back to article Finally, a use for AI and good old-fashioned simulations: Hunting down E.T. in outer space

Google Cloud has teamed up with NASA’s Frontier Development Lab to search for extraterrestrial life using simulations and machine-learning technology. Figuring out where exactly life may exist in outer space is non-trivial: it's not always clear which specific conditions and materials are necessary for living things to survive …

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    Given those assumptions, non-carbon based life forms will not be detected.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Obviously, there's no point in searching for "life, but not as we know it Jim" if we have no idea of what it might consist of.

      Search for what we do know about first - look for high concentrations of free Oxygen and we wont go far wrong.

      As for non C based life it's unlikely at what we would consider normal pressure and temperatures, however in high pressures and very hot or very cold then all bets are off, there could be life in gas giants, Saturn could be teaming with life but currently we have no way to identify it so there's no point in looking for it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hunting down E.T.

    ET v AI, DEATHMATCH ROUND 1*

    * Please note you need to log in to your account. Googlebet T&T apply.

  3. ITS Retired

    We don't even understand everything that's needed for life here.

    Or to maintain it for that matter. It has been only recently we really understood the roll our magnetic field played in keeping our atmosphere in place and otherwise protected us. Or the moon's roll in keeping that magnetic field going. Too many planets are like Mars, or Venus, without a large enough moon to keep the plate tectonics moving. No plate tectonics, no magnetic field, no life.

    We can barely make out any planets out there, let alone if they have any moons large enough to matter.

    While I'm sure there is life out there, even reasonably intelligent life (I'm not sure we count), we will never know for sure. The distances are just too great and the speed of light is too slow.

  4. DJO Silver badge

    No plate tectonics, no magnetic field

    Er, the field is generated in the core, plate tectonics occur in the crust - there's about 5,000km between them and one has no bearing or causation on the other.

    PS

    "Role" not "Roll"

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