New Hope for Life on Mars

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Posted by michael on Thursday February 20, 2003 @01:24AM from the once-upon-a-time dept.

Peter_Pork writes "New images sent back by NASA's Mars Odyssey have prompted an interesting theory about Martian gullies, as reported today by Washington Post and New Scientist. Odyssey's images show snow accumulations near the gullies, suggesting that the gullies were formed by melted snow. Scientists have developed a new weather model based on 100,000-year cycles in which snow first accumulates in highlands and it is then melted by the action of the sun. Liquid water, protected from evaporation by a superficial layer of snow, would carve the gullies in a few thousand years. This idea gives further hope to the search of life forms in Mars, since liquid water is suitable for sustaining life. Upcoming landings (three in the next two years) should shed more light on the question, but they will most likely not land in the rocky areas where this phenomenon occurs."

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Contamination of Mars et at. with terrestrial life by DocSnyder · 2003-02-20 01:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'm sure they will discover life on Mars in the near future - and discover later that they brought it themselves with their space vehicle. Some microbes are strong enough to survive the space trip and settle on even hostile environments, of which Mars would surely be good enough.
New life on Mars? by uncoveror · 2003-02-20 01:44 · Score: 2, Funny

New life on Mars? Only if the old life on Mars, the Zhti Ti Kofft decide to tolerate newcomers. They have been very unfriendly, historically.

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And... by edwilli · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

What are opinions on why it's so important? What would life on mars, or evidence of past life on Mars tell us?
1. Re:And... by C21 · 2003-02-20 03:08 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  that it is that much easier to establish ourselves on the planet. If life, of any kind can sustain itself, well then we can work off of that as a platform.
  
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2. Re:And... by DoraLives · 2003-02-20 03:50 · Score: 2, Flamebait
  
  For one thing, it would play fits with certain religious fundamentalist creationist dogma, and therefore the religious dogma itself. Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.
  I'm hoping for dayglow green with large fangs and slimy tentacles, but I'll settle for a little bacteria-looking stuff.
  Most anything at all actually, just so long as it takes some of the hot air out of the fundamentalist's (pick your less than fully sane belief system of choice) sails.
  
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3. Re:And... by Timesprout · 2003-02-20 03:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If we find life next door to us then given the vastness of the universe the probability of life, perhaps even sentient life increases (ignoring the fact that its likely we contaminated mars or vise versa). It would be a huge shot in the arm for continuing space explortion.
  
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4. Re:And... by Alsee · 2003-02-20 07:08 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.
  
  That depends which holy handbook you check.
  
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5. Re:And... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2003-02-20 07:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Who the hell knows?
  
  Some knowledge is immediately, obviously useful. Some isn't useful at the time it's acquired, but turns out to be immensely useful later on. Some is never useful ... except in the sense that knowledge is always useful; the ability to gather and pass on knowledge is, as far as we know, one of our defining characteristics as a species.
  
  People want to know if there is or was life on Mars because that would be an amazingly cool piece of knowledge. If you don't understand that ... well, I can't help you.
  
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  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Contamination of Mars et at. with terrestrial l by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Where do you think life on Earth came from?? Don't suppose from the bacteria on a satelite from somebody else??
What would it tell us? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

That life can evolve on planets other than our own?
Re:Contamination of Mars et at. with terrestrial l by Christopher+Thomas · 2003-02-20 10:44 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm sure they will discover life on Mars in the near future - and discover later that they brought it themselves with their space vehicle.

All Mars craft to date have been sterilized to prevent exactly this kind of contamination.