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

3.5 million years ago ?

[billcopc]

Now who was on mars to witness this warmth and wetness ? Sure, we can figure a bit of the past by looking at the present, but 3.5 million years on a planet we still don't know that well yet ? Somebody hold a gun to these "researchers'" heads so the bullshit comes to an end.

Re:3.5 million years ago ?

[Myco]

Sorry, we reserve holding guns to researchers' heads for when they are working on anti-Patriotic projects. :P

Re:3.5 million years ago ?

[Conare]

Agreed. We don't even have a complete picture of our own planet's ecology from 3.5 million years ago. It is worth studying the unique Andean environment anyway, simply because it is there, so I suppose if they have to use BS like this to get the grant, I will excuse it. I just hope that they keep their focus broad. Also, I am a little concerned that they intend to dive into the frigid lake to collect water and sediment samples. Doesn't this introduce danger and contamination to the ecosystem that they are trying to study? They should realize this considering that they admit that Perhaps humans - either the Incas in the distant past, or recreational mountain climbers more recently - introduced life to the lake in the first place. I just hope that they take the kinds of precautions that were taken at Lechiguilla where they also are drawing analogies to the Martian ecosystem.

Re:3.5 million years ago ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Billion with a B. Read the post, then shout.

Re:3.5 million years ago ?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't have time to read it, he wanted to get first post.

Re:3.5 million years ago ?

[f97tosc]

Sure, our knowledge of Mars 3.5 billion years ago is probably pretty sketchy. However, we don't have to know that much to figure out which parts of today's Earth are the best approximation. I think we can be pretty confident that a very high altitude (dry, cold, thinner atmosphere) is better than a very low one (moist, warm, thick atmosphere).

Tor

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...

Electronic Impact

[Dark Coder]

Rudimentary research should also include impacts of electronic equipments (laptops, GPS, flashlight?)

Such impact would be but not limited to gamma ray, humidity, pressure, element exposure.

Re:Electronic Impact

[jericho4.0]

If I got my GPS working on Mars, and then had it knocked out by a gamma-ray, I'd be pissed. :-)

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.

Re:HR is forgotten

[u19925]

You are forgetting the fact, that the Mars was much hotter in the past not because of more sunlight, but because of internal heat stored in it during the planet formation phase. This heat is still coming out.

Re:HR is forgotten

[raduga]

The theories are, that Mars was warmer as a confluence of several things, essentially coming back to the internal heat.

Sources:

• Heat leftover from kinetic energy of small planetismals colliding to form Mars-as-we-know-it
  This radiates slowly over time, by Newton's law
• Heat from radioactive decay of Uranium and other superheavy metals
  rate of decay diminishes according to the half-life of the nuclides

Cascade effects:

• Much hot material in core keeps core material in liquid phase.
  
• Rotating fluid core creates magnetic field, which interacts with solar wind, to keep charged particles from eroding the atmosphere (particularly Water, from dissociation)
• Denser atmosphere supports greenhouse warming; increased atmospheric H2O supports greenhouse strongly

Current thinking is that Mars was enough smaller than Earth that it accumulated less of the critical radioisotopes needed to maintain an active interior for a long time.

This is science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the definition of science:

The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena (emphasis added)

and please explain where the "experimental investigation" came from that proves Mars is billions of years old or how it formed.

From radiometric dating you'll probably reply. So how do we get radiometric dating and prove it?

We can measure rates of radioactive decay, and making assumptions, say that rate has been constant forever and that we can guess what the initial state was. But where is the evidence for those assumptions? Have there been any tests done of volcanic rocks of known eruption dates to calibrate the method? There's no way to prove or disprove constant radioactive decay rates by conducting experiments, absent a time machine.

Speculation about how things were formed belongs in the faeirie tale camp, along with other origin myths. Sure you can exercise faith and say you know how the world and universe got here, but it's not a provable theory. It's a theory based on a set of unprovable assumptions.

Let's give the respect due scientists to those who design and conduct repeatable experiments, not to astrologers, Pons and Fleishmann, nor to origin-theory speculators. And stop posting make-believe just-so stories under "Science". Call it what it is, not science.