Familiar Faces Throughout the Galaxy?
Created | Updated Jun 1, 2009
Re the h2g2 mission: I love to travel through the galaxy. Used to hop between galaxies, but I stick close to home in the Milky Way these days. I also write (but, alas, don't publish) sci-fi about my galactic treks.
I'm very interested in convergent evolution as it applies to life on other worlds. No doubt we'll find very close correlates to chlorophyll and hemoglobin. Is it possible we'll find the same four protein building blocks in long spiral molecules of reproduction? (On a water/oxygen planet circling a stable yellow star, of course.)
On another earth-sized planet with water and dry land, a few billion years old, I presume life would be well-developed. Would little organisms evolve that create an oxygen-rich atmosphere? Would they crawl up on land, grow tall to defend themselves and eat the high fruit? Would their sensory organs be placed near their top? We have sensory organs that pick up most of the vibrations of use to us (but not magnetic fields or radio), plus receptors for pressure and interesting molecules floating about. Wouldn't any other beasts on similar worlds evolve the same faculties? And gravity and metabolism dictate how large and tall something can grow.
So what's the likelihood that we would meet someone who looks a lot like us? (As of course they always do in the sci-fi movies that base characters on human actors.)
Now you may invoke chaos theory to aver that these beings' appearance must diverge wildly from what we would expect. But I'll counter with forces for convergence. Not all designs work on any given world. They must pass through the crucible of natural selection.
I got started down this path watching the movie "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver. My question was, how did that beast evolve? (Not Sigourney, the other one.) Could it evolve in a world with the same air mix, temperature, and air pressure that humans require? Seemed unlikely to me. So then how could it survive on this space vessel?
So how divergent or similar are living beings likely to be on the worlds we would be most interested in exploring as we cruise around the galaxy? Well, of course I mean intelligent beings. Why travel to distant star systems just to gaze upon herds of herbivores? Unless they're tasty.
Anybody want to add your wisdom to this one?
mvh
ps. I've neglected the minor detail of our means of transportation to meet these folks, which necessitates discovering some new laws of physics. Let's leave that to a different thread.
I'm very interested in convergent evolution as it applies to life on other worlds. No doubt we'll find very close correlates to chlorophyll and hemoglobin. Is it possible we'll find the same four protein building blocks in long spiral molecules of reproduction? (On a water/oxygen planet circling a stable yellow star, of course.)
On another earth-sized planet with water and dry land, a few billion years old, I presume life would be well-developed. Would little organisms evolve that create an oxygen-rich atmosphere? Would they crawl up on land, grow tall to defend themselves and eat the high fruit? Would their sensory organs be placed near their top? We have sensory organs that pick up most of the vibrations of use to us (but not magnetic fields or radio), plus receptors for pressure and interesting molecules floating about. Wouldn't any other beasts on similar worlds evolve the same faculties? And gravity and metabolism dictate how large and tall something can grow.
So what's the likelihood that we would meet someone who looks a lot like us? (As of course they always do in the sci-fi movies that base characters on human actors.)
Now you may invoke chaos theory to aver that these beings' appearance must diverge wildly from what we would expect. But I'll counter with forces for convergence. Not all designs work on any given world. They must pass through the crucible of natural selection.
I got started down this path watching the movie "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver. My question was, how did that beast evolve? (Not Sigourney, the other one.) Could it evolve in a world with the same air mix, temperature, and air pressure that humans require? Seemed unlikely to me. So then how could it survive on this space vessel?
So how divergent or similar are living beings likely to be on the worlds we would be most interested in exploring as we cruise around the galaxy? Well, of course I mean intelligent beings. Why travel to distant star systems just to gaze upon herds of herbivores? Unless they're tasty.
Anybody want to add your wisdom to this one?
mvh
ps. I've neglected the minor detail of our means of transportation to meet these folks, which necessitates discovering some new laws of physics. Let's leave that to a different thread.
