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WHAT ARE EXTREMOPHILES?

 
 
Reply Sat 22 Mar, 2025 06:05 pm
Extremophiles are fascinating organisms that thrive in environments considered extreme and hostile for most life forms on Earth. These environments include extreme temperatures, high radiation levels, intense pressures, and environments devoid of sunlight. Examples of extremophiles are thermophiles (heat-loving), psychrophiles (cold-loving), acidophiles (acid-loving), and halophiles (salt-loving).

Some extremophiles survive without sunlight by using alternative energy sources. For instance, in the deep ocean where sunlight can't penetrate, extremophiles live around hydrothermal vents. These vents release hot, mineral-rich water, creating an environment where photosynthesis is impossible. Instead, these organisms rely on chemosynthesis—a process in which they obtain energy by oxidizing inorganic molecules like hydrogen sulfide or methane.

Through this process, bacteria or archaea convert chemical energy into organic matter, forming the base of an ecosystem. Larger organisms like tube worms and clams form symbiotic relationships with these bacteria, relying on them for survival in these unique ecosystems.

Their ability to endure and adapt to such conditions continues to captivate scientists and expands our understanding of life's resilience—potentially even pointing to the possibilities of life on other planets or moons with similar extreme conditions.

Isn't that remarkable in that it proves the biblical account that life began of earth before our sun was created?
 
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Mon 24 Mar, 2025 06:30 am
@The Anointed,
Quote:

Isn't that remarkable in that it proves the biblical account that life began of earth before our sun was created?

It doesn't "prove" that life began on earth before our sun was created. It doesn't even suggest that. The protoplanetary disc formed around the sun and the planets grew from that material. But I agree that these organisms and conditions under which they grow are are "fascinating".
Walter Hinteler
 
  2  
Reply Mon 24 Mar, 2025 09:17 am
@hightor,
I also find it fascinating what has recently been discovered: in the desert regions of Namibia, Oman and Saudi Arabia, research work has revealed special phenomena that can probably be traced back to the activity of an unknown microbiological life form.

Subfossil Fracture-Related Euendolithic Micro-burrows in Marble and Limestone
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The Anointed
 
  0  
Reply Mon 24 Mar, 2025 05:01 pm
@hightor,
Quote:
It doesn't "prove" that life began on earth before our sun was created. It doesn't even suggest that. The protoplanetary disc formed around the sun and the planets grew from that material. But I agree that these organisms and conditions under which they grow are are "fascinating".


This is one scientific theory as to the creation of our solar system some 9 billion years after the creation of those first massive stars that lit up the darkness of the expanding space.
Whether or not a better theor y than that which we have today will develop, time will tell.

This theory would appear to support the biblical statement, that the process of the division of the waters above from the waters below, [See Genesis 1: 6; KJV] or the division of the solar nebula cloud from the greater Galactic nebula cloud, began some five billion years ago, and that the whole process began with the division of the waters (cloud) above, from the waters (Cloud) below from which the entire Solar system was created. This took just a few hundred million years, about 400 million years in fact, and the creation of our entire solar system was completed by about 4.6 billion years ago.

It was from the galactic nebular cloud, which was the residue of the heavier elements that were exploded off with the great super nova, which was the death of one of those gigantic earlier generation Stars, that our Milky-Way galaxy would be formed in the second creative period=day, as the active universal forces brought about a division of the Solar nebular cloud [The Waters Below] from the Galactic nebular cloud [The Waters Above].
The accretion of the galactic nebula disk, which was being attracted to the central Black Hole around which it had begun to orbit, transferred angular momentum outward as it transferred mass inward, it was this that caused our solar nebula to begin to rotate and condense inward, bringing a division of the solar cloud, from the galactic cloud, or the waters above from the waters below.

Within the greater nebular cloud, which was slowly beginning to revolve around the Black Hole that anchored it in space, a piece of the larger cloud complex started to collapse about five billion years ago. The cloud complex had already been "polluted" with dust grains from previous generations of stars, so it was possible to form the rocky terrestrial planets as gravity pulled the gas and dust together, forming a solar nebula. As the cloud=waters of the solar nebula collapsed, its slight rotation increased. This is because of the conservation of angular momentum.

Just like a dancer who spins faster as she pulls in her arms, the cloud began to spin as it collapsed. Eventually, the cloud grew hotter and denser in the centre, with a disk of gas and dust surrounding it that was hot in the centre but cool at the edges. As the disk got thinner and thinner, particles began to stick together and form clumps. Some clumps got bigger, as particles and small clumps stuck to them, eventually forming planets or moons. Genesis 1: 6—9. As the heavenly cloud was gathered together in one place, dry land, or rather planets began to form.
Near the centre of the condensing cloud, where planets like earth formed, only rocky material could stand the great heat. Icy matter settled in the outer regions of the disk along with rocky material, where the giant planets like Jupiter formed.

As the cloud continued to fall in, the centre would get so hot that it would eventually become a star and with a strong stellar wind, would blow away most of the gas and dust from which the planets of the solar system had been formed.

