Alien Planet

[Sabby]

I remember bits and pieces of this from a while ago, so I'm not sure how old it is, or if it's well known, but after seeing the whole thing... wow.

Alien Planet Full Episode

This really intrigued me, blew my damn mind in places. The amount of thought that went into these predictions is just staggering, at least for someone like me who doesn't have an ear for science.

Imagine a world like our own, just 6.5 light years away -- but teeming with life forms unlike anything found on Earth. Take a simulated journey into the near future, where astronomers and biologists alike marvel at the potential of Darwin IV, a nearby planet with two suns, 60% gravity and an atmosphere capable of supporting life.

Having identified Darwin as a likely home for life, scientists send a series of unmanned probes to the planet. Initially, the expectation is to find microscopic life. But the probes soon find themselves in the middle of a developed ecosystem, teeming with diverse creatures of all sizes.

Peering through the "eyes" of the probes, marvel at the planet's bizarre inhabitants -- like the lumbering Groveback, which supports a mini forest of vegetation on its back; deadly Prongheads who hunt in packs like wolves; and the graceful Gyrosprinter, an elk-like creature with a body dotted by luminescent biolights.

The look and biology of each animal is based on the laws of evolution and physics, then modeled to fit the hypothetical environment of Darwin IV. Leading minds in the fields of paleontology, astrophysics and astrobiology explain how these creatures might evolve otherworldy characteristics like hollow bodies, "jet" propulsion and piercing tongue skewers.

[Oniya]

Looks like it aired on Discovery in 2005.  The show's website is still up and has lots of interesting stuff on it:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/alienplanet/splash.html

[ShadowFox89]

 I remember that. I loved watching that mini-series. It doesn't help that I'm a hopeless sci-fi addict who can't help but jump after the newest science fiction thing, even if it's gonna suck.

[Heart]

In my first year of uni I took an astronomy unit that was based around probability of life on other planets. We watched this film and then sat down with a panel of the uni's astronomy and biology lecturers/researchers and discussed the faults and any plausible parts within it.
I can't remember a huge amount of what was said, but I know a lot of the lecturers found it to be mostly implausible.

[Sabby]

And why did they think this wasn't plausible? I mean... there's a lot more muscle on this panel then yours.

[Heart]

The plausibility wasn't that there can't be life on other planets, but it had to do with 'aliens' they created. I honestly can't remember which of the creatures etc they had the most to say about because it was 2.5 years ago.

[Sabby]

I'm assuming it was about the living jets xD impossible in our conditions, but consider the different gravity and mass...

[Tiberius]

The latest scientific study says that there are Earth like planets close by that are up to 3 times larger then Earth, so therefore if material composition is near the same gravity will be 3 times stronger. So it all depends on the gas make up of the atmosphere and the mass structure of the planet itself is it rocky or porous? Not to mention the fact that most seem to be ignoring the fact that there are other types of life rather then the standard earth type carbon-oxygen life forms.

[Oniya]

What types would that be?  I know a lot of Sci-fi authors go for silicon-based, but there are chemical bond reasons why that substitution doesn't work in complex molecules like DNA.

[Tiberius]

There are sulphur based life forms, even on this planet they exist. So why are they seemingly ignoring the fact that other planets that dont have water on the surface at least hold the possible chance of life as well? They could have everything else Earth has except a differently composed atmosphere.

[Missy]

The few aliens mentioned in the first post do seem pretty unlikely, unless we actually found something like that someplace, even if an expert posed the idea, I'd think it was something out of a science fiction fantasy. I don't think that skepticism from anyone on that is unreasonable.


Reading over wikipedia on the subject it does seem that exobiologist's generally focus on figuring out where to find earth-like life, but it not left unposed that it may be wise to search for alternative forms of life elsewhere.

