Comments by "John Roberts" (@view1st) on "John Michael Godier" channel.

  1. There seems to be a crisis is cosmology with competing hypotheses, none of which have yet given us definite answers and all of which seem to be reliant on presuppositions that look like astrophysicists are clutching at straws, postulating on the basis of 'for-want-of-a-better-alternative'.
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  2. It seems that Earth and our solar system are currently in a rather benign region of the galaxy and maybe even the universe.
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  3. Hopefully, with time our technology will gradually improve enough and become sensitive enough for us to be able to detect and observe smaller planets with a mass equal to that of the Earth with even greater accuracy and precision than presently.
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  4. What is born dies. What has a beginning has an end. There is no other (intelligent) life in the universe sufficiently close to us that we can be aware of its existence, communicate with it, or travel and meet it. If there were we would have noticed by now. Distances are too far, space too hostile, habitable planets too rare, odds of life arising too great.
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  5. I recall reading that as well. The denouement was a surprise twist, mildly jarring.
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  6. Timothy McLean, your insouciant attitude to bacteria/viruses is frightening given the epidemics and pandemics that have occurred throughout human history. Assuming that biology is pretty much the same throughout the universe, exopathogens could presumably cross the species barrier just like they do on Earth and it's certainly not something whose impossibility should be taken for granted.
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  7. shronemor Only one planet with sentient life per universe, I'm afraid.
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  8. Tantalising but positive confirmation is needed before we can break out the champagne. If some form of microbial life still exists on Mars it most likely will be restricted to certain areas of the planet such as the poles or the equator and in most cases be buried quite deep in the equivalent of Martian geothermal vents, as on Earth. I suppose we'll never know for sure until a more comprehensive survey can be done on a much larger scale involving probes taking random core samples from the different types of rock that exist there and analysing them in minute detail and combining that by placing remote sensing devices under the Martian soil, together with satellites placed in geostationary orbit, that monitor specific areas continuously for signs of microbial life or other activity that might provide further, circumstantial evidence where direct evidence is lacking.
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  9. Saying that UAP's are moving at speeds or in ways that technology was not capable of at that time is not particularly convincing as the testing of secret aircraft prototypes or deliberate spoofing of radars by the military as they test anti-radar technologies could be the reasons and we would not know what such technologies were capable of because they would probably be technologically far ahead of their time and classified. The US government might even have been testing people's reactions to such things or using then to heighten fear and tension and encourage hysteria.
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  10. An atom is the smallest part of a chemical element that can exist but it is a molecule that is the smallest amount of substance (made up of atoms) that can take part in a chemical reaction.
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  11. And antepenultimate means 'last but two' or 'third last'.
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  12. How long has it been since Mars had large bodies of surface water (rivers, seas, lakes)? At the same time what were the surface conditions of the Earth?
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  13. Could this hypothetical planet be the result of the effects of dark matter?
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  14. The experiments designed to detect the presence of life on Mars were ambiguous and tantalisingly tentative such that they have unfortunately left the question of life on Mars still open. The only solution therefore is for us to go back and perform the experiments again but this time better and more accurately. A dedicated lander specifically designed to detect life should be sent and likely test sites identified and systematically studied. Only then can we know and, if microbial is found, can we begin to make predictions about the possible existence of life elswhere in the universe.
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  15. Welcome 2024!
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  16. That's the only realistic position a skeptic can take.
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  17. What does its formal designation (1i/2017 U1) stand for?
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  18. Finbarr Connolly: How does that work? There 12 months in a year corresponding to the letters A-L and the letter 'U' is the 21st.
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  19. But, equally, considering the seemingly impossible odds of life appearing on our own planet to begin with and going on the, so far, complete absence of any easily detectable life in our observable universe to think life exists may also be "utterly ridiculous".
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  20. Though the atmosphere of Venus is very active it may nevertheless be possible that at certain altitudes and latitudes a more or less stable pressure-temperature gradient exists that allows for a microbiome to not only survive but to thrive.
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  21. It's always interesting to know of new discoveries. We humans are so curious and inventive.
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  22. I wonder what Mars was like then. While the Earth might have been completely uninhabitable to humans it might have been different on Mars if you were able to live there (as, say, by being a fish).
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  23. The pressure is too high and the temperature too hot to terraform.
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  24. mRNA 'vaccines' / gene therapies comes to mind.
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  25. That will probably change as technology improves and we gain a more accurate picture of what's actually out there with regards to rocky planets. I think it's just a question of time.
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  26. Is it the same for natural gas and coal or just oil?
