Carbon based life forms as opposed to...?

[wonderboy]

Humans are carbon based lifeforms, as is everything else on planet Earth. This is a fact, and not a very intresting one at it. However, it gets me thinking as to what life would be like on other planets. What if you could get a helium based life form, or nitrogen etc. What if their body is made up of gas? The reason I find this intresting is because I put it to ghost hunters (partly as a joke, half fun half serious) that maybe the "spectres" viewed by them and eyewitnesses were not really the ghosts of long lost relatives but an interested alien visiting an historic site (where most ghost sightings happen).

I know its ridiculous, and im partly tongue in cheek when I write this, but what if it is the case that there are other life forms alive in the universe that are unlike anything we havent seen? a gaseous life form which is carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen or any other element based. I find it interesting and my mind races like mad. I dont know why i thought of it again, but as soon as i did I decided I'd post it to see what your views on it were.

Thanks.

[owlice]

Couple of links you might enjoy:
http://www.astronomycast.com/aliens/ep- ... robiology/
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorati ... obial.html

[Amir]

yeah, wonder boy, that's so interesting.
i've been thinking about it for a while too.
if there is a chance for some other life forms to evolve on another basis, then things like "Life Belt" or similar things would be meaningless & we have to think of "Life Circumstances". for instance "carbon based creatures have to be at this distance", "nitrogen based ones are evolved in this distance", "hey you, you're a hydrogen based one. don't go that close to the star, come back here!",...
and as mentioned in "What to do in case you was abducted by aliens", they may not be even able to hear any kind of sound, or have Gamma ray eyes.

[neufer]

Humans are carbon based lifeforms, as is everything else on planet Earth. This is a fact, and not a very intresting one at it. However, it gets me thinking as to what life would be like on other planets. What if you could get a helium based life form, or nitrogen etc. What if their body is made up of gas? The reason I find this intresting is because I put it to ghost hunters (partly as a joke, half fun half serious) that maybe the "spectres" viewed by them and eyewitnesses were not really the ghosts of long lost relatives but an interested alien visiting an historic site (where most ghost sightings happen).

I know its ridiculous, and i'm partly tongue in cheek when I write this, but what if it is the case that there are other life forms alive in the universe that are unlike anything we haven't seen? a gaseous life form which is carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen or any other element based. I find it interesting and my mind races like mad. I don't know why i thought of it again, but as soon as i did I decided I'd post it to see what your views on it were.

Life on earth is made up of relatively abundant non-noble gas elements:


It might be possible to substitute any given element with a rarer element immediately above or below it in the periodic table (e.g., silicon for carbon) but it would probably require a quite different environmental situation for such a substitution to be advantageous.

Certainly the substitution of Strontium-90 for Calcium was not deemed advantageous during the radioactive fallout of the early nuclear age.

(Note. however, that the substitution of the OH- ion by fluorine or chlorine in tooth enamel has proved somewhat useful.)

[wonderboy]

Just read this and found it interesting and directly related to this post so i thought id update it.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/t ... 00410.html


Paul

[bystander]

Life on Titan: Stand well back and hold your nose!
http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=19015

[Astronut]

Carbon based life forms.
THAT explains it!

A Preacher once said to me that Adam & Eve "Glowed" when they were in the "Garden". I thought he was a bit 'Daft' at the time. Then i came across this discussion and got hit by a revelation.

The Bible speaks of the Arc-Angel Lucifer (before his fall) as being the "Lightbringer". That is to say - that HE would bring the Glory light that the carbon life forms of the Earth produced - to God.
This system was set up in the manner of a 'series' circut. When Lucifer fell, the lights went out!

At some later point, the Bible tells us that God made a 'Garden' and populated it with Adam & Eve who also "glowed" like the first beings used to - because they had their connection with God.
Well, along came Lucifer again and with his help the two garden dwellers became disobedient, broke their connection with God, became like a zero watt light bulb and got their dumb assetts thrown out of the Garden and the rest - as they say - is ourstory.

If Thomas Edison had read his Bible like Christopher Columbus, it may not have taken him so long to come up with a workable light bulb.

Columbus Read that God sat on the "circle" of the Earth, so he went against the prevailing thought of the day that the Earth was flat and that you would sail off the edge if you went to far. So He went to the Queen and convinced Her that God was right and she financed His voyage and they all found out that God was right.

When the Bright "Space People" went to program their computers for space use, they discovered that they were off by enough so as to make them useless. One of the Bright fellows remembered reading in the Bible about Josuha commanding the sun to stay still for a day. So they adjusted for that, but it was still off just a little. Then someone else remembered a story about a King that was going to die and asked God for more time. God granted his request and as a sign that the king would live 15 years longer - the sundial in the courtyard went back about 20 minutes.

When the Bright fellows adjusted their computers for that - they worked just fine.
However, they did miss an important statement from God about time travel.
God was telling man not to mess with going back in time. The King that lived another 15 years had a son that he would not have had if He had died when He was supposed to and He grew up to be such a "BAD" king - that when He died - NO ONE in Isreal mourned his passing!! They just took him out and buried him and forgot that he ever exsisted! Now THATS Bad!!

There are many such scientifical discoveries to be made while peruseing the Bible.
After seeing and understanding what and how Edison did to make a "Light Produceing" bulb - Do you think it is possible that what WE call God is really a GIANT carbon based lifeform??

TRUTH is stranger than FICTION.