Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- 1 An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth
- 2 One Attempt to Find Where They Are: NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey
- 3 An Examination of Claims that Extraterrestrial Visitors to Earth Are Being Observed
- 4 The Likelihood of Interstellar Colonization, and the Absence of Its Evidence
- 5 Pre-emption of the Galaxy by the First Advanced Civilization
- 6 Stellar Evolution: Motivation for Mass Interstellar Migrations
- 7 Interstellar Propulsion Systems
- 8 Interstellar Travel: A Review
- 9 Settlements in Space, and Interstellar Travel
- 10 Terraforming
- 11 Estimates of Expansion Timescales
- 12 A Search for Tritium Sources in Our Solar System May Reveal the Presence of Space Probes from Other Stellar Systems
- 13 Primordial Organic Cosmochemistry
- 14 Chance and the Origin of Life
- 15 The RNA World: Life before DNA and Protein
- 16 The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- 17 Alone in a Crowded Universe
- 18 Possible Forms of Life in Environments Very Different from the Earth
- 19 Cosmological SETI Frequency Standards
- 20 Galactic Chemical Evolution: Implications for the Existence of Habitable Planets
- 21 The Frequency of Planetary Systems in the Galaxy
- 22 Atmospheric Evolution, the Drake Equation and DNA: Sparse Life in an Infinite Universe
- About the Editors and Contributors
- Author Index
- Subject Index
18 - Possible Forms of Life in Environments Very Different from the Earth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- 1 An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth
- 2 One Attempt to Find Where They Are: NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey
- 3 An Examination of Claims that Extraterrestrial Visitors to Earth Are Being Observed
- 4 The Likelihood of Interstellar Colonization, and the Absence of Its Evidence
- 5 Pre-emption of the Galaxy by the First Advanced Civilization
- 6 Stellar Evolution: Motivation for Mass Interstellar Migrations
- 7 Interstellar Propulsion Systems
- 8 Interstellar Travel: A Review
- 9 Settlements in Space, and Interstellar Travel
- 10 Terraforming
- 11 Estimates of Expansion Timescales
- 12 A Search for Tritium Sources in Our Solar System May Reveal the Presence of Space Probes from Other Stellar Systems
- 13 Primordial Organic Cosmochemistry
- 14 Chance and the Origin of Life
- 15 The RNA World: Life before DNA and Protein
- 16 The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- 17 Alone in a Crowded Universe
- 18 Possible Forms of Life in Environments Very Different from the Earth
- 19 Cosmological SETI Frequency Standards
- 20 Galactic Chemical Evolution: Implications for the Existence of Habitable Planets
- 21 The Frequency of Planetary Systems in the Galaxy
- 22 Atmospheric Evolution, the Drake Equation and DNA: Sparse Life in an Infinite Universe
- About the Editors and Contributors
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Introduction
We can make only a brief presentation here of our ideas on the extent of life in the universe. A much more detailed account is given in our book Life Beyond Earth: The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life in the Universe (Feinberg & Shapiro, 1980).
In discussions concerning intelligent life elsewhere, the assumption is often made that such life will develop only in circumstances resembling those on Earth. Estimates are then given of the number of Earth-like planets in our Galaxy, as suitable locations in which life might arise. Such estimates may vary, according to the pessimism or optimism of the observer, from the very few (Hart, 1979) to a billion or more (von Hoerner, 1978). Only those planets are considered habitable which fall into a limited zone around each star. In that zone, liquid water can be present on the surface, and carbon compounds will be abundant. If this view were correct, even in the most optimistic form, then life would be a rare phenomenon, confined to only an insignificant fraction of the material in the universe. From an extreme pessimist's viewpoint, as expressed elsewhere in this book, life may have originated only on the planet Earth. The idea of the specialness of the Earth is of course an old one, and has been expressed many times in theology.
We represent a very different point of view: that the generation of life is an innate property of matter.
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- ExtraterrestrialsWhere Are They?, pp. 165 - 172Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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