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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)."
That's what all of the canals were for...
Duh.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Apart from being fastinating and a sign that further evolved life forms may exist, are there any potential advantages for finding extraterestrial bacteria?
Indeed this is great, but I wouldn't qualify it as *news*. I thought it was relatively well established that there was proof of water on Mars. Nothing new has happened since then, but hopefully we will go up and take samples sometime.
Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is also thought to be one of the prime candidates for life in our solar system.
Truth be told, a goephysicist friend of mine told me why they look for life and water on Mars. It is to estimate the likelyhood of more life in the universe, and to determine the practicality of creating human colonies on other planets. If water and life are common, then the entire idea becomes far more practical. If water is abundant and available, then we can move out among the stars at a much faster rate than current science has estimated.
Wherever you go, there I am...
Isn't there ice on Mars? Where there's ice, there's usually something frozen (oft water...).
... oh I've said too much already...
Who's up for bottling the stuff and reselling it here on Earth?! Forget that $1/bottle outa the New York tap stuff, we're talkin' $5,000 per bottle, extremely limited supply, right off the space ship! Hasn't been touched since man kind migrated off of Mars when it blew out of an opposing orbit from Earth and
Once you sign the NDA, we'll talk... Drop an email to ac1@slashdot....
There's always much speculation about the origin of live. The three main theories as far as I know are:
1. Biblical: God created life
2. Alien: Life came from fragments of comets and meteors travelling
3. Self created: Life self created from the primal mess, which created the first aminoacids.
I was thinking, what is your opinion about us, humans being, start launching around organic materials into space. Can we be the creators sometimes? I think our satellites and probes (read, Voyager) are already travelling and carryin some organic residues around, no matter how clean we build those machines.
Sometimes I stop and I think, in millions of years our propes may crash in some remote plantets. The chances are near zero. But imagine that it crashes, some bacteries or virii survive and start propagating in an enviromentally friendly planet. If they evolve, if they generate intelligent life, will they still look for the origin of their lives, and perhaps contaminate around other planets?
Vibriting thoughs.
That we may find a form of life which simply cannot be classified by anything we have ever seen on earth. What do we do if this happens?
People expect to go on other planets and find the same lifeforms you see on earth, bacteria, and mammals, and so on, what if you find a lifeform thats unlike anything, like a gas or liquid based lifeform, or something just totally weird.
Scientists should at least be ready for it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The reason that this news is important is that the time span for geological activity for water movement on Mars has been reduced from around 2 Billion years a few years ago, down to 10 million years. If water was free flowing on the surface of Mars only 10 million years ago than the possibility of finding evidence of life on Mars increases immensely.
Just you're average nitpicker.
Nick Hoffman of LaTrobe Uni in Melb, Aus. has a "White Mars" model where the active fluid agent is CO2 rather than water. I was impressed by a lecture he gave to an academic audience. I suspect most people (including those who fund space research) would prefer a Mars with water (for existance of life, etc), but an equal (or better) model should get equal an equal chance. Hoffman's website is here.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
Dan "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" Quayle
(source)
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
here here here and here
No signs of life there, some say that these ones show life: "Banyan Trees", "Hot Spring??", "Leopard spots"
Personally, at this resolution, they could be anything, but they are still fun to look at.
we might actually one day hope to find intelligent life in this solar system?
finally!
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
That's fine and all, but what I really want to know is how these "simple forms of life" end up getting to Earth and acquiring jobs as managers and politicians...
We don't know, over 4.5 billion years, the odds may be 99.99999% or 0.000001%, we just don't know.
In the case of Earth&Mars, the odds are probably close to 100%, if only because it has been shown that bacteria could easily survive the trip from the one to the other, and we know of a mechanism (asteroid impact) capable of "soft-launching" rocks from one to the other.
The life would be of the same origin of course. The odds of life emerging independently on both rocks are totally unknown, because for now we have a statistically useless sample of 1.
