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Life on Mars? Why Not?
Guillaume Filion writes "IEEE spectrum has an interesting article about a new probe sent to Mars searching for life: 'Recent missions to Mars have focused on the search for water, past or present, as a surrogate for life itself. But now a British-led team is working to renew the search for life directly, fueled by doubts about the equipment that prompted NASA to declare Mars a dead world some 26 years ago.'"
When a team is "fueled by doubts," I can only be pessimistic and assume a negative outcome. I'd much rather be fueled by something a little more positive.
The anti-salmon
I hope they find life and rush it back to Earth!
Just think of all the death it could bring!
Go now! Make SARS look weak!
...but it died for lack of water.
www.rdex.net
Mars: Dead or Alive?
A miniaturized marvel of engineering aspires to rewrite the textbooks about life on the Red Planet
By Barry E. DiGregorio
Recent missions to Mars have focused on the search for water, past or present, as a surrogate for life itself. But now a British-led team is working to renew the search for life directly, fueled by doubts about the equipment that prompted NASA to declare Mars a dead world some 26 years ago.
If all goes according to plan, a Soyuz-Fregat booster rocket will lift off from Baikonur cosmodrome next month carrying an extremely compact and sophisticated life detection probe that might finally settle one of the most intriguing questions in science: did Mars once harbor microbial life-and is it still there?
The probe is hitching a ride on the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Mars Express orbiter as part of the agency's first home- grown mission to the Red Planet. Named Beagle 2[see photos], in honor of the HMS Beagle in which Charles Darwin made the historic voyage of discovery that led him to the theory of evolution, it was designed by scientists from Britain's University of Leicester and Open University in collaboration with Martin-Baker Aircraft and Matra Marconi Space Systems. Once the orbiter reaches Mars, Beagle 2 will be sent down to dig around on the planet's surface.
But even after it has dropped off its passenger, the Mars Express orbiter will not be idle. It will use a sounding radar called Marsis to search below the surface for water. It will have an ultraviolet and infrared spectrometer called Spicam to study the atmosphere over the course of a Martian year. And it will relay data transmitted from the lander back to Earth.
Did Viking get it wrong?
The first spacecraft with dedicated equipment to look for life on Mars were NASA's twin Viking landers, which touched down on the surface in 1976. Why send another now?
On board both Viking landers were miniature life detection laboratories, and some of the data they returned could indeed be interpreted as evidence for life on Mars. Yet the majority of the project's scientists became convinced that inorganic oxidants in the soil were responsible for the ambiguous data. The next year, NASA publicly announced its conclusion: that Viking had found no life.
Was the U.S. agency jumping to conclusions? In recent years, questions have been raised about the effectiveness of a key instrument-a combined gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer (GCMS)-that swayed most of the Viking scientists into the no-life camp. The GCMS failed to detect any organic molecules on the Martian surface at all, which posed something of a puzzle, as even the barren surface of the moon is host to some organic molecules. To explain the anomaly, scientists postulated a harsh chemical environment that supposedly made the planet self-sterilizing by actively destroying organic matter [see "Why NASA Said No to Life on Mars"].
To find out if this picture is correct, Beagle 2 is designed to search for organic material below, as well as on, the surface of Mars. In addition, it will study the inorganic chemistry and mineralogy of the landing site, says Mark Sims, the Beagle 2 mission manager who is based at Leicester University.
Without question, the Beagle 2 lander manifests an enormous leap of scientific engineering. It costs only US $40 million versus Viking's $1 billion, and weighs in at a mere 60 kg at launch, as opposed to 661 kg for each fully fueled Viking lander. In its set of scientific instruments are the first ever optical microscope to fly to Mars, as well as a gas analysis package (GAP) that will directly challenge or confirm the results of Viking's gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GCMS).
Beagle 2's destination on Mars is a region known as Isidis Planitia [see map]. This relatively flat basin may have been formed by sedimentary deposits and was chosen not just for the chances of finding life there but with a view to the safety of the lander as well.
There may be things that reproduce and show signs of life on Mars, but we'll spend a lot of time trying to cram the stuff on Mars into the categories we have on Earth.
Hint: Chances are, no matter what we do, we're never gonna see a green spectral line or test for clorophyll.
Instead, we need to examine soil for the most basic types of life we know of... creatures or cells similar to viruses, bacteria, and amoeba.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Oh, what's that? The probe sanitizer was on leave before packaging and launch? Ah, well, maybe it'll grow up to be like it's parents...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Why do we assume that life on other worlds would have the same requirements as life on earth?