By studying meteorites, which are thought to be left over from this early phase of the solar system, scientists have found that the solar system is about 4.6 billion years old! As the solar nebula collapsed, the gas and dust heated up through collisions among the particles. The solar nebula heated up to around 3000 K so everything was in a gaseous form. The solar nebula's composition was similar to the present-day Sun's composition: about 93% hydrogen, 6% helium, and about 1% silicates and iron, and the density of the gas and dust increased toward the core where the proto-sun was: [PROTO SUN.]. The inner, denser regions collapsed more quickly than the outer regions.

PROTO-HUMANS WERE NOT HUMANS AND THE PROTO-SUN, WAS NOT YET OUR SUN.
Around Jupiter's distance from the proto-Sun the temperature was cool enough to freeze water (the so-called "snow line" or "frost line"). Further out from the proto-Sun, ammonia and methane were able to condense. There was a significant amount of water closer to the Proto-sun, but could not condense. When the solar nebula stopped collapsing it began cooling, though the core that would later form the Sun remained hot.

This meant that the outer parts of the solar nebula cooled off more than the inner parts closer to the hot proto-Sun. Only metal and rock materials could condense (solidify) at the high temperatures close to the proto-Sun. Therefore, the metal and rock materials could condense in all the places where the planets were forming. Volatile materials (like water, methane and ammonia) could only condense in the outer parts of the solar nebula.

Because the density of the solar nebula material increased inward, there was more water at Jupiter's distance than at the distances of Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. The greater amount of water ice at Jupiter's distance from the proto-Sun helped it grow larger than the other planets. Although, there was more water closer to the proto-Sun than Jupiter, that water was too warm to condense. Material with the highest freezing temperatures condensed to form the chondrules that were then incorporated in lower freezing temperature material. Chondrules (from Ancient Greek chondros, meaning grain) are round grains found in chondrites. Chondrules form as molten or partially molten droplets in space before being accreted to their parent asteroids.

Any material that later became part of a planet underwent further heating and processing when the planet differentiated so the heavy metals sunk to the planet's core and lighter metals floated up to nearer the surface.
Because of its great compression, the core of the proto-Sun finally reached about 10 million Kelvin and after the planets of the solar system had been created, the hydrogen nuclei started fusing together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy. It was then that the proto-Sun "TURNED ON" and became our Sun, which produced the strong winds called T-Tauri winds named after the prototype star in the constellation Taurus.

These winds swept out the rest of the nebula that was not already incorporated into the planets. With most of the cocoon gas blown away, the new star itself becomes visible to the outside for the first time. This whole process took just a few hundred million years and was finished by about 4.6 billion years ago. At the distance of about one light year from the earth, is the great icy Dome, that is the boundary of the firmament of our heavens, in which the sun, moon, and planets of our solar system were created.
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 Mar, 2025 02:05 pm
@The Anointed,
But that doesn't show that life on earth existed before the sun. I think you're trying to read too much into the creation story in Genesis. There are elements in nearly all creation myths which might be liberally interpreted as analogous to various scientific theories. Fire, water, wind, land, stars, and life are all great raw materials which, when mixed together with imagination, can yield countless narratives. And some statements, in isolation, may be congruent with aspects of modern knowledge.
The Anointed
 
  0  
Reply Tue 25 Mar, 2025 04:41 pm
@hightor,
The bible states that life had begun to evolve on earth before the condensing super hot solar nebula finally reached about 10 million Kelvin and after the planets of the solar system had been created, the hydrogen nuclei started fusing together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy. It was then that the proto-Sun "TURNED ON" and became our Sun.

And science now agrees that Life on earth did not need sunlight in order to evolve.
hightor
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 Mar, 2025 06:04 pm
@The Anointed,
Quote:
The bible states that...

No. It doesn't.
Quote:
...life had begun to evolve on earth...

And survived the subsequent condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula? I doubt it. Now, certain chemical precursors and potentiators of future biological evolution were formed before the universe was a couple of billion years old – but they weren't alive.

James Webb Space Telescope spies earliest complex organic molecules in the universe

The chemicals reside within a galaxy that formed when the universe was about 10% of its current age.

Charles Q. Choi wrote:
Astronomers have detected the oldest known examples of complex organic molecules in the universe, a new study reports.

These chemicals — much like ones found in smoke and soot on Earth — reside within an early galaxy that formed when the universe was about 10% of its current age, according to the study.

The carbon-based molecules, technically known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are found in oil and coal deposits on Earth, as well as in smog.

"The molecules we found aren't simple things like water or carbon dioxide," study lead author Justin Spilker, an astronomer at Texas A&M University in College Station, told Space.com. "We're talking about big, floppy molecules with dozens or hundreds of atoms in them."

