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Astronomers Detect a Possible Signature of Life on a Distant Planet

(www.nytimes.com)
168 points julienchastang | 1 comments | 16 Apr 25 23:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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belinder ◴[17 Apr 25 00:04 UTC] No.43711682[source]▶
If life evolves on a planet with only oceans, no surface, imagine how much longer it would take to discover rockets that can leave the planet.

Like if there was no surface on earth, and only fish, there must be some very significant reason for advanced fish to even want to leave the water, let alone the atmosphere

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slg ◴[17 Apr 25 00:14 UTC] No.43711724[source]▶
That seems like a very landbased mindset. From a high level, what is an ocean but a thick atmosphere? I could even imagine an underwater culture would be quicker to explore because they would surely discover the surface of the ocean quicker than we discovered the concept of the atmosphere and that innately leads to the questions of whether the atmosphere has a "surface" and what is above it.
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fhdkweig ◴[17 Apr 25 01:04 UTC] No.43712023[source]▶
There is also the issue that they will likely never discover fire and thus chemistry and metallurgy.
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1. Teever ◴[17 Apr 25 04:11 UTC] No.43713041[source]▶
Why is fire the only chemical pathway to metallurgy?

Can they not discover fire in underwater caves?

Can they not build underwater containers that hold the necessary materials to do chemistry, similar to what we do with bioreactors, flasks, beakers, and pressure vessels?