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[Acanthus117]

At the most, I bet the aliens would strip mine Earth after killing everything on it with a super-virus or something.

[Nadaka]

Naw. They probably wouldn't even notice we were here after they use the earths mantle as a magma break to quickly bleed off a couple yottajoules of kinetic energy.

[Pnx]

Naaah, there's tons of other planets to do that stuff on, personally I'm thinking they'd just mess around. Yeknow, do some social engineering, start some wars, manipulate our world economy into creating famines, introduce some unpleasant pathogens, just to mix things up a little. Then manipulate evidence into suggesting that life came from another world so they can pop out and say "WE CREATED YOU!"

Yeknow... if there were actually aliens out there.

[Acanthus117]

There probably are, it just that they're so goddamn far that we'll probably never meet them

[counting]

I am amazed by how topic can derail from my one-liner

[Virex]

Naaah, there's tons of other planets to do that stuff on, personally I'm thinking they'd just mess around. Yeknow, do some social engineering, start some wars, manipulate our world economy into creating famines, introduce some unpleasant pathogens, just to mix things up a little. Then manipulate evidence into suggesting that life came from another world so they can pop out and say "WE CREATED YOU!"

Yeknow... if there were actually aliens out there.

Earth has two qualities that aren't readily found on other planets though: Volcanism for energy, and an abundance of slaves.

[Supercharazad]

Naaah, there's tons of other planets to do that stuff on, personally I'm thinking they'd just mess around. Yeknow, do some social engineering, start some wars, manipulate our world economy into creating famines, introduce some unpleasant pathogens, just to mix things up a little. Then manipulate evidence into suggesting that life came from another world so they can pop out and say "WE CREATED YOU!"

Yeknow... if there were actually aliens out there.

Earth has two qualities that aren't readily found on other planets though: Volcanism for energy, and an abundance of slaves.

Volcanism? They could go get all the volcanism they want from moons.


The danger I forsee is them using a spacecraft to come into our atmosphere, then getting shot at, then they declare war on earth and BOOM! Death stars are coming.

Also, they could be less intelligent than us, or they might have the capacity of omniscience.

[Akura]

Or both...
Think about it. Moronic aliens with omniscience. It'll be like an 8-year-old using chams playing Counter Strike.

[RedKing]

Forget Mars, if we have interstellar drives, I wanna live on Gliese 581 c.

[Reelyanoob]

But what that also means is that it is extremely unlikely that that meteorite was the source of life on earth.

How likely is it that a meteorite was the source of life on earth, anyway? I heard somewhere that the chance of a single amino acid forming was nigh on impossible.

Miller-Urey experiment samples from the 1950's have been re-tested, and found to contain traces of more than 20 essential amino acids, which is greater than the number actually used by biological organisms.

And that only used Water, C02, Ammonia, Hydrogen, etc, and electricity and heat as the inputs.

After Miller's death in 2007, scientists examining sealed vials preserved from the original experiments were able to show that there were actually well over 20 different amino acids produced in Miller's original experiments. That is considerably more than what Miller originally reported, and more than the 20 that naturally occur in life.[7] Moreover, some evidence suggests that Earth's original atmosphere might have had a different composition than the gas used in the Miller–Urey experiment. There is abundant evidence of major volcanic eruptions 4 billion years ago, which would have released carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere. Experiments using these gases in addition to the ones in the original Miller–Urey experiment have produced more diverse molecules.[8]

(Wikipedia)

[Dsarker]

But what that also means is that it is extremely unlikely that that meteorite was the source of life on earth.

How likely is it that a meteorite was the source of life on earth, anyway? I heard somewhere that the chance of a single amino acid forming was nigh on impossible.

Miller-Urey experiment samples from the 1950's have been re-tested, and found to contain traces of all 20 essential amino acids! Plus lots of non-used ones.

And that only used Water, C02, Ammonia, Hydrogen, etc, and electricity and heat as the inputs.

Assuming (since I know nothing of these experiments) that the electricity and heat are being used as catalysts?

[Reelyanoob]

Electricity to promote ionization (what photons do to molecules in the wild), heat to provide energy.

The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes. The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired between the electrodes to simulate lightning through the atmosphere and water vapor, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle.
At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10–15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. Sugars and liquids were also formed. Nucleic acids were not formed within the reaction. But the common 20 amino acids were formed, in various concentrations.
In an interview, Stanley Miller stated: "Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."

Mainly cited in response to claim that it's "nigh impossible" to make amino acids. Nigh impossible not to.

Experiments conducted later showed that the other RNA and DNA nucleobases could be obtained through simulated prebiotic chemistry with a reducing atmosphere.

So these can spontaneously combine on Earth or in space. Earth-based DNA is most likely derived from stuff that formed on Earth, I doubt concentrations of meteorite DNA would be sufficient. Plus the most likely candidate so far for the origins of life is ocean floor volcanic vents, which would have been pretty well shielded by the oceans above from meteorites.

[RedKing]

On the other hand, we now have a plausible explanation for the platypus. Or Australia in general, for that matter. 

[Dsarker]

On the other hand, we now have a plausible explanation for the platypus. Or Australia in general, for that matter. 

"Australia- The Meteorite Country"?

[RedKing]

Australia -- Even our DNA is upside-down!