First-Ever Discovery: Complex Organic Molecules Found on Rosetta's Comet
41 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Lolkork;51054960]So there pretty much has to be life on europa?
Fuck yeah lets drop everything and go look at (and possibly eat) some alien fishies.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Bradyns;51057357]Hopefully we can get some sort of submersible to Europa in the next 15years.[/QUOTE]
That 100 km of rock solid ice tho. Then you need the rover to communicate with the surface through all that ice which means the cable would need to be absolutely massive for it to explore. There's so many complications with going to Europa that I'm more on board with the submarine rover for Titan (even though there's probably not life there, it would be very interesting to see what a body of liquid outside of Earth holds). Feels like it's the only moon mission that would be possible to do in my life time with our technology.
I don't even think we have been able to drill farther than ~10 km deep on Earth :(
If I live to see a Europa mission though I'm willing to put down $10 that there's life on the ocean floor.
[QUOTE=Anax;51058057]That 100 km of rock solid ice tho. Then you need the rover to communicate with the surface through all that ice which means the cable would need to be absolutely massive for it to explore. There's so many complications with going to Europa that I'm more on board with the submarine rover for Titan (even though there's probably not life there, it would be very interesting to see what a body of liquid outside of Earth holds). Feels like it's the only moon mission that would be possible to do in my life time with our technology.
I don't even think we have been able to drill farther than ~10 km deep on Earth :(
If I live to see a Europa mission though I'm willing to put down $10 that there's life on the ocean floor.[/QUOTE]
Europa's crust is estimated at 10-30kms thick, and the reason we haven't drilled further than 10km is due to the cost effectiveness of such a drilling attempt, with the temperatures of the crust making it infeasible. Europa would suffer none of those effects.
Can humanity just collectively get seriously ambitious about finding non-earth life already pls
[QUOTE=TheBloodyNine;51057016]This fucks with my brain in unimaginable ways
Also house flies really got the short end of that deal didn't they[/QUOTE]
I don't know. With all the stresses of modern life I sometimes think it would be better to be a house fly
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;51058606]Can humanity just collectively get seriously ambitious about finding non-earth life already pls[/QUOTE]
There's no guarantee they'll pay taxes so no.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51056967]DNA is 4 times removed from simple organic molecules in terms of complexity. You need to bring the nitrogenous bases together with deoxyribose/ribose to form nucleosides, then you need to combine those with phosphate to get nucleotides, then you need to combine nucleotides into 3-letter codons that correspond to amino acids, then you need to combine codons together to get coding sequences. Only then can you get DNA that is of biological significance. It's [I]quite[/I] unlikely that a system like that would arise twice independently then commingle later on. It's either entirely alien or entirely terrestrial in origin.[/QUOTE]
Beyond this, isn't it much more likely that we'll find RNA alone rather than DNA? DNA isn't very useful as anything beyond storage, whereas RNA could produce enzymes to replicate itself. I mean if we find DNA I think it's unlikely we won't also see proteins or RNA enzymes, because otherwise that DNA has no business existing really.
Is it just me or has "first" become just a buzzword in scientific journalism? Every other discovery / invention / observation is somehow "first", even when it plainly isn't.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51058944]Beyond this, isn't it much more likely that we'll find RNA alone rather than DNA? DNA isn't very useful as anything beyond storage, whereas RNA could produce enzymes to replicate itself. I mean if we find DNA I think it's unlikely we won't also see proteins or RNA enzymes, because otherwise that DNA has no business existing really.[/QUOTE]
This is pretty much what the RNA world hypothesis posits. Life started with entirely RNA-based biochemical pathways using ribosomes and ribozymes; DNA and proteins only came into the picture later on. It makes sense because life that uses DNA and proteins needs RNA as well, but RNA alone can form a complete package.
DNA is good for storage because chemically it is more stable due to the lack of a OH in the 2' position of the ribose sugar. The lack of this OH removes two major routes by which RNA can degrade, which is strand breaking due to cyclisation with the 2'-phosphate group, and strand migration from 2'-OH to 3'-OH. There's also a chemical reason why uracil is used in RNA but thymine in DNA but it's been 3 months of summer since I took my exam and I've forgotten why.
[QUOTE=Badballer;51058623]I don't know. With all the stresses of modern life I sometimes think it would be better to be a house fly[/QUOTE]
you may as well be non-existent because a house fly wouldn't have the luxury of having complex thoughts and emotions such as "ahh life is chill"
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51059661]This is pretty much what the RNA world hypothesis posits. Life started with entirely RNA-based biochemical pathways using ribosomes and ribozymes; DNA and proteins only came into the picture later on. It makes sense because life that uses DNA and proteins needs RNA as well, but RNA alone can form a complete package.
DNA is good for storage because chemically it is more stable due to the lack of a OH in the 2' position of the ribose sugar. The lack of this OH removes two major routes by which RNA can degrade, which is strand breaking due to cyclisation with the 2'-phosphate group, and strand migration from 2'-OH to 3'-OH. [B]There's also a chemical reason why uracil is used in RNA but thymine in DNA but it's been 3 months of summer since I took my exam and I've forgotten why.[/B][/QUOTE]
When cytosine becomes deaminated (pretty common damage to DNA) it turns into uracil, whereas thymine has an additional methyl-group to differentiate it. If DNA used uracil the repair mechanisms wouldn't be able to to ascertain whether a thymine or a cytosine were actually supposed to go there, which would lead to a mutation in the sequence, Couldn't quite remember it either, but looking up their structures it came back to me.
[thumb]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/DesaminierungCtoU.png[/thumb]
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51061592]When cytosine becomes deaminated (pretty common damage to DNA) it turns into uracil, whereas thymine has an additional methyl-group to differentiate it. If DNA used uracil the repair mechanisms wouldn't be able to to ascertain whether a thymine or a cytosine were actually supposed to go there, which would lead to a mutation in the sequence, Couldn't quite remember it either, but looking up their structures it came back to me.
[thumb]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/DesaminierungCtoU.png[/thumb][/QUOTE]
Ah yes, that's what it was. Thanks.
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