Is water really necessary for extraterrestrial life?
While it is theoretically possible for life to possess a different basis than carbon, it's a simple chemical fact that of all the possible bases, carbon forms long-chain molecules more easily, and with more other elements, than any other basis. Carbon-based long-chain molecules are also more resistant to destruction by radiation than others. This in part explains why we are finding organic matter (that is, matter composed of long-carbon-chain molecules) in the outer solar system, and signatures indicative of organic molecules in interstellar gas clouds (for instance, one of the major components of the famed Eagle Nebula would appear to be alcohol).
Assuming that the life forms are carbon-based (which is indeed an assumption - we have only one data point from which to draw information), said life would require water to survive. It might not be much water - there are microbial life forms in our driest deserts - but it does require some amount of water.
As for intelligent extraterrestrials, if they weren't carbon-based, they probably wouldn't even bother with this planet - to a silicate life form, for instance, the water and free oxygen on this world would prove instantly deadly, and they probably wouldn't even take the time to check such an "obviously" lethal world for life...
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Sodium is a metal that reacts explosively when exposed to water. Chlorine is a gas that'll kill you dead in moments. Together they make my fries taste good.
Only Mars has Ice caps, it also has evidence of liquid water, such as eroded rivers and such.
Also, Ruveyn, who says all life is carbon based.
Looks like the moon has water
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/science/14moon.html
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Balance is needed within the universe, can be demonstrated in most/all concepts/things. Black/White, Good/Evil, etc.
All dependent upon your own perspective in your own form of existence, so trust your own gut and live the way YOU want/need to.
What? All substances have solid, liquid, and gaseous forms.
Water is special largely for its polarity.
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WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
For life as WE know it, water is essential. So, if we want to find another world with life similar to ours, certainly life-sustaining for us to live there, water is essential.
Life, however, is very adaptable and can exist absent water, but it would indeed be very alien to our own biology.
AspiInLV
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Water in a frozen state floats on liquid water. A creature in a pond of some other liquid would need to worry when it get cold. The liquid would freeze and sink to the bottom, eventually leaving no space for the creature.
Hydrogen Sulfide metabolators inhabit deep ocean vents near the Galapagos islands. They are dependent on bacteria to metabolate the hydrogen sulfide.
Methane is used on earth. The substance forms a kind of ocean within an ocean, an creatures have been observed metaboalting that as well.
Water is special largely for its polarity.
Polarity is the world I forgot *facepalm*
Orwell: you probably noticed that when I posted the first time I was having an off brain day
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Balance is needed within the universe, can be demonstrated in most/all concepts/things. Black/White, Good/Evil, etc.
All dependent upon your own perspective in your own form of existence, so trust your own gut and live the way YOU want/need to.
nobody, i think, went farther than V A Firsoff in his discussion of other chemicals than hydrogen oxide (Life Beyond the Earth 1963). he finds a solvent or two for every temperature range from -300 C to 300+...
like, mercury dibromide
in fiction, of course, Hal Clement wasn't afraid to go there.
m.
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