[Tiberius]

They could have already found alien life but have completly overlooked it because they are not considering all possiblities and are only considering the carbon-oxygen base life forms

[Oniya]

Considering the distances and numbers involved, it's probably easiest to focus on mesophiles, rather than expanding the search to include extremophiles.

[Missy]

True Oniya, but that doesn't preclude the possibility we find life and either we don't recognize it or it doesn't recognize us. I could see perhaps the greatest hurdle in encountering extraterrestrial life would be communicating with it, whether it's a meso or extremo, since I can't imagine any other animal would be capable of producing the same sounds as we are. This thought is at least a century or more off, but imagine we encounter life out there, don't recognize it and then kill it? That could make us appear malevolent to a foreign life form no matter how benign or ignorant our intentions may have been.

Also considering the vastness of space involved expanding to other forms of life may also make it more likely to find extraterrestrial life in closer systems.

Find the red spots

Now find the red, blue, green and purple spots.

[Tiberius]

Yeah, its like them saying that the Alpha Centauri system wont have life on it, and they are basing that on the fact that it has two stars. But whos to say that there aren't extremophiles on any planets that might exist in orbit around the system?

[Oniya]

Have they even determined that there are planets around Alpha Centauri?  (Can't remember off the top of my head.)  I'd be more concerned about the stability of the planetary orbits in that situation - not that there couldn't be something that evolved to exist in the fluctuations, but that the planet itself might not last long enough for life to evolve in the first place.

[Tiberius]

Scientists believe that there aren't any planets in orbit around the binary system, but they dont have any definitive proof that there isn't any. They said that the radiation output from the binary system completly drowns out any possiblity of receiving any plantary radiation signatures which they have been using to identify other planets. But the likely answer would be no as the stars are not of equal mass, Alpha Centuari Beta is a much smaller star then alpha and rotates around alpha and in some instances is travelling in front of the much larger alpha or behind it. So it would cause gravitational, radiation and orbital fluctuations of any planetary object in the system

[Oniya]

Scientists believe that there aren't any planets in orbit around the binary system, but they dont have any definitive proof that there isn't any. They said that the radiation output from the binary system completly drowns out any possiblity of receiving any plantary radiation signatures which they have been using to identify other planets. But the likely answer would be no as the stars are not of equal mass, Alpha Centuari Beta is a much smaller star then alpha and rotates around alpha and in some instances is travelling in front of the much larger alpha or behind it. So it would cause gravitational, radiation and orbital fluctuations of any planetary object in the system

*nods*  If I'm remembering right, Beta is either a neutron or white dwarf star, if not something more exotic.  So in addition to fluctuations of temperature and radiation, you've got massive tidal forces to contend with. 

[Tiberius]

it would be a dwarf star, neutron stars emit anti-matter radiation, they annihilate organic matter with their radiation pulses. But in any case it would not be likely that there would be a planetary body in orbit, if there was it would be far out in a far flung orbit like Pluto, and would because of the fact there are two suns resemble Mercury

[summoner2183]

Does anyone know where to see this again? Like where to get it?

[Missy]

Isn't the centauri system a trinary?

I mean with Proxima Centauri, or did I just get off on a whack somehow.

[Tiberius]

No its a binary system, never heard of Proxima before.

[Oniya]

I believe Proxima is just an alternate name for Alpha (related to the fact that it is the most 'proximate' star to our solar system.)

[Tiberius]

Ahh, never heard of it being called such before

[Oniya]

Whoops, looks like I was wrong:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri

Proxima Centauri (Latin proxima: meaning "next to" or "nearest to") is a red dwarf star about 4.2 light-years (4.0×1013 km) distant in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, and is the nearest known star to the Sun, although it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Its distance to the second- and third-nearest stars, which form the bright binary Alpha Centauri, is 0.237 ± 0.011 ly (15,000 ± 700 astronomical units [AU]).  Proxima Centauri may be part of a triple star system with Alpha Centauri A and B.

I had the 'proximate' part right, but was in error about it being the same as Alpha