolution takes place. Life
takes on a myriad of complex forms. It covers the planet, gradually adapting
to survive and thrive on nearly every patch of land. And behold, the planet is
transformed.

There is only one planet in our solar system where this has happened. If life
had started on some other rock in our solar system, it too would be visibly
infested with lifeforms.

~~~
tghw
Not necessarily. Evolution does not mean improvement, just adaptation. Unless
there's some sort of biological pressure, such as a predator or an
environmental risk, change won't happen or will happen much more slowly.

The time scale is also important. In very cold environments, such as the ones
described, everything happens at a much slower pace. Consider it this way:
heat is a proxy for energy (technically it is energy, but it's not all the
energy). Energy is required for change. Very cold environments mean less
energy, which means less change over the same time period.

------
lutusp
Why do articles like this always overlook the key scientific and historical
issues?

If there's life on Europa, and if it is not based on DNA, that would mean
Europan life evolved along a separate path from ours. That would lend support
to the idea that life is common in the universe.

If Europa's hypothetical life was based on DNA, it would lend support to the
"panspermia" idea, because it's hard to imagine how Earth's life could get to
Europa, implying that Earth's life, and Europa's life, both arose somewhere
else and traveled to separate destinations.

There are several other possibilities, none of which are discussed in the
article.

------
stcredzero
It's our biases that show in our implicit assumption that life must operate on
the spatial and temporal scales of large animals on Earth. Cryogenic life
might well be a lot slower than the typical animal on Earth. It's a lot colder
on Titan. Energy is a lot more diffuse. Why wouldn't it be much larger and
slower? (Or for that matter, smaller and slower?)

------
droogie
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE

I think I'll stick to Arthur C. Clarke's half tree, half animal lifeform in
Europa which is better than a single-celled blob.

------
Houshalter
I like the illustrations. Especially the woman pushing the alien in a shopping
cart.

------
Sommer
Coincidence or clever irony that the second drawing of the woman inspecting
the little life looks a lot like Felisa Wolfe-Simon (of arsenic based life
fame)?

------
Navarr
"We have all been scientists at one point or another in our lives." \- Cecil
Baldwin

------
sciguy77
That would make me very happy.

------
6thSigma
I expected this to be from The Onion with that headline.

------
Yaa101
It doesn't mean we can't get sick from it, I think we need to be very careful
with extra terrestrial life.

~~~
Ihmahr
Not to mention the minus 180 degrees Celsius.

~~~
tghw
Yeah, that tends to be much more harmful than any infection.

------
6d0debc071
Dirk Schultzs-Makuch and David Grinspoon said if one day methane eaters are
found to exist on Titan,

.5

and if they swim around in very, very cold ethane lakes or oceans,

.5

and if those oceans don't have the pressure or weight of water,

.5

\----------------

* .5 .5 .5

0.125, under stupidly generous assumptions.

Have you paid your complexity tax today?

