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Organics on Ceres


Waspie_Dwarf

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Organics on Ceres may be more abundant than originally thought

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A new analysis of data from NASA’s Dawn mission suggests that organic matter may exist in surprisingly high concentrations on the dwarf planet’s surface.

arrow3.gif  Read More: Brown University

 

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Hardly surprising... look at the diversity under the ice shelves on earth. I would bet it's locally made.

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For my own ignorence what is the distinction between "organic matter" and "life"?

Edited by Chortle
Posted too soon
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1 hour ago, Chortle said:

For my own ignorence what is the distinction between "organic matter" and "life"?

Organic matter is the residue of life. We are life and our poops would be organic matter if that makes sense.

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8 minutes ago, danydandan said:

Organic matter is the residue of life. We are life and our poops would be organic matter if that makes sense.

Not true.

In chemistry organic means carbon based chemistry. It does not necessarily have any connection to life.

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12 minutes ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Not true.

In chemistry organic means carbon based chemistry. It does not necessarily have any connection to life.

So it literally means everything carbon based, regardless if it's multicellular or not?

Didn't know that, thanks. I always thought organic meant life, but I suppose that meaning is an extrapolation of the terms meaning in chemistry considering all life is carbon based on Earth.

Edited by danydandan
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2 hours ago, danydandan said:

Didn't know that, thanks. I always thought organic meant life,

When carbon chemistry was named "organic" chemistry back in the Victorian era it was believed that all organic molecules were the result of life. Now it is know that organic molecules, even complex ones, can be formed independent of life.

Unfortunately the very name organic leads to, unsurprising and understandable, confusion. 

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Thanks for the above so for the lay person its essentially "we found something that contains carbon". Which may sound unexciting, but actually is significant given carbon is a building block of all life we are aware of.

So what is everything else categorised under if its not organic matter? If I wanted to Google/Wiki this could you advise what I'm am I looking for?

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7 minutes ago, Chortle said:

So what is everything else categorised under if its not organic matter? If I wanted to Google/Wiki this could you advise what I'm am I looking for?

The two main branches of chemistry are organic for nearly all carbon containing molecules  (there are a few exceptions but I can't remember what they are at the moment) and inorganic for everything else.

Such is the versatility of organic molecules that they hugely outnumber all the inorganics.

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6 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

The two main branches of chemistry are organic for nearly all carbon containing molecules  (there are a few exceptions but I can't remember what they are at the moment) and inorganic for everything else.

Such is the versatility of organic molecules that they hugely outnumber all the inorganics.

See the source image

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dont expect much, as life on earth got lucky when the first merging happened on accident. the chances of life developing like us is extremly low, and what makes us unique is we have emotions, which can be a factor for our decisions. anger stimulates agressive thoughts, and sadness processes negative thoughts, and when were calm, we can process thoughts based on info. if youre calm right now, think about what youre curious about then develop your thinking by trying to improve it or back it up. youll end up with alot more than what you started. carbon is a building block, a factor of life, and no matter how many building blocks you have, if nothing happens, there will be no life. were just lucky we even got to multi cellular stage

Edited by Unanimous
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The pigment, carbon black, is made by burning oil or gas in a chamber, then scraping the soot from the chamber, making it an organic pigment. Nothing alive about that, I hope.

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15 hours ago, paperdyer said:

The pigment, carbon black, is made by burning oil or gas in a chamber, then scraping the soot from the chamber, making it an organic pigment. Nothing alive about that, I hope.

Except that the oil or gas were almost certainly produced by the decay of living organisms, so not really a good example of organic chemistry without the involvement of life.

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