Re:We May First Find Aliens on Eyeball Planets
by send_computers on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @09:36AM
(#17125794)
Can you elaborate there? This seems like a very speculative statement to conclude 'completely unlikely'.
Re:We May First Find Aliens on Eyeball Planets
by jameshart on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @09:42AM
(#17125835)
Geological-timescale variability is VERY conducive to evolution.
Re:We May First Find Aliens on Eyeball Planets
by XorNot on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @10:03AM
(#17125979)
We also don't have timescales for abiogenesis in a sterile environment - i.e. given the right ingredients and energy input, no existing life forms...how long does life take to appear? There's no particular reason that timescale has to be very long - and we know life on earth got started pretty damn quick after the planet cooled off enough (EDIT: in the sense that the planet is ~4 billion years old, the earliest life is dated to 3.5 billion years old, so the number is somewhere between a little over 0 and 500 million years).
Re:We May First Find Aliens on Eyeball Planets
by rsynnott on Tuesday May 22, 2018 @12:53PM
(#17127367)
> Over geological time period, the zone is likely to suffer unpredictable and novel variability
Earth does that too, though. Ice ages, the odd large impact, etc.
Re:We May First Find Aliens on Eyeball Planets
by throwaway1982x on Wednesday May 23, 2018 @05:47AM
(#17132689)
I meant far more frequently than on Earth, and far more extreme.
"Life finds a way" - but if the temperature suddenly jumps 100 degrees because your goldilocks zone librated into the sun, then you ain't got much capacity to evolve protection from that.
Over geological time period, the zone is likely to suffer unpredictable and novel variability which is not conducive to developing life.