Thread: Fresh idea about the sun!!!

The other day, I started thinking about the earth, and how everything was so much bigger in prehistoric times. Then I started to wonder why. Why are we finding fossils of extinct animales from millions of years ago that dwarf our largest species(although the sperm whale is fucking huge). Well then this must mean that the climate was different back then for species to grow so massively.
Think about it. The most densely vegitative regions on the planet are much warmer than say, the United States, which makes me believe that our planets climate is slowly decreasing in temperature which decreases precipitation as time passes(global warming is man made).
What could be the reason for this? Could it be our sun is slowly going out. This is where I started to really run with this thought. Now, if your reading this with enough of an open mind to believe the sun was once much brighter, than is it possible that pluto may once have had life, and the sun gradually became too weak to support it? It's my theory that as a sun weakens it opens up the door for life on a closer planet. For example Pluto sustains life for a while then conditions become too crappy. Later, the conditions for the next closest planet, which is Neptune become able to sustain life and so on.
Comment me back. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

actually the suns output is growing, there are a few reasons why the planet was warmer a long time ago. one of them was that there was much more co2 in the atmosphere, also i assume supercontinents like pangaea were more compact and closer to the equator, which would lead to land based life living in a warmer environment

Originally Posted by oldschool4511

The other day, I started thinking about the earth, and how everything was so much bigger in prehistoric times. Then I started to wonder why. Why are we finding fossils of extinct animales from millions of years ago that dwarf our largest species(although the sperm whale is fucking huge). Well then this must mean that the climate was different back then for species to grow so massively.
Think about it. The most densely vegitative regions on the planet are much warmer than say, the United States, which makes me believe that our planets climate is slowly decreasing in temperature which decreases precipitation as time passes(global warming is man made).
What could be the reason for this? Could it be our sun is slowly going out. This is where I started to really run with this thought. Now, if your reading this with enough of an open mind to believe the sun was once much brighter, than is it possible that pluto may once have had life, and the sun gradually became too weak to support it? It's my theory that as a sun weakens it opens up the door for life on a closer planet. For example Pluto sustains life for a while then conditions become too crappy. Later, the conditions for the next closest planet, which is Neptune become able to sustain life and so on.
Comment me back. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Ya sunlight is an essential ingredient for exitence of life but there are othings too which are equally important such as presence of oxygen..........................

I am not the most educated person in the world but i do like science.
What im saying here i'm just saying in responce to the gentlemen in india.
I am not claiming anything to be true this is all just me saying that nothings impossible. even though its not probable.
I do know that its common knowledge that most planets contain oxygen and such. oxygen can be found in CO2 and H2O since those are compounds? and H2O doesnt have to be in a water form to be present? gas and solid forums exist on the farther out planets? the probability and possibility of life occurring on those other planets with that theory of the hotter younger sun isnt so out of the idea. If he was right life could of occurred there. even though pluto is to small and its gravity is to small to support an atmosphere. doesnt mean that nothing is impossible. on earth we have organisums and such that survive in the most harshest climates. and my somewhat limited knownledge of science cant let me make the most accurate statements. i think i remeber hearing that the laws of physics may not be absolute. in quantum physics does most things appear to defy physics? how do eletrons move? do they actually teleport? move near light speed and stop? transverse dimensions? is there another universe where the laws of physics totally different? i remeber hearing about a scientist trying to prove the multi verse through partical acceleration. or something like that. basically just because something appears to be true doesnt nessesarily mean is it. and visa verse. because common knownledge appears to say that its not possible doesnt mean it couldnt be. science is not absolute. its all theorys that make probable sense. besides the most genisus people in my opinion are the ones who make wild guesses and theories that may not make sense (like people back in the early 1900's and before) who talked about space travel and even the possibility of flying? with out those wild ideas like this wierd one of the hotter sun forces some people to think outside the box. most people learn a topic and due to their lack of sufficent knowledge at the time they chose not to persue it because it does not pertain to them. but then later in life with more experience someone brings up a wild theory that pertains to that. and with your knowledge you say thats utterly impossible but then you remeber something that you learned over time threw your experiences that may give way to a possiblity that you havnt thought about before and then take up this new endevor and aproach the situation and discover something new. example being the world was believed to be flat. if you allowed scientists of that era to know that to be absolute who would of tried to prove it was round? life might exist with out oxygen. who knows. just because earth is one way doesnt mean that other planets cant have their own set of physics. although improbable never impossible.

ill end here because i do not know enough science myself to truely make any bold strong statements. im not sure that i have my facts straight but i do hope i make some sense.

"Ya sunlight is an essential ingredient for exitence of life but there are othings too which are equally important such as presence of oxygen.........................."

The sunlight is just the first factor in the equation. if there is more sunlight to increase the amount and the size of vegitation, then their are more plants that will produce more oxygen. If their is more sunlight, then more water will evaporate causing more precipitation. If their is more precipitation, we see more vegitation.

It is pretty well established that the younger sun was cooler not hotter than today. If we are mistaken in this then most of astrophysics and physics goes out the window - an unlikely possibility. Life has been present on the Earth for at least 3.5 billion years. We can assess the approximate temperatures of past times from various isotope ratios. These contradict your hypothesis, yet agree with the conventional view of a general increase in solar temperature, that is compensated for by changes in atmospheric composition.

But applause for thinking outside the box.