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  27. Let's hope that no supernovae or other dangerous astronomical events occur within range of Earth within the next 100,000 years. I think human life will have become extinct long before then anyway through other means (or at least have devolved to a much more primitive technological state, i.e. caveman stage) but it would be unfortunate for other forms of life on our planet if such an event were to occur. At least a creature like an octopus or a dolphin could evolve intelligence and fill the ecological niche left by humans but if all life becomes extinct... that would be so, so sad.
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  28. AlphaOmega Where the subsurface water breaks the surface or is in aquifers just below the surface, that is where they are most likely to drill
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  29. It would be a remarkable discovery given the extremely hostile environment both on the surface of Venus and in its atmosphere, but if there were microbes detected it would prove conclusively that extremophiles can exist on other planets and not just on our own. One intriguing question would be how it got there — panspermia (brought from Earth by meteorite impacts, perhaps?) or indigenous (abiogenesis?).
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  30. A sun that is unusual in composition doesn't mean its artificial though only that it's different from the ones we're used to seeing or that our scientific knowledge on the subject is incomplete.
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  31. What is a soul? And what evolutionary processes has it undergone?
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  32. Abiogenesis or panspermia. Or a bit of both. The question of how life got started on planet Earth is for me not a important as the fact that it did and that it evolved over eons from the simplest protolife to become what it is today. Evolution is what I find the most interesting and especially how the different periods of Earth's history allowed for certain types of life to come into being while seeming to preclude others, eg. dinosaurs over mammals.
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  33. If there exists sentient, intelligent life that is sufficiently technologically advanced to be able to explore space then it will almost certainly be curious about us, even if doesn't necessarily want to interact. I am of the idea that intelligence is pretty much the same across species... and that includes aliens.
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  34. I second that! 🎊🎈🎆 🎉
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  35. Amalgamation or destruction (like matter meeting anti-matter). If the former, a super universe, maybe unstable and of short duration.
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  36. A. What is 'the left'? B. What is "the far left"?
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  37. Perhaps we're living inside a black hole or something similar and are the only planet that has developed life. There may be life out there in a much bigger universe that exists outside the black hole we are in but we have no way of knowing and never will.
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  38. You underestimate the power of governments to collude. Covid-19, cold war 1 (1947-1989), cold war 2 (2022-?).
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  39. Subspecies of hominids? So what were the species? Are we ourselves a species or a subspecies?
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  40. If there is microbial life on Mars it may prove to have useful applications here on Earth, such as in medicine or in the breakdown of pollutants or organic waste.
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  41. More probes need to be sent to search for microbial life on Mars or fossil evidence that it once existed. Such probes need to search numerous locations to increase the likelihood of finding something. Personally, though I'd like to think that at least microbial life once lived there, I'm pretty certain that Mars was always an abiotic planet and that, even if fossil evidence of life is found, there is still the possibility that it might not have originated on the red planet itself but from elsewhere in the universe.
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  42. If dark energy/dark matter is a thing then maybe it too has a spectrum just like the electromagnetic spectrum used in radio communication. Maybe it could be used for interstellar communication. Perhaps gravity itself – the curvature of space-time – could be used as a signal or means of communication in conjuction with dark matter (a dark matter laser, for instance). We can't, of course, detect dark matter as yet and maybe never will, but if it actually exists and is not merely a placeholder until a better hypothesis comes along, then it might in theory be able to be used as a means of communication I am assuming all this as an ignorant layman who only has the vaguest idea of what dark matter, dark energy and other things beginning with dark, is/are.
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  43. 💥 1.29... inches. 💥
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  44. Not when you know the corporations behind it and their agendas.
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  45. The Earth might be existing in a black hole or something similar. If that's the case no contact with anything outside the black hole's event horizon would be possible and the only potential life other than our own would either be that that fell into the black hole or was created in or by it. Maybe that's where so‐called dark energy comes from – outside the black hole – creating space- time as it does so, this being seen as an ever expanding universe (as the black hole sucks in exogenous matter.
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  46. We'll have to keep our eye on this. The more we observe the more we'll learn.
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  47. But somewhere, somehow, it did occur! Even if it has occurred only once in the entire history of the universe it still occurred.
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  48. I wonder if this resistance to the idea of rocks falling from space was theological in origin (i.e. not being accepted by the Christian church, like evolution) or just based on secular ideas of what was possible that were universally held as 'common sense' at the time, rocks falling from heaven being simply considered prima facie absurd just because.
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  49. UFO's and the like are either fake or misperception. If we can't find aliens in our own galaxy I very much doubt that they would be gallivanting across our skys.
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