We were either created for this world or evolved into what we are by it. Doesn't it make sense that life on other worlds would be fit for theirs in the same way?
Why is water so damn important? Couldn't life be based upon a different liquid than water? A different solid than carbon?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Or at least not as we know it. Here on earth, life is so all encompassing that there isn't a place we have gone that we haven't found evidence of life. It doesn't matter whether you go to the deepest ocean, or the hottest volcano, there are either living things, or obviously formerly living things. So either life on mars has not reached any sort of detectable level, or died out long ago.
OTOH, personally I believe that life was created on earth and not elsewhere, but I believe that it is our responsibility to explore to build and to discover.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
If life had existed in the presumable oceans on Mars back in the day, then it is possible that there is life in the water vapor in the atmosphere (just as there is life in our atmosphere). Of course, I'm not sure that there is much (any?) water in the atmosphere on Mars. Furthermore, Mars didn't overheat, and there is not as much water in the polar ice caps as we had expected. To me this indicated that most of the water must have gone down below the surface; it could have easily brought microbial life down with it, as Earth has much microbial life beneath the earth.
...were known to be flawed, before the rockets were ever launched. Many of the tests that would have been conclusive (such as those produced by Dr Carl Sagan) were abandoned, due to budget constraints, political concerns (finding life would have made it much harder for Congress to keep slashing NASA's budget) and the greater need to impress the mass media than the scientific community.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm really hoping that they land near that "face" on Mars that the Weekly World News always shows. ;-)
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
First off, I had heard about some of the semi-positive results of some of the Nasa experiments that were ignored, don't have a reference.
But I remember a letter sent my some professional gadfly comic...I want to say Joe Bob Briggs but I don't think that's it...who wrote to NASA saying something along the lines of "So you burnt up this soil sample to check for signs of life on Mars? That could only prove that there WAS life on Mars...you just killed it!"
(Sorry for the lack of references, the book I got that from is at home)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
-Laz
First off, the article is worth the read. They are going to do a pile of cool things, and with the PAW robotic arm, they'll be very adaptive based on what they discover. Tres' cool.
But I must object to the following:
Clearly, if the British lander does find life on Mars, a scientific symposium will have to be convened to sort out who may have discovered it first: NASA or ESA.
Must we? Could we for once view science as the continuous stretch of micro-advances that it really is? Whether it's flight, or the TV, or beer the credit for doing it "first" seems to overwelm the real credit that I will lavish on the Brits at the end of the mission, and that is: the credit for doing it well.
Honestly, NASA will probably never learn that - it's impossible to learn such a negative. For instance, it's impossible to 'learn' that there is no God - you cannot scientifically disprove God's existence.
On that same token, it's impossible for NASA to 'learn' that there is no life outside of Earth until it has visited all of the other planets throughout the Universe.
So, no, NASA will never learn that there is no life outside our planet - but in their quest, they will probably learn many other things (perhaps even useful ones).
Umm, I believe we have already proven that life exists in the void of space. IIRC, wasn't MIR 'infected' (yes, it was a bad case, from what I heard) with a type of mold that wasn't terrestrial to our planet?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Do we always have to scream "FIRST!"?
Only if it's followed by "POST!"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
WHY NOT?!!!!
Because it would shake our religious and moral philosphies to their very core! Because, everything we believe in would be proven wrong!! What's wrong with you? Lord, man, I'm shaking just thinking about it.
Oh, I thought you said wifes in bars.
never mind
Best Windows Freeware
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
I read a book by Stuart Kauffman (hope I spelt that right). He said he was asked by NASA to help design probes to send to Mars to look for life. He told them not to bother, and his reasoning was:
All life takes in energy and matter from the environment, extracts energy, and produces waste. This process causes chemical imbalences in the atmosphere. Therefore to test for the presence of life, you only need to determine whether the atmosphere is in chemical equilibrium. Mars' atmosphere is, and has been for many millions of years.
Apparently this line of reasoning upset NASA, because they wanted to go to Mars, so they made their probes without his help, and when they arrived on Mars, found no traces of current life.
If they send more probes, they could very well find evidence of past life, but there is nothing going on there at the moment.
However I remember reading a story a while ago on Slashdot about how the atmosphere of Venus is operating far from chemical equilibrium, and that there may be some primitive life in the 400 degree acid in the atmosphere. Maybe someone should pay more attention to Venus...
What would lead you to that belief? All life needs to exist is the right materials, many of them quite plentiful in the universe; the right conditions, which Mars might not have had, but which many other places in the universe probably did; and enough time to get things done, again, Mars might not have provided.
