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Is Mars A Green Planet?
linuxator writes: "While scientists were looking at stuff that Pathfinder collected from the red planet, they discovered that they may be looking at chlorophyll. What does it prove if it really is chlorophyll? Well, chlorophyll is that green stuff in plants... So figure it out yourself :) "
Remember when everybody was all excited about cold-fusion but then it turned out that Feldmeyer and Smythe had made some basic methodological and even mathematical errors? Same thing here. Back in the Sixties people speculated that there might be water on Mars based on what they thought were icecaps on the poles (particular the northern pole which is inclined towards Earth during the summer months).
Only it turns out that water on Mars is an impossibility. Combining H2 with O is an entropic process, meaning it requires quite a bit of energy (specifically E = Lf*m where Lf is the heat of fusion of water). Mars has been shown to be too far from the Sun to get enough energy per square meter to build up any significant quantities of H2O. (The little that does get formed quickly combines with the iron in the soil to create the famous rust-red of color of Mars).
Unfortunately, much in the same way that valuable research dollars and talent is being wasted in looking for free energy from desktop fusion, some people cannot let go of the attractive idea that Mars might contain some life-sustaining water.
Scientists at the International Slashdot Observatory have found evidence of repeat postings on /.
The lead researcher said, in presenting his findings, "compare this article with the parent. Notice the stunning similarity? The only rational explanation is that Slashdot is repeating itself."
...somebody left the latch up, and the pathfinder was rolling around in the garden again. That's all. ;p
"Stoker has said they did not find evidence of chlorophyll or any evidence of life on Mars," the spokesperson said. "There's really nothing to report. I think they [the BBC] read more into the abstract than is really there."
Next thing you they're gonna be saying Mars is a Blue Planet!
(someone's got to know what I'm talking about)
I stole this Sig
I think this whole thing has been blown WAY out of proportion. They measured the illumination levels of pixels in 15 wavelengths. Out of all the Pathfinder photos, six pixels were found that matched the illumination levels you would expect for chlorphyll. Four of the six pixels were of the spacecraft body. Surely NASA checked the lander for moss growth before launch so two-thirds of the pixels are false positives right off the bat. Now, if you were going to bet on the origin of the other two (count em - two) pixels, what's the odds breakdown - chance vs. Mars life vs. flecks of paint or something else from the lander that we ALREADY KNOW can trigger false positives?
Well, you can complain about it all you want, but personally if it creates more intresting in study of the solar system and gets the NASA budget bumped up a bit I am all for it.
it turns out that water on Mars is an impossibility. Combining H2 with O is an entropic process, meaning it requires quite a bit of energy (specifically E = Lf*m where Lf is the heat of fusion of water). Mars has been shown to be too far from the Sun to get enough energy per square meter to build up any significant quantities of H2O.
Europa is further from the sun than Mars, and is absolutely covered in water. The bodies in the Oort Cloud are a lot further from the sun than either Mars or Europa, and they contain vast amounts of water.
And who the heck are Feldmeyer and Smythe? Google turns up nothing on these figments of your imagination.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
anyways, please visit lifesux @ quakenet, where geeks kick ass!
All your moderations are belong to me.
Ooo, this irritates me. It irritates me even more that NASA scientists say absurd things and get misquoted all the time, just for hype's sake. But in particular it bugs me that this data can be so ignorantly misinterpreted.
What is chlorophyll, and how would one go about identifying it, and how is that indicative of life?
Chlorophyll is stable pigment molecule, at the heart of which is a coordinated Mg2+ ion, that occurs in the photosystem proteins of most photosynthetic orginisms (on Earth, anyway). It snags photons of particular wavelengths, uses this energy to boost electrons to stable higher energy levels, and passes these energized electrons off to the associated photosystem, where they are ultimately used to drive ATP synthesis and make other good stuff.
Scientists, including the ones huddled over the Pathfinder data, generally identify chlorophyll by its characteristic absorption spectra. So if, in the Mars data, we see something that seems to absorb with a similar fingerprint to chlorophyll, does that mean there's life on Mars!?!? No!
It doesn't mean there isn't, but it isn't even very good supporting evidence.
Just because it looks green doesn't make it chlorophyll. Lots of organic molecules absorbs in that region, and it wouldn't be surprising... Well you see where I'm going. Lemme jump to the more interesting point.
The thing that makes chlorophyll especially good at its job at capturing light energy and converting it to chemical energy isn't its structure: there are oodles of molecules out there that absorb photons and kick an electron into a relatively stable higher energy level. Chlorophyll's claim to fame is its buddy, the photosystem protein.
Photosynthetic organisms have evolved special large, multi-subunit, many-hundred-amino acid proteins to harvest light energy, and most of these just happen to use chlorophyll, of all the available pigments. At some point in distant history, a very successful photosynthetic protein evolved, using the chlorophyll molecule as a catcher's mitt. This protein then became the evolutionary fuel for countless photosynthetic descendants over the next several billion years.
Note, however, that many organisms *do* use photosynthetic pigments other than chlorophyll. If versatile photosystem proteins had evolved for these pigments, then the plant life on Earth would likely be some pretty shade of orange or yellow, instead of green. So the key isn't *chlorophyll*, its *protein.* It is, and I can't stress this enough, *extremely* unlikely that two independent evolutionary pathways would produce light-harvesting proteins that utilize the chlorophyll pigment.
SO, the presence of chlorophyll, much less, of green splotches, does not do much to support the Mars-Life-ers.
Unless we postulate that life evolved on one of the two planets and spread to the other by some sort of meteorite. Which is a whole other rant all to itself.
-!splut
The angel in the oatmeal.
Yes, besides 15 wavelengths just doesn't cut it. You just can't get a precise spectral fingerprint of stuff like clorophyl, not with 15 wavelengths, not under these conditions. So all they have is some erroneous pixel colors. Not very substantial. This isn't news, this is just bad science. Maybe they are desperate to pump more funding out of the Bush administration (which would be a good thing), but this isn't the stuff that's going to get them very far.
If you used the flawed software they used for that color of the universe thing.
No, it's not, it's a very polluting power inefficient planet, and it doesn't have the "green" logo.