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Related: About this forumlongship
(40,416 posts)Why do people use hyperbole in these things?
And NASA has already said that this is not about life on Europa. This will be an incremental discovery, not anything shocking.
The video is actually pretty good in spite of its hyperbolic title: Is there life on Europa?
R&K
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,854 posts)... I didn't know that water plumes could be captured during flybys of Europa too!
I definitely want NASA to collect those water samples, and the sooner the better!
aggiesal
(8,914 posts)then ship some here to California.
We need it badly!
Kilgore
(1,733 posts)yuiyoshida
(41,831 posts)Saw it a few times
Kilgore
(1,733 posts)Great read, the story continues
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2061:_Odyssey_Three
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)malthaussen
(17,195 posts)... so we can exterminate them?
-- Mal
yuiyoshida
(41,831 posts)Suppose there is intelligent life there. Suppose they know nothing of space flight or space itself... Do we meet them and expose their population to concepts they may not have yet?
In Star Trek they had the Prime Directive. They only met space faring civilizations. Those who never had Warp capabilities were never contacted officially.. and first contact is very difficult (Which caused a riff with the Klingon Empire for years and years) ..so in this real life situation, do we expose intelligent beings to concept of space flight? What if it effects their entire civilization in a negative way? We did it on earth, and now again with another species??
No.
Than again, there is no universal translator. How do you even communicate with a new species?
PJMcK
(22,037 posts)...it would probably not be intelligent in the way that humans think of that quality. On Earth, after all, there have been billions of different forms of life yet only one species has had "intelligence."
More likely, any life found on Europa would be so-called lower life forms such as found deep undersea on Earth near thermal vents or the many other simpler invertebrates. Without light and heat, could vertebrate life evolve?
Importantly, the video informs that any NASA probes will not land on Europa. Instead, it would fly through the supposed water-vapor plumes to sample their contents. This is important because we wouldn't biologically interfere with any life within Europa. The Mars rovers are not allowed to go to certain areas for the same reason. But it's remarkable that our technological accomplishments make it possible to even talk about such an endeavor let alone accomplish it! Consider, to send a scientific platform hundreds of millions of miles and then accurately navigate to within hundreds of yards of a target and then conduct experiments to further our understanding of our universe! Human intelligence has accomplished amazing things.
Unfortunately, our species has also produced the idiot, Donald Trump.
yuiyoshida
(41,831 posts)I disagree. It is very likely dolphins have "intelligence". Their brain size is larger than ours. Experiments with dolphins have shown amazing results. Look into the work of John Lilly. Their whole existence is different from ours, being under water. The way they view the world is certainly so, but who knows, maybe they have an "intelligence" equal or greater than ours. As I said above, there is no inter species communication as yet... but if we do figure it out, they might become a real surprise to arrogant man kind.
And don't rule out an intelligent species could not live on Europa. They could be just as intelligent as dolphins or more intelligent. We simply won't know until we actually go and explore there.