These complex organic molecules are common in space, where they are often linked to tiny dust grains. Astronomers investigate them because they can help reveal key details of activity within galaxies — for instance, they help influence the rate at which interstellar gas cools. However, detecting these molecules in very distant galaxies that formed when the universe was relatively young has been challenging, because telescopes were limited in their sensitivity and the number of wavelengths of light they monitored.

Now, using NASA's extraordinarily powerful new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Spilker and his colleagues have detected these molecules in a galaxy known as SPT0418-47 more than 12 billion light-years from Earth.

"It's remarkable that the universe can make really large, complex molecules very quickly after the Big Bang," Spilker said.

Given the extreme distance of SPT0418-47, the light the astronomers detected began its journey less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. (The universe is currently about 13.8 billion years old.)

"This pushes back the old record for detections like this by about an extra billion years," Spilker said.

The discovery was made with the help of a warp in the fabric of space-time known as a gravitational lens. Albert Einstein discovered that mass distorts space-time, a bit like how a bowling ball might stretch a rubber sheet it was resting on. The greater the mass of an object, the more space-time curves around the item, and so the stronger the object's gravitational pull is. The way in which gravity behaves means that it can bend light like a lens, so a powerful gravitational field, such as that produced by a massive cluster of galaxies, can act like a giant magnifying glass.

Astronomers detected the previous record-holder for the oldest complex organic molecules using more than a full-day's worth of observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, Spilker said. In comparison, using JWST, "we only stared at this galaxy for a grand total of one hour," he said. "Webb really makes looking for organic molecules look too easy."

In addition, whereas previous efforts to detect complex organic molecules in ancient galaxies could only tell if the chemicals were there or not, "Webb's resolution lets us see actual details of where within a galaxy the molecules are located instead of just whether or not they are there at all," Spilker said. In SPT0418-47, the presence of these molecules is not uniform across the galaxy, the reason for which remains to be explained.

All in all, these new findings suggest that "it's possible for galaxies to form in overdrive," Spilker said. "The galaxy we studied is already just as massive, and its stars have formed just as much carbon and oxygen, as our own Milky Way, even though it's only a tenth the age. It's like a third grader who's already lived an entire career — gone to college, accomplished a career's worth of work, and then retired at age eight. The new results from Webb imply that it's not actually very difficult for galaxies to produce really complex molecules through all this rich chemistry going on in space."

In addition, scientists had previously thought these complex organic molecules were linked with star formation. However, the new data revealed this might not always prove true — Spilker and his colleagues found lots of regions with these molecules but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but none of these molecules, he said.

"Finding these big, complex molecules in galaxies when the universe was very young is one of those things that a lot of astronomers were hoping and expecting Webb to do, and I hope that the lessons we learned from this first attempt can help all of us as we move forward," Spilker said. "I'm eager to push to even more distant, younger galaxies — can we eventually find one that just hasn't had enough time for molecules this big to form? I'd also like to understand a lot better why these molecules exist in some regions of galaxies but not others. What was special about the regions with the molecules that allowed large molecules to form rapidly?"

Spilker cautioned that the JWST mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) used to make the new findings "appears to have declining performance right now. NASA has a team of very good engineers who are currently investigating the cause of the problem. But if the performance continues to deteriorate, it may make studies like this one impossible after the next year."

space

The Anointed
 
  0  
Reply Tue 25 Mar, 2025 11:48 pm
@hightor,
Quote:
And survived the subsequent condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula? I doubt it.


And having survived the subsequent condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula, the life that was evolving on earth continued to survive and evolve after the condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula started fusing the hydrogen nuclei together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy and the condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula, finally became our sun.
The Anointed
 
  0  
Reply Wed 26 Mar, 2025 12:57 am
@The Anointed,
Quote:
And having survived the subsequent condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula, the life that was evolving on earth continued to survive and evolve after the condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula started fusing the hydrogen nuclei together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy and the condensing super hot ten millionºK solar nebula, finally became our sun.


Extremophiles, fascinating organisms that thrive in extreme environments, are believed to have first appeared on Earth billions of years ago. I would say about 4.6 billion years ago, shortly before the creation of our sun, which completed the creation of our solar system.
Some scientists suggest that life may have originated around hydrothermal vents deep beneath the ocean's surface. These vents release hot, mineral-rich water, creating an environment where extremophiles could thrive without sunlight, relying instead on chemosynthesis for energy2.
Their resilience and adaptability have made them a key focus in understanding the origins of life on Earth and the potential for life in extreme conditions elsewhere in the universe.

I believe, if life is to be found in this solar system apart from that which has evolved on earth, it will be found in the water ocean on Enceladus, a moon that orbits the planet Saturn, which is about 6 miles (10 kilometers) deep and lies beneath a shell of ice 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 km) thick, researchers said. Further, it's in direct contact with a rocky seafloor, theoretically making possible all kinds of complex chemical reactions — such as, perhaps, the kind that led to the rise of life on Earth.
What heat must radiate from that rocky seafloor to maintain a liquid ocean 10 kilometre’s deep beneath a shell of ice 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 km) thick.


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