Why Life On Other Worlds May Be Much Like Life on Earth Based On General Mechanics and Evolution, In Appearance, and Even in Compounds of Life
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. The PopSci article in about 2002 had a dramatic painting of an extraterrestial world with life forms like birds with three sets of wings, and an animal with a large head and small arms and feet but no body chasing other animals like this, this based on guesses about the anatomy of E.T.. It seemed there wasn't much real science in the article I thought, but here's why exterrestial life may be more based on known physics and biology than they had believed. The uncommon isn't so common about life forms general look because heredity is stored environment you can't buy at the store. They find there's no unusual geology in the solar system like they thought in retro sci fi about what the surfaces of other worlds would be like. True, the giant canyons on mars, the vast sand dunes, the giant lava domes, are giant. But they're the same as earth's motif, just more giant and that's about it. When the probes arrived at Titan in 2006 what impressed them much was how all the usual land formations were there like ours, no more.
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. And there are reasons why in evolution the general broad brush strokes may be much the same. Most large life has two eyes because of the addition of depth perception in vision to survival advantage. While there was actually a third eye on the first big land animal eryops, the third eye of this large lizard was for infrared. The reason three eyes wouldn't have caught on is for the same reason three sets of stacked wings like in the illustration in Popular Science aren't usually found; sterio vision is enough (at least in worlds where the atmosphere had the usual transparency mostly at one wavelength like light). The addition of more inertia without more options would slow computation in common life or death situations where fast reflexes would be of most worth. When the world cooled down following the dinosaur's exit on the world stage of geologic time, the infrared eye of animals like eryops would have been of reduced worth. So two eyes and just two wings would be found on most worlds. With the same landforms, the same physics, and the same way of evolution, I think much the of same results would be found generally about the general look of extraterrestial life.
. And there are reasons why in evolution the general broad brush strokes may be much the same. Most large life has two eyes because of the addition of depth perception in vision to survival advantage. While there was actually a third eye on the first big land animal eryops, the third eye of this large lizard was for infrared. The reason three eyes wouldn't have caught on is for the same reason three sets of stacked wings like in the illustration in Popular Science aren't usually found; sterio vision is enough (at least in worlds where the atmosphere had the usual transparency mostly at one wavelength like light). The addition of more inertia without more options would slow computation in common life or death situations where fast reflexes would be of most worth. When the world cooled down following the dinosaur's exit on the world stage of geologic time, the infrared eye of animals like eryops would have been of reduced worth. So two eyes and just two wings would be found on most worlds. With the same landforms, the same physics, and the same way of evolution, I think much the of same results would be found generally about the general look of extraterrestial life.
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Of course the chemistry of life may be unlike or like ours but from the outside I think because of convergant evolution of this sort, extraterrestial life may look no more alien than bees are to us at the most and usually more like us. (With the exception of light because different atmospheres would have other wavelengths of light than ours perhaps so the colors would be unbeautious or bland to us perhaps, having evolved for other eyes.) For example I think there would be no large animals with more than four legs on most exoworlds generally for the same reason as about the wings and eyes. For small land animals here, more than one set of wings or legs has survival advantage because of a higher strength to weight ratio for the materials the leg or wing is of. It's much easier to lift a couch a short distance than to lift it 50 ft. So the materials are of reduced weight and the addition of more arms or wings has more value. This is why you hear all the stuff about how if a flea jumps 20 ft it's like us jumping to other hour zones, it's not because we're dumber than the flea and evolution, it's about strength of materials. So just as on our world where more than four legs for large life would slow them more than aid survival, I would think on most worlds other than earth with life, there would be small animals like bees that would have more wings and legs, but not large animals. (And they may have flowers like on our own earth that evolved to look just like bees to make it so animals wouldn't eat the flower!) We have one mouth and one head and it's above our shoulders because two mouths wouldn't be advantageous like with vision and depth. Eating is all contact with the dish. One head at the leading edge of motion would be better than two because two aren't needed (except if some want to save on lights of the SUV!) The life form with the head and legs and arms and no body painted by the author of the PopSci article wouldn't have evolved on most worlds because a head with no body and just legs would have heartburn, most lunch isn't brain food! I would think evolution has tried this lots of times in our world or half hour infomercials selling walls roof to roof would have won!
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.Carl Sagan was saying in Cosmos how for relatively elaborate reasons he was a fan of water and carbon based exobiology so most worlds with life might have even much of the chemistry the same as earth life (remember that even while he was a chauvinist about the ancients he voted for a goddess in the elections!) They find with artificial life (where they simulate life on other worlds by giving payoffs to evolving computer programs) that there are just a few "signatures of life" that would "seem to be the same as the compounds of life". With the same type of payoff usual all the life simulations settled down to just a few types of classic motifs. So it may even be true even more than just visually that extraterrestial life may prove there's a lot that's old and wiser under the moons of other worlds than Sci Fi authors thought. If they weren't just trying to make profit they would enrich the world more, or somehow the Hundred Year's war was 116 years, 1337 to 1453, the 1453 when Gutenberg would own more softwear!
.Carl Sagan was saying in Cosmos how for relatively elaborate reasons he was a fan of water and carbon based exobiology so most worlds with life might have even much of the chemistry the same as earth life (remember that even while he was a chauvinist about the ancients he voted for a goddess in the elections!) They find with artificial life (where they simulate life on other worlds by giving payoffs to evolving computer programs) that there are just a few "signatures of life" that would "seem to be the same as the compounds of life". With the same type of payoff usual all the life simulations settled down to just a few types of classic motifs. So it may even be true even more than just visually that extraterrestial life may prove there's a lot that's old and wiser under the moons of other worlds than Sci Fi authors thought. If they weren't just trying to make profit they would enrich the world more, or somehow the Hundred Year's war was 116 years, 1337 to 1453, the 1453 when Gutenberg would own more softwear!
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