Largest Mass of Water Discovered, Think about the potential for life evolving.

From: Largest Mass of Water Discovered

The water, enough to fill earth's oceans "more than 100 trillion times," has been detected in a quasar 12 billion light years (72 billion trillion miles) from here. The signals detected from the quasar, which is a black hole sucking matter into it at a high rate, represents activity that occurred early in the formation of the universe, when it was a mere toddler of 1.6 billion years (scientists believe the universe now to be 13.6 billion years old).

I am a believer in Panspermia, the theory that microbes transmit life to habitable bodies in space; or the process of such transmission.

So I started thinking in terms of (volume * time) for evolution to take place, with a number of assumptions. Such as the right temperatures and pressure for liquid water. The right mix of ingredient, and source of energy. Occasional disruptions and a variety of habitats.

Now with such a larger volume and possible time dilation. That water may have had multiples of the life time of the universe to evolve life.

If there were to be an ideal incubator for evolution this would have to be it.

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UPDATE:  8/22/2011


Earth Ejecta Could Seed Life On Europa

"Various astronomers have studied how far rocks can travel through space after being ejected from Earth. Their conclusion is that it's relatively easy for bits of Earth to end up on the Moon or Venus, but very little would get to Mars because it would have to overcome gravity from both the Sun and the Earth. Now, the biggest ever simulation of Earth ejecta confirms this result — with a twist. The simulation shows that Jupiter is a much more likely destination than Mars. So bits of Earth could have ended up on Jovian satellites such as Europa. Astrobiologists estimate that Earth's hardiest organisms can survive up to 30,000 years in space, which means that if conditions are just right, Earth ejecta could seed life there."

Panspermia

This is soft of a Sci-Fi idea, I was toying with.

Attached to Slashdot: Don't Talk To Aliens, Warns Stephen Hawking

The theory of panspermia is where microbes transmit life to habitable bodies in space in for form or comet's and asteroids. If a planet such as earth were to be impacted by something large, fragments would be launched in to space, these would immediately freeze and preserve microbes almost indefinitely. A few cubic meters of frozen sea water from earth would contain a soup of trillions of single celled microbes and be in a perfect delivery system to survive reentry on another planet. Given the large numbers of fragments ejected in to space from such an impact and the small number of microbes needed to populate a planet, there is a good chance that our DNA has evolved across the whole of our galaxy.

So If you believe that which I think is far easier to believe then faster then light travel. The idea of a Christopher Columbus scenario doesn't make sense. Any intelligent aliens arriving by craft would have a few problems. They are 10's of thousands of years from home. The idea of arriving with an Attack fleet is completely impractical given the times and distances involved. Even the resources just for a small group to make such a journey is more then the whole Human race can generate right now.

The one group that does arrive would be more like Robinson Crusoe trapped on an island with no technology other then what they can scavenge off the ship they arrive in. The some of the more Advanced technologies from back home would be impossible to replicate. Imagine trying to make a semiconductor fab with a small group stranded on an island, it's not going to happen.

They also probably wouldn't be well adapted for our environment. The temperature, mixture of gasses, food etc. I think the first order of business would be like the Avatar movie scenario. To evolve hybrid creatures that can think like them and know their culture but would be bio-compatible with earth. They would have to do this by mixing their DNA with earth creature DNA, which probably would work because of microbial panspermia providing some level of commonality between xenoDNA's. Mostly likely they would want their hybrids to fit in and rise to power based on their technological advantage and then leverage the local population to do the work for them.

Also if it happened with one race of aliens then it's could probably happened with several races, each one landing and hybridizing local populations independently.

The other alternative is they have become a machine race, with their whole beings becoming entirely data. At which point our planet would be little more then a curiosity. As mining would be impractical with such a gravity well and there is little here they would need or want other then scientific curiosity.  Maybe study us and how we evolved much the way humans study apes in the jungle. We don't come in to take over the ape civilization, just try to leave then as undisturbed as possible to learn how they think and interact with each other.