Andean Bioexpedition To Highest Lake Mimics Old Mars

An anonymous reader writes "The analogy between the highest lake on Earth and extremes on Mars has NASA Ames and the SETI Institute collaborating to analyze microbial samples. The combination of high ultraviolet radiation, low oxygen, low atmospheric pressure approximates the closest one can come to what Mars was like 3.5 billion years ago when it was wet and warm. The expedition page has a running schedule for the next 3 weeks."

Comments

Regarding contamination

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

Remember one thing before worrying too much about even someone simply jumping into such a body of water... Most human and human-symbiotic cells, like bacteria, etc, need a certain temperature to function. So, if a person jumped into the lake, shed some skin cells, some bacteria, etc, it probably would not have much of an effect, except to provide more food to that which has grown to survive the temperature.

Also, remember that people don't generally like diving into frigid water (regardless of what the polar-bear club people say), and would probably, if they even go in person, isolate themselves from the environment they're entering. I certainly would...

HR is forgotten

[Gamasta]

I think Mars wasn't much warmer 3,5 Giga-years ago. The Herzsprung-Russel Diagram shows that a star in the main sequence (=the sun, for example) gets warmer as it ages until it reaches certain age (which we have not reached). I don't know if the temperature rise is really very significant, but over 3,5 GY it likely makes quite a big difference.

That's also why I like the hypothesis that life evolved on Venus (published couple o' days ago). When it arose (if it arose), the sun was quite colder and Venus wasn't that hot... more similar to earth.