Fire Bug Eats Iron!

[Japher]

If it becomes a multicellular life form

[Dinner]

This is old news my friend. In my geology classes I learned about a whole order of microbes which live off of sulfur. If I remember correctly they get their energy by doing oxidation reduction reactions on the sulfur compounds.

A bunch of these critters live in caves and deep sea thermal vents.

[Japher]

The new news is that they can live at higher temperatures than initially thought... Besides, it's new to me

What if there are things living in stars? that would be kewl:b

[Az]

me thinks that's a tad too hot.

[Japher]

They once thought 121 was a tad too hot too...

[Az]

since the temp in stars is ~3x10^6, I don't think that 'tad' is the right word here.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Japher


That's what they need to rethink... Why can't it be possible that intelligent life exists that does not fit these requirements?

The reasons are quite complicated but is has to do with the abundance of oxygen compared to other oxidizing elements such as sulfur. The first photosythesizers used hydrogen sulfide (H2S) instead of water and released sulfur instead of oxygen. H2S is rare while H2O is everywhere. So when Cyanobacteria evolvd and started pumping oxygen into the air there became much more oxygen than sulfur. There is no reason to belive that sulfur is more abundant that oxygen on a planet.

Oerdin, these critters Have been known for a while, but this fella is the most heat resistant ever found, beating the former record holder Pyrolobus

The reason the critters can stand such high temeratures is that the extreme pressure raises the boiling point and the Archaea, the group to which these critters belong to has unique proteins and cell membrane lipids (fats) and Cholesterol, which also helps strengthen the membrane. Before these guys were discovered it was thought that only organisms with nucleated cells had Steroids, such as like cholesterol.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
They're apparently adaptations of normal oxygen metabolizers to a very slowly and progressively H₂S rich and oxygen poor environment.

I'd sure hate being such an organism. I couldn't stand living in farts.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Farts are methane, and there's whole communities of those in the Gulf of Mexico. They're interesting in a different way, because the methane metabolizing gas vent ecosystem gives way to a conventional ocean ecosystem, with one set of regular creatures that feeds off the methane critters.

H₂S is the really nasty stuff you get from rotten eggs, and it's lethal in fairly small doses. That ecosystem is isolated, and it's rather interesting, in that it's an atmosphere that would kill us, but they'd die (even in the water) exposed to an atmosphere that has as much Oxygen as ours does.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Azazel
since the temp in stars is ~3x10^6, I don't think that 'tad' is the right word here.

However, with glycine and aminonitriles being identified in interstellar dust clouds, it IS possible that primitive life would evolve in space, as well, using the relatively dense dust clouds for both a nutrient source and a radiation shield/converter for energy.

[Gatekeeper]

^^^Thus giving a wee bit of plausibility to the theory that life may have been seeded on Earth by dust-bearing comets and by "cosmic rain" (i.e. detrius surviving re-entry and striking the planet's surface, scattering everywhere).

Gatekeeper

[Odin]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


However, with glycine and aminonitriles being identified in interstellar dust clouds, it IS possible that primitive life would evolve in space, as well, using the relatively dense dust clouds for both a nutrient source and a radiation shield/converter for energy.

Doubt it, you need a liquid medium that is a universal solvent, water, for life. The molecular clouds are not actually that thick, they would be considered a vacuum on earth, even dense ones. Life needs three things; LIQUID water, energy, and probably always carbon.

MtG, how do you get the subscripts for H2S?