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Life in the Solar System

Life in the Solar System. Where have all the Martians gone?. What is Life?. While we can list characteristics of living organisms (and the book does), many non-living systems will exhibit many, if not all, of these characteristics Is life about reproduction ? Is a sterile human alive?

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Life in the Solar System

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  1. Life in the Solar System Where have all the Martians gone?

  2. What is Life? • While we can list characteristics of living organisms (and the book does), many non-living systems will exhibit many, if not all, of these characteristics • Is life about reproduction? Is a sterile human alive? • Maybe it's about arising from reproduction? If we took a copy of you by copying all the atoms of your body, would the copy be alive? • The bottom line is:We have no useful definition of life. http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/noflash/Lifedefinition-04-01.html

  3. Types of Life on Earth

  4. Origin of Life on Earth

  5. Life in Extreme Environments: Extremophiles

  6. What do we know? • We don’t know exactly what life is. • We don’t know exactly how life began. • What do we know? • Where does life live? Almost everywhere on Earth. • What are the requirements for life to exist and thrive? • This isn’t too bad. After all, to find life, we first need to know where to look. • Step 1: Decide what life needs and identify the places that meet these requirements so we know where to look.

  7. What is needed for life? • The presence of liquid water • The elements needed for metabolism and reproduction (biogenic elements) • A biologically useful source of energy • Suitable environmental conditions http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/noflash/Conditions-04-02.html

  8. Limiting factor • Biogenic elements (CHONSP…) are all over the Solar System (even in asteroids and meteorites) • Sources of energy: • Sunlight (photosynthesis) • Many chemical reactions generated by heat • Others? • Liquid water requires temperatures of 273-373 K (0-100 C). • Environment • Mainly, no harmful UV rays • Bottom Line: Follow the water http://www.sciam.com/specialissues/0398cosmos/0398jakosky.html

  9. Follow the Water • What planetary bodies have liquid water? • Water needs warmth (273-373 K), so heat is necessary. • Where does heat come from in the Solar System? • Internal heat • Solar heat • Tidal heat • That lead us to… • Earth (duh) • Mars • Europa • http://passporttoknowledge.com/solarsystem/life/water.html

  10. Mars

  11. Water on Mars http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.html

  12. Viking mission

  13. ALH84001

  14. Missions to Mars • 2001 Mars Odyssey • 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers • 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter • Beyond 2007 • Smart Lander and Long-range Rover – as early as 2007 • Sample Return – as early as 2011, likely 2014

  15. Mars Exploration Rovers

  16. Europa http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/04/14b.html

  17. Missions to Europa? http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/europaorbiter/

  18. Questions • How important will it be if we discovered other life in our Solar System? • How would we know it wasn’t life from Earth? • Is NASA right in concentrating much of its resources on searching for life? (ie., is Europa more important than Io?)

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