why do people assume that there has to be oxygen and water to support life on other planets? humans may need these things but maybe "other" life forms don't.
2007-03-08 23:05:55 · 6 answers · asked by numpty 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
my god! your totaly on my level! i tried to explain that o my friend the other day and he just couldnt underdstand what i ment!!!! i think thats exactly what its like on other planets.....!!!
2007-03-08 23:10:09 · answer #1 · answered by princess 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Quite true , I was listening to a scientist on Radio 4 the other day and she said around 4.5 billion years ago the planet had a much different chemical balance and oxygen was around 10% and human life could not survive whereas now its 22% of our air. Life as far as single cell creatures were evolving then so yeas I agree its quite feasible that life exists on other planets but just not how we are familiar with.
2007-03-08 23:16:41 · answer #2 · answered by isleofskye 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
actually oxygen and water are required because the basic bacteria that eventually evolved into the small multi-cellular animals were entirely composed of compounds like oxygen and water. Organic molecules are the base of any kind of evolution period!
Look up Drakes Equation! The universe is to big to sustain the colossal odds that life DOESNT exist. Life does it just is a needle in a haystack that we havent found yet.
2007-03-08 23:15:56 · answer #3 · answered by tribute_13 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The way I always heard it stated is "Life as we know it could not exist on planets that are too hot or too cold or do not contain water and oxygen (and mabe have a few other conditions that are too much different than those of earth)."
2007-03-08 23:19:34 · answer #4 · answered by Max 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The kind of chemical bonding needed to create nucleotides can only happen in the presence of water.
When oxygen is burned with sugar it produces energy. Organisms can live without oxygen, but not highly energetic species such as multi-cellular animals (fish, amphibians, mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, arachnids, etc.). Animals that move around have high energetic needs. Only with oxygen (and sugar) can we chemically produce such energy requirements. Nothing else works.
2007-03-09 00:35:02 · answer #5 · answered by Dendronbat Crocoduck 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because our understanding of 'life' requires these things in order to metabolise and produce energy, defining living things as 'alive'. I doubt very much that there is another way of something 'living', but over billions of years of evolution, hundreds of millions of light-years away, whose to say that life forms haven't evolved which extract their 'enegy' from metabolising Methane and who's 'drink' is Ethanol!!!
2007-03-08 23:10:58 · answer #6 · answered by PETER G 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