Just because life on earth follows a certain set of laws doesnt mean that life elsewhere cant exist based on other sets of rules.

we may be carbon based and require oxygen but you cant rule out the possibilty of life exsiting threw the usage of other chemicals.

if you break down life in the scientific aspect. we are just walking chemical reactions. a bunch of atoms working together.

energy can be gained threw many times of chemical reactions.
i am not a chemist but there can be a possbility of something breathing a gas other then oxygen compounding it with other elements to make compounds which the atoms full fill their electron requirement to be happy. and then breaking up the compounds to produce energy to continue threw gaining more elements to full fill more requirements or whatever. its been awhile since i studied atoms in highschool so i dont remeber everything but you guys know what im saying.

just because something is one way here doesnt mean it cant be different else where. we just know that if we wanted to go to another planet for us we need certain things.
dont be blinded by what we need to survive. the possibilities are endless.
ALL LIFE DOES NOT HAVE TO FOLLOW THE SAME RULES WE DO.
its like having tunnel vision if you just focus on the earth as the only study group. its like saying plant life cant exist on the bottum of the ocean because there is no light for it to under go photosynthesis. just because the land plants follow one set of rules doesnt mean thats the only set of rules life goes by.

also,
could our atmosphere of been less developed back then? still adjusting from all the gases that recently were released into the atmosphere from volcanoes and such? so maybe more sunlight was able to penetrate and less was absorbed in our 0zone layer? or perhaps all the volcanic activity from those periods helped make planet life flurish?
arent volcanic islands very fertile? perhaps it was just a better more fertile enviroment for the plant life to inhabit. we do have giant trees of today and huge elephants. didnt most of the giants starve death in the extintion period? most the suvivors were the smaller creatures who feed on the gaints and were able to hide and keep cool and warm. bigger creatures need more to sustain life? smaller creatures are more adapt to survive? simple is better after all right? isnt that why lizards can regenerate body parts and we cant?
just my uneducated opinion
thanks

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

ALL LIFE DOES NOT HAVE TO FOLLOW THE SAME RULES WE DO..

I understand what you mean and I agree it is important to keep an open mind, however the odds are that you are wrong.
Life has to follow the basic laws of physics and chemistry. If it doesn't then we have no idea - I mean absolutely no idea - of how the Universe ticks. So far it does not seem that way.

Given those rules it is pretty much agreed that while life might exist based on some other elements, that carbon is far wand a way the best element on which to be based, with water as the preferred solvent. And these conclusions are very clear cut.

Now that doesn't mean there are not some other options, its just that if you were a gambling man you wouldn't be betting on them.

the laws of physics are always changing are they not? does quantum physics follow its own set of laws? how is life any different?

the more we learn the more we find out how our facts and laws are not always facts and laws. we prove one thing to only be disproved by another thing. weren't spicy foods blamed for ulcers and other stomach problems?
now spicy foods are being claimed to be healthy for you.

did darwin believe his own "theory of evolution"? i think i remember someone saying something like how the eye couldn't of evolved on its own or something?

best thing about science is the endless possibilities.
to prove that life can exist in only the same manner we do, you must first prove what life truly is. what is consciousness? if atoms are immortal why aren't we? why do we die if we are made from elements thats don't perish? why do we remain the same size? why don't we just continually grow? techically we should all be blobs? just constantly try to full fill our electron requirements. make compounds to only be broke up by energy to only just reform with the same or other elements?
thinking this way what truly is life? why is it nessesary? why can life only exist one way?

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

the laws of physics are always changing are they not?

No. Decidedly not. There is a small minority of physicists and cosmologists who have speculated that one or more of the fundamental constants may have changed over time, but the laws are thought to be fixed. What made you think it was otherwise?

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

how is life any different?

It isn't: which is exactly the point I am making. The rules we understand to apply to life make it highly likely that all life is carbon based and almost as likely that it used water as a solvent.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

weren't spicy foods blamed for ulcers and other stomach problems?
now spicy foods are being claimed to be healthy for you.

Irrelvant. There is a heck of a lot more research and validation of the basic laws of chemistry and physics than their are on the effects of a spciy diet on the human intestine.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

did darwin believe his own "theory of evolution"? i think i remember someone saying something like how the eye couldn't of evolved on its own or something?

The creationists mumble about irreducible complexity and are are fond of quoting a passage from Darwin in which he appears to question how the eye could ever have come to be without divine intervention. They conveniently omit the next paragraph where he states his belief that it could readilu have evolvec through natural selection.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

best thing about science is the endless possibilities.

No. The best thing about science is its ability to narrow the range of possibilities through observation, hypothesis formation, experimentation, etc i.e. the scientifc method.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

what is consciousness? if atoms are immortal why aren't we? ?

Because we are an emergent property of a system far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Death brings us into thermodynamic equilibrium and the emergent proerty is lost.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

why can life only exist one way?

It can probably only exist one way because of the laws of physics and chemistry.

eh as i stated before i am not knowledgable enough about any one certain top i can only speculate based on what i have heard or remember learning or whatever. though i do like to post and challenge ideas.
i am mostly trying to learn more by using people like you guys to answers questions i can not. =)

although i will always say because its improbable doesnt mean it isnt impossible.

thanks for your comments and time =)
im still young and learning.

Originally Posted by JoeyLightning

thanks for your comments and time =)
im still young and learning.

Speculation is good. Imagination is a key ingredient of scientific work. Don't lose that imagination.
However it has to be tempered with a self critical assessment of any idea and a readiness to reject that idea when it is unsupported, or contradicted by the evidence.
Keep asking questions - that's part of the scientifc method too.