As it is we have only looked at nine planets out of the possible trillions in the universe. How can we say that life has only existed here? Sure, we can not say for certain that life has or does exist elsewhere, but that's more a lack of evidence than proof.
And just looking at the pervasive nature of life, the fact that it will live anywhere it can makes me believe that it exists elsewhere if conditions allow.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
- Water is highly polar, and therefore has the ability to dissolve ions. Without ions, complex chemistry could not take place.
- Water is liquid at a "reasonable" temperature, meaning water in liquid form is not hot enough to destroy most complex molecules.
- The density of ice is slightly less than that of water, so ice floats on top of water. This is vital, because it allows bodies of water to form a frozen cover which protects against further freezing. This is not common among substances.
- Water blocks ultraviolet light, which would otherwise destroy fragile molecules and organisms.
- Water has a very high specific heat, making it ideal for carrying out chemical reactions -- exothermic reactions can dump their heat into the water, and endothermic reactions can draw their heat from the water. This allows energetic reactions to occur without raising the temperature too high.
Basically, water is a very unusual substance with many favorable properties, and it's likely that life will take advantage of water, if it is present.That's not to say that life cannot exist without water, but it certainly makes life much more plausible.
As for non-carbon-based lifeforms, people have been pondering that for decades. Carbon is interesting because it can bond with itself pretty much ad infinitum, forming complicated structures. It also combines readily with oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, the halogens, and a host of other elements. Complex life based on some non-carbon element would have to have the ability to form long chains of atoms, branching structures, and structured which curl up into specific shapes (i.e. proteins and enzymes). A carbon-silicon combo might work.
Friends, I have never been able to figure out why so many allegedly educated Americans have had the wool so completely pulled over their eyes when it comes to things such as "extraterrestrial planets" such as Mars. Other than the ridiculously amateurish "photographs" of Mars that leftist scientists have fabricated using their citrus-colored iMacs, there is no -- repeat, no evidence that such a planet actually exists.
I am an astronomer myself, and I can tell you from personal experience that there are lots of different stars in the sky. There are stars of many different sizes; some stars are very large. some stars are very small, and there are many in between. And these stars are of many different colors; some of them are yellow, some of them are blue, some of them are green, and yes, some of them are red. So tell me: When leftists look through their telescopes and see what is plainly a large red star, what possible motivation do they have to claim that it's a "planet?" Furthermore, why would they go so far as to claim that such planet harbors, or once harbored, life?
First and foremost, they make this claim because it is difficult to disprove. "There was once life on Mars!" they say, and the general public swoons over this "important finding" because they are in no position to dispute it. Then, in a couple of years, they'll come out and say something like: "Our analysis of this meteor leads us to believe that the beings on Mars had an evolved civilization that included taxpayer-funded education and universal health care, liberal sex education standards, and widespread access to condoms." Once again, the gullible public will believe them. The leftists will claim that the "enlightened" Martians had everything from advanced genetic cloning programs to a One World Government. And then they'll ask the question: "Why don't we have these things here in America?"
I'll tell you why we don't have these things in America: because they don't work. There is no Mars. And if there is no Mars, then there can be no Martians. And if the Martians don't exist, then neither do any of their socialist government programs. Hint to the liberals: The next time you want to try to bamboozle the moral community, you'd better come up with evidence that's more concrete than a handful of red-tinted pictures of the Arizona desert and a couple of still shots from James Cameron's latest turkey of a "space sci-fi epic." I'm sorry to say that we're not quite as stupid as your strategy requires us to be.
Ray Bradbury, CS Lewis, and Orson Welles were found hibernating under the polar ice cap.
All three apparently retreated off to the ice caps to hibernate after being bitterly disappointed at what they found on Mars; Welles didn't find anything to drink, Lewis didn't find God, and Bradbury was devastated over the lack of people with shiny coins for eyes.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
I mean, if rocks from Mars made it to the earth, then for sure some rocks made the trip the other way. Bacteria would probably survive something like that. They wouldn't necesarily grow, but still there would be life.
You do realize that they aren't talking about little green men right? They are talking about microscopic organisims, and to the best of our scientific knowledge there's alot of variation possible, but it's all largly the same. In fact if it's as "different" as you are suggesting it will probably be different enough that neither NASA's or the ESA's probes would ahve the equipment to detect it. They are depending on "life" there haveing the same building block as "life" here. :)
How about a BBC article
The fungi that did the damage, Novikova said, included members of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Cladesporium - all very common on Earth.
