Water on Mars - Clues to Life?

PHPee writes: "Reports of water on Mars say that huge amounts of water gushed through the surface of the red planet fairly 'recently'. (Recently being as little as 10 million years ago) This is big news, because it may lead to finding some simple forms of life on the planet. For more info, check out: (story #1) and (story #2)."

Comments

Re:Consider the fact

[skilef]

Although we are limited as humans in our theoretical resources, there are strong indications that the chances for carbon-hydrogen based life on mars are bigger than for an unknown form. If you look at Mars' atmosphere, you see a 50x higher concentration of carbondioxide compared to earth. If you combine the fact that life needs some kind of energy (geothermal, sunlight) for its metabolic pathways, and that those sources for energy are available at places where water and carbondioxide are present, carbon-hydrogen based life seems to be the most plausible form. Because of the low temperatures on the surface there is a bigger chance for finding some kind of subterranean thermophilic lifeform than anything on the surface.
The chance is very small however; therefore, I think it's more important that the presence of water enables us to create colonies on Mars in the near future: water can be used as a source of energy and offcourse to quench our thirst..