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exobiology

Assuming they were a reasonble size and lived on a planet anything like earth they would have fur. supporting for this theary is that fur has evolved seperatly acoss different typres of life from apes to bumble bees.
It is very hard to imagin a system without some kind of bacteria analoge but beyond that it would very much depend on the envirment these aliens are ment to exist in.
 
Impossible.

There is NO WAY possible that we can determine what it wuld look, act, or 'be' like. I laugh every time I see an alien depicted on TV, or in the movies, and I especially laugh when it looks like ANYTHING humanoid. We are sooooo xeno-centric. We think that because we are a certain way, we must be the best way, and hence everything else would likely evolve like we did.

Look at the diversity of life forms JUST ON THIS PLANET, where all life evolved from the SAME pile of bio-goo. Now, think about stuff coming from a different atmosphere, climate, sun-type, with different resources.
 
Larspeart said:
Impossible.

There is NO WAY possible that we can determine what it wuld look, act, or 'be' like. I laugh every time I see an alien depicted on TV, or in the movies, and I especially laugh when it looks like ANYTHING humanoid. We are sooooo xeno-centric. We think that because we are a certain way, we must be the best way, and hence everything else would likely evolve like we did.

Look at the diversity of life forms JUST ON THIS PLANET, where all life evolved from the SAME pile of bio-goo. Now, think about stuff coming from a different atmosphere, climate, sun-type, with different resources.
Click to expand...

We can make some hopfully acracte assumptions from what we know of chemistryand physics. For example it is very unlikely that there is any life anywhere entirly bases on helium neon and argon. Anything that containes molicles of any size is going to have to use carbon in some respect and some kind of fluid is an almost garenteed must.
We can also look at what stratiges have work across all the types of life on this planet so some kind of system for movement is highly likey be it flagella or jet propulsion.
We can set limits on what envirments it is posible for life to live in for example it is imposible for life to exist below 0K or in a singularity.
 
bewareofdogmas said:
Lets get some speculation going about what real alien life might be like.
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Star Wars depicts them brilliantly and accurately. Mostly bipedal, similar shape and size to us but wierd heads with all manner of ridiculous and useless appendages.
 
bewareofdogmas said:
Well life could not exist below 0 kelvin because below zero kelvin
is impossible.
Click to expand...

sorry that should have been "at 0k"
 
Here's a guess

They'll be just as stupid and credulous as humans.
 
To continue with what BTox, said, they would have so many wild appendages that they would be guaranteed to lose one if they ran past a tree, stumbled down a hill, walked through a narrow doorway, or turned over too quickly while asleep.

~~ Paul
 
OK, sorry. Seriously, all aliens look exactly like this. Remember, pointy ears and Moe haircuts:

M-spock.jpg
 
I'm trying to figure out why everyone assumes aliens will be even remotely anthropomorphic. I'm not even particularly inclined to believe that bipedality is advantageous, particularly should you have 6 limbs.

More, to the point, though, I believe it likely that extraterrestrial life will more than likely be carbon-based and have cells with genetic blueprints similar in nature to those of earthly organisms. I only speculate this because articles like this have a tendency to pop up every now and then, with various flavors, but all containing the same basic premises, that organic molecules happen naturally out of an inorganic environment and can, over large amounts of time, hit on a statistically successful organism capable of proliferating in its environment.

I don't see how an inhabitted alien world could have gotten to the point of having anything above single-celled organisms without first going through a protist-esque phase of development, which would leave behind plenty of bacteria-esque life. One thing I don't think would be likely found is the virus.

Personally, I view the virus as one of the marvels of nature. It is literally the perfect machine. It requires zero energy and is capable of replicating itself endlessly by hijacking a cell's own machinery. I'm more or less flummoxed as to how they developed in the first place. They're just too perfect to be the result of the hit and miss evolution process. I speculate that there was a phase in history when the virus was too effective and decimated its host population, which gave it ample opportunity to mutate and devlop into more viable forms, but at a slower rate to compensate for the lowered population. It's an extinction event theory that I muse over sometimes, that's all.

This is an interesting question. I'm sorry no one else has really taken a serious interest in it. Maybe if we do manage to discover life on Europa I'll get to be one of the xenobiologists to study it. Wouldn't that be fun!
 
When asking about alien life do you mean any form of life or sentient life specifically? In general alien life could take any form from bacteria up, and given the diversity that's developed here on Earth any speculation about specific appearance is pointless, because of evolution it's highly dependent on the way the environment has developed over millions of years!

If however you are talking about a technologically advanced sentient race (in the way that humans are) then a couple of things are required;
1. appendages that are capable of manipulating tools and materials - eg arms and hands (although not necesarily those),
2. a form of higher communication - eg vocal chords, lungs and mouths run by a large chunk of brain.

Beyond these two things there are really no prerequisites. They could have any number of limbs, sense organs, internal organs and range in size anywhere from, say, small dog or cat to blue whale.
 
Here are my rambling thoughts... :)

Just from what I've heard about Earth life, the 4 limb model must be really good for some reason because it dominates. Most things (humans, horses, lizards, birds, frogs) evolved from some thing with 4 appendages.

Symmetry or duality seems like a "natural" thing to me. I mean something like an eyeball on each side of the body. It's redundant, which is good, and a lifeform growing in a mirror image is probably easier than growing in something like a 9 sided thing.

So assuming I'm right in my assumption that symmetry is "good", then our dominate 4 limb model makes sense because it has symmetry and something can balance on 4 limbs much easier than 2.

If I keep rambling, I'll probably just describe Spock. :)
 
Prospero said:
I'm trying to figure out why everyone assumes aliens will be even remotely anthropomorphic. I'm not even particularly inclined to believe that bipedality is advantageous, particularly should you have 6 limbs.

More, to the point, though, I believe it likely that extraterrestrial life will more than likely be carbon-based and have cells with genetic blueprints similar in nature to those of earthly organisms. I only speculate this because articles like this have a tendency to pop up every now and then, with various flavors, but all containing the same basic premises, that organic molecules happen naturally out of an inorganic environment and can, over large amounts of time, hit on a statistically successful organism capable of proliferating in its environment.

I don't see how an inhabitted alien world could have gotten to the point of having anything above single-celled organisms without first going through a protist-esque phase of development, which would leave behind plenty of bacteria-esque life. One thing I don't think would be likely found is the virus.

Personally, I view the virus as one of the marvels of nature. It is literally the perfect machine. It requires zero energy and is capable of replicating itself endlessly by hijacking a cell's own machinery. I'm more or less flummoxed as to how they developed in the first place. They're just too perfect to be the result of the hit and miss evolution process. I speculate that there was a phase in history when the virus was too effective and decimated its host population, which gave it ample opportunity to mutate and devlop into more viable forms, but at a slower rate to compensate for the lowered population. It's an extinction event theory that I muse over sometimes, that's all.

This is an interesting question. I'm sorry no one else has really taken a serious interest in it. Maybe if we do manage to discover life on Europa I'll get to be one of the xenobiologists to study it. Wouldn't that be fun!
Click to expand...

There have been some sugestions from time to time that life could be silicon based (not computers just using silicon in place of carbon) this chemistry of this this would be tricky but it might just be posible. If you insist on using carbon then you are going to nees water or just posibley ammionia.

The modle you are using assumes that life has to exist in earth like inveroments. What about gas giants or evern on the surface of stars (hey there is water present)? We cant realy rule out the existance of life anywhere (I've even seen ways it could exist in the interstela void) so life could be far more strange than you can imagain.
As to viruses I thought the general theory was that they were escapees from cells.
 
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