The oldest continents in the Milky Way may be 5 billion years older than Earth's
The oldest continents in the Milky Way may be 5 billion years older than Earth's
Several exoplanets at the edge of our galaxy could have formed continents — and advanced life — 5 billion years earlier than Earth, new research suggests.
The oldest continents in our galaxy may have arisen 5 billion years before Earth’s, new research suggests — and that means there may be multiple worlds in the Milky Way harboring alien life even more advanced than our own.
Astrobiologists think a planet needs to have certain features to support life: oxygen in its atmosphere, something to shield organisms from dangerous radiation and liquid water, for a start. Although big land masses aren't strictly necessary for living things to emerge, Earth's history shows that they're important for life to thrive and exist for long periods of time. So, if an exoplanet had continents before Earth, it follows that there might be older, more advanced life on that world.
This line of thought led Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University astronomer in the U.K., to answer the question: When did the first continents appear on a planet in our galaxy? Turns out, two exoplanets' continents — and perhaps life — may have arisen four to five billion years before Earth's.
If life on another planet had a five-billion-year head start, it "could potentially host life more evolved than us," Greaves wrote in a study, published in the September issue of the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.
This feels like a 'no duh' situation.
If we define "life" as nucleic acid based, water-containing, semi permeable enveloped organisms, then our search for ET will be futile. We should expand the definition to the broadest sense possible, i.e., "life" should be: any entity that locally collects energy from it surrounding by going against the entropic gradient and can replicate this ability to new generations of entities via an information transfer mechanism.
Well since you'd need like not even a million years to colonize the galaxy, I'd say that they didn't
Habitable for life, and intelligent life necessarily developing are two different things.
Also 5 billion years is enough time to conquer the galaxy and go extinct multiple times over.
Lots of reasons why life didn't spread beyond a solar system, let alone colonize a galaxy. Entire civilizations more advanced than our own could have risen and fallen without us ever knowing.
Eh, there are enough possible reasons for a civilization to not expand infinitely or voluntarily declare certain systems off limits that I don't think it's crazy to speculate that they might be, or at least may have been out there.
It could be they're very conservation-minded and set up reserves around any systems with planets that harbor life (UFOs are the assholes that jump wildlife reservation fences to hunt endangered species).
It could be they killed each other to death.
It could be they didn't exist at all.
It could be that earth was originally destined to be barren but they seeded the world to ensure it wouldn't be.
Maybe the meteor that deleted the dinos wasn't a freak physics accident.
Who knows?
This assumes that interstellar travel is even physically possible.
Interstellar travel is absolutely possible, the Voyager probes are currently doing it. You're thinking about faster-than-light travel, which is one of those, "technically not possible unless you tweak physics a little in this direction or assume the presence of unproven matter in that direction" kinda deals. Could be possible, but any way of exceeding the speed of light in any way, shape or form is indeed questionable science at best.
That said I'm a firm believer that ftl is possible and we're probably closer to it than anyone thinks because the actual solution is going to be painfully obvious but only in hindsight.
"Several exoplanets at the edge of our galaxy could have formed continents — and advanced life — 5 billion years earlier than Earth, new research suggests." Immediately feelin apprehension to read this XD.
I know what a continent means on a planet.
But what does it mean when talking about space or galaxies? Is it a specific area in space or a specific amount of area (wherever) in space?.
So, if an exoplanet had continents before Earth -
I don't understand what this means 😅
The wording was bad, for sure. It's referring to other planets that have large bodies of land that may be surrounded by a liquid. (Do continents have to be surrounded by water or other liquid? I am too lazy to find the exact definition. It was critical in our development, for sure.)
One possible translation: If continents formed on other planets, there is potential for those planets to form similar ecosystems. Tectonic activity also suggests a planet that has a hot interior and a stable magnetic field. Since the surface of the planet is active, heavier minerals could be pushed up instead of sinking down. This could help drive more complex chemical reactions.
Continents may imply complex shorelines as well. Much of the evolution on earth was driven by the need for plants and fungi to have access to vast quantities of water, ample sunlight and a better supply of fresh air. Shorelines have everything, including places for big critters to find and eat little critters.
Continents provide diverse conditions, for sure. If they existed on other earth-like planets before ours, it could have possibly given life a huge headstart.
even more advanced than our own.
I don't know what to say about that.
The ego on this lad tho. Imagine thinking we're "advanced". Bitch, we still can't get our species to universally agree that slavery is bad, what do you mean "even more advanced than our own."
I kinda doubt the writer meant for people to read it like that, but damn, what a sentence.