Known Exoplanets

[ex]

1.)  We are not "alone."  There are bacteria and virii in outer space locked up in asteroids, gases, and other things floating around in just our solar system alone. 

Reference?

We've discovered meteors on Earth that we're certain originated on Mars -- which we believe to have been ejected from Mars by an asteroid impact; and we've found traces of the so-called building blocks of life like amino acids on meteorites. However, that is quite different from bacteria and virii. We suspect some forms of DNA based bacterial life could survive an interplanetary journey, if kicked from one planet to another via impact ejecta. But the actual discovery of bacteria and virii in outer space? That would be interesting if you've got any links.

This is one of the articles I was looking at when I looked this info up, but I've seen others:

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20010631230243data_trunc_sys.shtml

Commenting on the results, Professor Wickramasinghe said: "There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high as 41 kilometres, well above the local tropopause (16 km), above which no air from lower down would normally be transported."

I believe this is correct, but feel free to show opposition if there is some.  I'll research it too, but I'm pretty sure this is correct information.

[yahoo]

What if other life forms started from an utterly diffrent branch? ex. silicon based
It could be possible that scientists had already found alien life forms but failed to tag them since they are very far cry from the qualifications they are looking for.

Just thinkin.

I was able to read an article about virus (not the PC variety). Seems that science does not qualify it to be living. Particularly its in-ability to reproduce thou it can replicate.

We often understand things basing on our experiences. If im not mistaken, scientists qualify life basing on what we perceive it to be.

However again I still believe that we should think outside our realms of perception. For sure we are not alone out there. We may already had encountered other life forms but failed to qualify it since it does not passed by our perception of what a life form would be.   

[ex]

Yeah, that's one problem I do have with science:  that virus issue.  It doesn't qualify as "life" yet it operates similarly to other life forms.  To me, something that is not living is something which is completely unable to form new copies of itself.  That definition has always kinda pissed me off in general, and shows science has a long way to go.

[quadz]

Yeah, that's one problem I do have with science:  that virus issue.  It doesn't qualify as "life" yet it operates similarly to other life forms.  To me, something that is not living is something which is completely unable to form new copies of itself.  That definition has always kinda pissed me off in general, and shows science has a long way to go.

Yeah, that's one problem I do have with science:  that Pluto issue.  It doesn't qualify as a "planet" yet it operates similarly to other planets.  To me, something that is not a planet is something which is completely unable to orbit the Sun.  That definition has always kinda pissed me off in general, and shows science has a long way to go.





The debate over whether or not a virus might fit particular definitions of life is ongoing, and involves more criteria than whether it can self-replicate. A computer virus can make copies of itself, after all.