Davak
If we find evidence of past life on Mars it will mean that in one out of two known cases life on a planet has gone (pretty much, at least) extinct. I would hope that the Gaia hypothesis is right, and that a living planet's biosphere really is self-regulating and not succeptable to such catastophic failure.
It certainly woulnd't the end of the Gaia Hypothesis-it might be that loss of atmosphere on a low G world is one of the few things life can't prevent-but it would certainly be a point against it.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
Life on Mars? Why Not?
Well what if there is life on Mars from Earth? Lets suppose the probes sent to Mars had living cells on them when leaving this planet. They would almost have to had contained living cells since Earth is full of tiny single cell organisms; some of which do not use oxygen. Would it be possible for us to have caused contamination of Mars and there actually be living cells on Mars from ~30 years ago?
The NASA findings with the Viking missions were that there was no evidence for life on Mars. That doesn't mean that there wasn't any life, it just means they had no evidence for any. Big difference. NASA never stated unequivocally, "There is no life on Mars."
James Lovelock, one of the true ninja hacker lords, has suggested that of all planets in the solar system, only Earth looks like it harbors life, because only it has an atmosphere that is out of chemical equilibrium.
Lovelock, a atmospheric chemist and inventor who made his fortune on the ion-capture gas chromatography detector, is the author of the so-called Gaia Hypothesis. Romantic name aside, it's the idea that the presence of life alters a planet's environment to be more favorable to life. (The idea and name have been appropriated by eco-mystics who take it to mean that there actually is some sort of earth deity, but that's emphatically not what Lovelock is saying.)
On our planet, many atmospheric gases are grossly out of equilibrium. For instance, although the atmosphere is about one-fifth oxygen, there are detectable traces of methane, mostly from termites and "the farts of ruminants". If life were not continually renewing the methane, it would combine with the oxygen, and disappear in a few hours.
Of course, the presence of oxygen itself is an anomaly. It is so reactive that if it were not renewed by photosynthesis, it would bind with the copious free carbon lying about.
Lovelock gives many other examples in his excellent book, Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth. (He also mentions that the presence of fluorocarbons, like Freon, in the atmosphere is a clear sign, not just of life, but of intelligent life. Since you can determine atmospheric composition by spectrometry through a telescope, this gives a way to detect civilization if only you can image a planet hosting it.)
There's a clue in the simple appearance of the planets from space: compare the complex and constantly-changing appearance of the Earth's patchy clouds, liquid-water ocean, and of course its wildly varying landmasses (including snowcaps, yellow deserts, chlorphyll-green jungles, and seasonal temperate forests and grasslands), with the dead, relatively static appearance of any other planet in the system. Our nervous systems have life-detection circuits built in; honestly now, do you see any when you look at Mars?
The key is that Earth is alone in all the solar system in having a disequilibrium chemistry. This doesn't mean that there wasn't life elsewhere at one time; it may not even mean that there aren't small, isolated outposts that support some life, but not enough to control the entire planet. Certainly, life on Earth had to start that way.
Nevertheless, although there may indeed have been a time, early in its history, when life florished on Mars, it seems dead now.
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
A couple things against Lovelock's ideas. Didn't the Earth have a reducing atmosphere for billions of years until "blue-green algae" (cyanobacteria) got a toehold? Don't know about Antartica, but the extremophile organisms at thermal ocean vents and in hot springs don't seem to be regressed evolution from more normal bacteria but seem to be a more primitive, ancient form of life -- the hot springs are perhaps closer to the early Earth and may have been where life started. Was life always in control of its environment from its most primitive stages, or did that kick in with the oxygen revolution?
Terra Forming is Star Drek sci-fi. Obviously there will be no rapidly evolving "life" as we understand it on the present Mars.
If there are single celled organisms or even clustering goo, it will prove to be of little scientific interest. Even the genetics of these oganisms will be useless: UNLESS we find that these organisms contain code that closely resembles similar organisms on Earth!
Then the implications are that just maybe we are the Martians.
Mars exploration is crucial to our understanding of natural science. The benefit is employement for large numbers of brilliant, dedicated and hard working humans in fields other than defence!
JFK was right and not a bleading heart liberal.
To wean us of defence we need great scientific and engineering projects that span boarders.
Now that communism is creaking and China is slowly seeing the light, what is wrong with international space exploration. I believe common goals for humankind are a necessity if we are to survive. Even if these goals prove to be wrong they are still better than rabid scientific militarism.
Lets smoke the pipe of peace for real!
The alternative is big clouds of radioactive smoke.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!