Planet Star 61 Virginis and The Origin of Life Assignment

Planet Star 61 Virginis and The Origin of Life - Assignment Example In fact, more studies are pursued nowadays by scientists aiming toâ€Å" create fully self-replicating artificial organisms in the laboratory† ( p.54). Indeed studying about how life evolved is exciting; however, a question remains: Is there life on another planet? The planet I am referring to is Star 61 Virginis, one of the extra solar planets added to the solar system a few years ago ( Laughlin, 2009). Having made further research about the planet revealed very interesting facts, namely: 1. It is visible to the naked eye on a clear summer sky – appears as yellow orange star; 2. It is too far from our solar system – 27.8 light years away; 3. It lies on a planetary system made up of ice like bodies yet it is very hot; The planet had only been discovered lately which presents a lot of speculations from people, especially college students. Although science facts are valid, this does not mean that they are unchanging. Take the case of Pluto which was taught as a pla net but later discredited much to the surprise of many people. The planet Star 61 Virginis has different characteristics including high temperatures that could not sustain life forms (de Mello et al., 308). However, this argument goes challenged because the origin of life tells us that in even extreme conditions, life was created. This topic got me so interested that I prepared a questionnaire to survey the opinion of some college students about possible life in star 61 virginis. First, I created a poster that invited students to participate in the survey. To attract participants, I gave an incentive – free movie tickets so the students would seriously answer my survey. There is also a special prize for a student who can answer the question: What kind of life forms can exist in this planet? The survey contained only ten questions because too many questions can be tiring for some students. Here are the questions that I created: 1. Do you think aliens exist? 2. Would you like t o communicate with aliens? 3. What part of their existence would you want to know? 4. Do aliens scare you ? Why? 5. Do you think aliens could live in a very hot environment? 6. If aliens are allowed to co-exist with us, are you in favor of that idea? 7. Do you suspect someone as an alien? 8. Do you think aliens existed in our planet a long time ago? 9. Can alien life be created? 10. How are aliens created? There were fifty respondents to the survey which is amazing because I never thought students would take aliens seriously. There were funny answers stating that their parents or teachers are real aliens. However, the most important result of the study showed that eighty-percent of respondents believed that aliens existed a long time ago. They think that the origin of life theory is not only applicable to terrestrial matters but to aliens as well. Around ninety-percent of the students also supported the idea that aliens can exist in very hot environment. In fact, there were so many speculations presented by the answers like: 1. Aliens can live in hot environments because they are not humans, their bodies can be made up of special matter; 2. Aliens were formed similar to the concept of primordial soup , as their planets evolved, they began to form; 3. Aliens can adapt to their environment thus they exist; I really find these answers interesting so maybe I can have group discussions about these topics and have the other students