if life can exist without oxygen and water, why cant we expect life in univer all around us ?

Question

our universe should be full of life, may not be very close to us.

Answer 1

u are absolutely right in saying life can exist without oxygen (through anaerobic respiration) and water (if the organism is NOT carbon-based and uses another liquid as a solvent for reactions), but that would only be minute bacteria (for now) and will probably not be discovered in our lifetimes. There should be life somewhere out there.. takes time and plenty of luck... we could well be using the wrong methods of communication.. we are still using radio waves to try to communicate with them when ETs could be using more high-tech forms of communication (think a bunch of junglemen beating drums in the wilderness while we are using mobile phones and satellites to communicate, as quoted from a certain book i read) Or we could be the most high-tech beings in the universe, such that life forms on other planets could still be in the dinosaur age...there are so many planets out there that there is bound to be some with right conditions for a specific lifeform to develop.

Answer 2

It is extremely difficult for life to exist without water and oxygen, particularly water- no chemicals have propoerties even close to its.

Conditions necessary for life to evolve are extremely fine and hard to obtain- almost all stars are either too hot or to cold for life to evolve on, and space is filled with nasties like radiaiont (which can also screw aorund with planet formation), pulsars, magnetars, black holes etc. So it's not all that easy for lfie to evolve.

But yes, there is almost certainly life out there, no question about it- the universe is big enough for there to be countless civilisations. However, the chances of us meeting one for a long time are pratically nil.

Answer 3

The thing is apart from certain raw materials like water,oxygen,etc., the formation of life requires something more. tHIS IS why we aren't getting life by mixing chemical compounds
This " something" many scientists suspect is " very high discharge of electric charges in the form of lightning or some other means"
Moreover "optimum temperature" is one other important prerequisite.
This explains why the Universe isn't flooded with life. At the same time it also leads us to conclude that " There must most probably be aliens living somewhere" because of the vastness of the universe .

Answer 4

Who says life can exist without oxygen and water in the first place?

Answer 5

That's a mighty big if. We know of no life than can exist without oxygen and water. Even plants that can live without soil, (called air plants), and breath in CO2, derive moisture (water)from the air.

Answer 6

There is no reason at all not to expect life to develop on reasonably suitable places all over the universe. The Miller and Fox experiments back in the 50s showed that if you have the elements of an early atmosphere and subject it to electrical discharges, you get the formation of amino acids, the building blocks of life. Life developed on Earth very quickly. There is no reason that the same didn't happen everywhere else. The problem is that MULTICELLULAR LIFE is probably very rare. it took the greater part of forever ( about 3 billion years )to develop on earth, and its very possible that we are unique in this regard.
Go to wikipedia and read the article on the "rare earth hypothesis"

Answer 7

Physical conditions may still prevent life from forming even if there is a supporting chemistry. For example, most stellar environments generate much more radiation than we see in the Solar system. Such radiation is strong enough to disrupt any chemistry preventing complex formations from forming. Alternatively, lack of radiation produces an ultracold environment where no reactions can proceed.

Answer 8

There are some multi cellular creatures that live without oxygen (on the deep sea floor of the mediterranean). Some live without sunlight or oxygen (in deep mine shafts in South Africa).

Answer 9

Dear Sir:

Your question began with a falicy (incorrect statement). As
we know it, life (carbon based life forms) cannot exist without water and oxygen. This error changes everything within your question.

Besides this basic necessity (water and oxygen) abundant growth of lifeforms also requires an environment with reasonable temperature fluctuations (High to Low) and good protection from the harmful radiation of the Sun. Our atmosphere on Earth protects us from most of the harmful radiation that the Sun emits as a result of its nuclear fusion reactions going on inside of it all the time. Huge amounts of X RAys and Gamma Rays are bombarding the Earth all the time, but little of that radiation penetrates through our atmosphere. We do get InfraRed and UltraViolet rays, but not at the intensity they were at around 150 Miles up in the sky.

So these various places you wish to look for "life" must (we suspect) have water, oxygen, a sufficient mass to produce enough gravity to hold an atmosphere around the planet (not let it leak off into space) which will protect the planet from the harmful radiation of its star, and the planet needs to orbit its star at a sufficient distance for reasonable solar heating without frying the planet. If you want this particular planet to have a really good chance at developing "various life forms", the planet should also have a reasonable spin so that all surfaces of the planet receive repeated warmings and coolings over relatively short periods of time...say 24 to 48 Earth Hours = 1 Day on Distant Planet. Where there is no spin to the planet, you can expect one side of the planet to be very, very hot. The other side of the planet will be very, very cold. This situation will not be very productive for life form development.

Orbit duration around the central star is also an interesting factor to look into. This particular planet you wish to have life forms grow on should have a reasonable orbit and flight speed such that the duration of the orbit is not excessive. Earth's orbit around the Sun, for example (1 year) is 365 1/4 Earth Days. Pluto's orbit around the Sun (1 year) is 247.9 Earth YEARS... So winter on Pluto lasts for about 124 YEARS. That is not what we would seek to find in a characteristic of a life producing planet.

Lastly, the atmosphere on the possible life producing planet should have favorable gases in its chemical make up. We don't, for example, want to find sulphuric acid rain falling through the atmosphere like we have detected on Venus. We would like to see Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen, Helium, and possibly Ozone in amounts close, or similar, to the mixture found on Earth.

All of the above criteria make up a fairly stringent list of qualities which we must search for. There are an abundant list of possibilities, however. So, it is just a matter of searching until we find one or more matches to the list of requirements. In our Galaxy alone there are 200 Billion + Stars which could have from 0 to 10 (or more) planets (along with their moons) orbiting around them. That is a lot of possibilities to search through, and the time required to do so is rather vast.

Regards,
Zah

Answer 10

I disagree, 'life as we know it' cannot exist without water. Organic organisms comprise partly of water.