/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3577858
If we put them into cats and give them lots of ear rubs they might become human-friendly.

Hey /sci/, I remember watching a t.v. special on the outer planets and they mentioned that after NASA personell realized that one (I believe there are two or three) of the moons of Jupiter might potentially harbor life they decided to destroy the probe instead of sending it down to the surface, apparently for fear of earth based microbes potentially causing harm to their counterparts on the moon below...

I have a small handful of problems with that explanation...

First off, evolving in a different biosphere would indicate that they could be so chemically different from us that the local mirobes wouldn't possibly be 'edible' to anything that might have hitched a ride from earth...

Secondly, the moon that I think they were talking about, or at least sticks out the most in my mind concerning my questions, was Titan. The atmosphere, including its composition and pressure, being something like 4.8 kBars above earth normal, would probably kill anything from earth, right? I know that anearobic bacteria exist, but as far as I know only in very deep strata of rock (one place that stuck out was this mucus looking colony of bacteria hanging from a wall in an african diamond mine, shown in a different t.v. special I was watching...)...

And finally, even if earth based anearobic life managed to get as far as Titan. Because of the fact that it is a totally different 'animal,' if you'll pardon the pun, from earth wouldn't any native/local life have the 'home-field-advantage?' Its a different gravity, different atmospheric pressure, different gaseous composition, there's no water, and probably a half dozen other things that Titan doesn't have that if not outright killing anything from earth should at least put them at a serious disadvantage. Allowing the native life to easily outcompete any and all challengers that might arrive from earth or elsewhere?

So why, is there a danger?

There are no evil people, only mentally damaged people and people who truly believe they're doing a service.

>>2528798
Probably not, more hopeful about Enceladus or Europa though.

>>2319863

>>Europa is mysterious enough to be promising.

Plus, discovering a martian microbe wouldn't change much on Earth.

Seeing a Europan fish, however.... (Yes I'm aware the pic says Titan)

...and see this. How do you react? How do you think the world would react? What implications would it have for NASA going forward?

>>2124048

>>a species that lives in an Europa like system or two sister planets, both ice-covered, both with underground oceans. They are octopuses, alien octopuses, that somehow manage to bore through 100 kilometers of ice, upwards, to the surface.

My body is incredibly ready for this book.