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*Please turn all cell phones and MP3 players and or iPods off during the presentation and enjoy the show

*Please turn all cell phones and MP3 players and or iPods off during the presentation and enjoy the show

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Page 1: *Please turn all cell phones and MP3 players and or iPods off during the presentation and enjoy the show

*Please turn all cell phones and MP3 players and or iPods off during the presentation and enjoy the show

Page 2: *Please turn all cell phones and MP3 players and or iPods off during the presentation and enjoy the show

By Doug Rust

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Keys to Life

• 1. Building block molecule

• 2. Medium for chemical reactions

• 3. Energy

1. Carbon

2. Water

3. Sunlight

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How Life on Earth Started

• When Earth started, constant bombardment from comets, meteorites and dust = molten state

• When bombardment ended, water vapour cooled into rain and oceans were formed

• Life began in oceans

• Water protected chemicals from harsh UV rays

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• First organism to form was 3.5 billion years ago

• Lived in ocean and used photosynthesis to survive

• Oxygen released eventually helped create our atmosphere and allowed evolution to come to land

• Dinosaurs and birds were dominant roughly 225 million years ago

• First large brained human 2 million years ago

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Life in our Solar System?

• Early astronomers believed Venus would contain life

• Later found, temperature as high as 900°C

• Atmospheric pressure 90 to 100 times greater than Earth’s

• Surface filled with boulders and torched rock

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Europa

• Smallest of Jupiter’s 4 moons

• Very smooth surface – all ice

• Belief that oceans exist below the icy surface

• Elements of life could be there, energy from vents in oceans like on Earth

• Contains oxygen rich atmosphere

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Titan

• One of Saturn’s moons

• Atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, similar to earth

• Currently too cold for life, but when our sun starts to expand in its dying years, precursors for life could exist

• The Moon is very similar to Earth

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Mars• Believed to have contained water• Temperature usually below

freezing but sometimes reaches above mid-day

• Meteorite from Mars found in antarctica in 1984, named ALH84001

•Was roughly size of potato and contained organic compounds and micro structures that resembled bacteria fossils

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• Is there water or life on Mars now?

• The poles are covered in ice and carbon dioxide frost

• Water may be trapped in the frozen regions

• Organisms may be located underground

• Belief that there are oceans and channels of water located underground on Mars

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Life in the Universe

• Closest star is 4 light years away• Light travels at roughly 300 000 km/sec• Therefore, any other solar system = very far

away• Difficult too see the composition and chemistry

on the surface of other planets• Instead, we send out radio signals, and monitor

signals coming in from other stars

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• One morning in 1997, Jill Tarter found a signal from space in the direction of the star YZCETI

• Unlike any signal seen before, so sent email to SETI immediately

• Turned out to be from a NASA satellite

• Was inspiration for the Movie Contact starring Jodie Foster

Despite the setback, the search for signals continues today with hopes of finding intelligent life somewhere in the universe

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UFO Sightings

• Outside Rosewell, New Mexico the wreckage of an Unidentified Flying Object was found in 1947

• Referred to as a “disk” and said to have 3 alien crew men

• In 1994 American government admitted they covered it up, but it was a ship disguised as a weather balloon used to spy on Russians

• People still believe firmly that UFOs have been seen and aliens have visited Earth

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Alien Abductions• In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were

driving along a country road• They remember seeing a light in front

of their car• Next thing they know, they are driving

on a different road and two hours have passed

• Neither had any recollection of the 2 hours passed

• Psychiatrist hypnotized them, and learned that both were “probed” and sent back with reset memories

• Both became famous, but no one except the Hill’s really know the truth

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How does extraterrestrial life apply to the 21st century?

• Biggest question asked, Are we alone?• If there is intelligent life elsewhere, belief they

can teach us a lot about the dimensions, technology and life in general

• If there is life in the universe, it will give us more perspective on how we came to be on Earth

•Intelligent life could share a lot on the belief of religion and the afterlife as well as maybe lead to finding more life in the rest of the universe

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Personally…• There has to be life somewhere

• Over 100 billion stars and 100 billion possible solar systems, life elsewhere has to exist

• Never find it, universe to large and constantly expanding

If aliens have visited Earth and are that advanced, they would have kept themselves completely hidden or revealed themselves and if they were peaceful, we could co-exist like the aliens and humans in the movie Men In Black

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*Thank you for listening to my presentation, you have been an OUTSTANDING audience and I wish I could do this again just to have the pleasure of standing before you amazing people. You may now turn your cell phones and music devices back on and I hope you enjoyed this but I am sad to say it is…

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ReferencesAshby, R. (2003) How the solar system was formed. Minnesota: Smart

Apple Media.

McDonald, K. (2001) Life in Outer Space. Austin: Turnstone Publishing Company.

Spangenburg, R. & Moser, K. (2002) Life On Other Worlds. Toronto: Franklin Watts.

Bova, Dr. B. (2004) Faint Echoes, Distant Stars. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Internet

Book

SETI Institute. (2008). The Center for SETI Research. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2008, from: http://www.seti.org/seti

Oglethorpe University. Extraterrestrial Life in the Solar System? Retrieved Nov. 30, 2008, from: http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty

British Broadcast Corportation. (1999). Martian ‘bacteria’ matched to Earth. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2008, from http://news.bbc.co.uk