
Organics found on dwarf planet Ceres - sndean
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i8/Organics-found-dwarf-planet-Ceres.html
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Cyphase
Not the same link, but the same story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667934](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13667934)

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kristopolous
I've wondered whether life could be restricted to an area say the size of a
city park as a very small "favorable condition" region of a planet. Ceres has
more surface area than California, Texas, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona,
Nevada, and Colorado combined...

I'd imagine it'd take a long time for some decent amount of planetary
coverage, even if everything happened favourably.

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jasonlfunk
It's been awhile since I took chemistry, what is the precise definition of
'organics' in this article?

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tomjakubowski
> aliphatic organic molecules

This means hydrocarbons that lack highly stable cyclical structures (e.g.
benzene rings). Examples include alkanes, alkenes, alkynes like propane,
ethylene, propylene, cyclohexane, etc.

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omginternets
>This means hydrocarbons that lack highly stable cyclical structures

What is special about lacking stable cyclical structures in this context? Does
this have any bearing on, say, a link to life?

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jlebrech
on a related topic, what is the highest resolution image of ceres that we
have?

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does_a_code
recent nasa images have detected the fungal mass generally associated with a
whole foods franchise

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ForFreedom
Humans are searching signs of life w.r.t how life on earth evolved which
should not be the way I would say.

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chc
We don't know what else life looks like, so we can't really look for it.

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smilliken
One strategy: look for unexpected order/pockets of low entropy. If you find
some matter organized in a way that's unlikely by pure chance, that's a good
lead.

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Larrikin
That's one of the ways they are searching for life. It's starting to show it's
age but A Pale Blue Dot is still an excellent read