I still find it cute that certain scientists believe in the possibility/likelihood of:
1. A bacterium surviving the impact of a meteor hitting Mars. The size of that meteor must have been considerable to survive through the Mars atmosphere.
2. Some piece of rock being thrown back into space, and at sufficient speed to overcome Mars' gravity and low enough to not melt because of friction against the air.
3. That piece actually having a surviving bacterium.
4. That piece actually hitting Earth.
5. Scientists actually finding that unlikely piece of Mars on Earth, in dirt.
6. Finding that that highly unlikely piece of Mars contains unknown form of life.
7. Finding a president who actually believes you are on the right track and is ready to pay for your continued research.
Out of these I find step 7 the most probable.
Rubbish
Neither claim is scientific, the only correct statement now is "Until now we have not found life on Mars", and that will remain the claim until one of two things happen:
- We discover alien life on Mars
- We start living there
In both cases, the claim "there is life on Mars" will be scientifically correct.
Remember, the existence of life on Mars is not and never will be a hypothesis/theory (which is where Popper comes in), it is either a fact or an unknown.
Well, that would have been Naoh's flood
Are you one of those people who worship dog?
I think we all know why water gushed out on to the surface of Mars; one of the pipes supplying water to the subterranean civilisation must have burst. I think it is obvious from all the facts (ie. 1950s B movies, War of the Worlds, wild speculation) that there are people living under the surface of Mars where it is toasty warm.
Also, I can bend spoons with my mind.
Maybe you should re-evaluate your decision to blindly dismiss the value of scientific exploration. I'm not a geneticist, or a biologist, or any brand of scientist that can speak intelligently about the merits of space exploration or the study of life on earth or abroad. However, i am a scientist, and i recognize that scientific discoveries - many if not most of them - come from the most unexpected places.
I think space exploration and the quest for extra-terrestrial life is an invaluable quest for all the reasons we *don't* know about. You can't tell me (and even if you did i'd tell you that you're full of crap) that if someone finds even one tiny living single-cell organism on mars, that there is no possibility that the study of that one small organism could not be a catalyst of evolutionary discovery for all life as we know it. I'm not saying it will change the world. I'm saying it has the chance of adding to our understanding of the world and of ourselves. Every little bit of knowledge advances us one step closer to scientific goals we may not even know exist yet.
Space exploration and space research absurd? Humans have only been flying for about a century. How many discoveries in how many different fields have come from flight, and space research? Rocketry, physics, medical disoveries on so many levels, engineering and computing advances, biologic and genetic research in space or even modified gravity environments; I'm not sure anyone knows exactly how space research has impacted humanity in the last 50 years, because its influence is just too wide-spread. If someone somewhere develops a cure for some disease, or a bitchin new technology that will drive our cars, or even replace our cars 10, 50, or 100 years from now, i'm all for it. Space research is far from absurd. It's integrally linked to the standard of living you and I enjoy today, and will enjoy tomorrow.
As for protection, buddy, the only thing we need protection from is ourselves at this point. If we can't get to another developed species capable of space travel (assuming as i do that one exists "somewhere"), then we're probably ill equipped to defend ourselves if they can get to us - again, assuming they have nothing but hostile intentions. I chuckle at your expense, and at the same time sigh that close-minded individuals like yourself are all too common.
NASA has dug itself into a huge corner by playing up on layman's desire to find life "out there". The fact is nobody really expects to find life on Mars. Or anywhere else in the solar system. Telling people that they have new evidence for life lets them keep their funding, but does not approach the topic honestly.
Is finding life "out there" the ultimate goal of space exploration. No! Finding life would be a big deal but it cannot be the driving goal. This is for the same reason that going to the moon cannot be solely for collecting moon rocks. Answering the question would stop the program right in its tracks..now what?
Finding water on Mars is a big deal because it vastly eases human outposts. Air and rocket fuel can be synthesized more easily, not to mention the need for water itself.