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NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"
NASA is currently holding a press conference (carried live on NASA TV) where they are discussing findings from the Mars rovers. They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water. They cite the tiny spherules, odd holes in the rocks, sulfur in the spectrometric analyses, and evidence of an iron sulfate hydrate (a hydrate is a chemical compound which includes water molecules in the crystal lattice). Update: 03/02 19:45 GMT by M : CNN has a story, or see the NASA press release.
If these rocks are sedimentary, then, as Squyres said, that has to be our main target for a sample return mission. Because sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils.
... for CowboyNeil saving money on his auto insurance...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I wanted my free shrimp from Long John Silvers! Damn! Info Here
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
That there once has been water on Mars, considering that a lot of comets contains water.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I love how this story was posted during the opening remarks of the press conference before they could go into much detail.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Some creative company wants to find, and market this 'untouched natural' water?
The Mothership
So Mars haven't taken a bath or shower in ages. No wonder they're finding crusty salt brine residue.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"... the lense on the camera got really fogged up. That's when we really got suspicious."
Its not too late to watch: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/landing.cfm
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but where does the water go? Vapour in the atmosphere? Did the hydrogen and oxygen break apart somehow? Chemical reactions with something else? Did it just float off into space? Those all seem unlikely to me, but then, what do I know?
can be found here
-caf
And then there are fossils. Which means the next NASA mission will be funded by Halliburton after all.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
To equip 2 Rovers with the best water detecting equipment known to man and how do you find water?
You get mud stuck to the tyres!
But in all seriosness, Good on NASA.
But it certainly makes a more life seeking mission like beagle 2 all the more important.
The next find I expect is simple life living on Mars.
Water != life
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I don't recall the Bible saying that there was no life anywhere but Earth. I've always believed it was possible that simple life could exist elsewhere. Intelligent life would throw religion a curve, though... I haven't thought as much about that.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Well here goes my karma...
...because no religion is dependent upon the earth being the only planet with life on it?
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I have discovered a truly marvelous
As far as Christianity is concerned, where in the Bible does it say life only exists / was created on earth?
Well, I think you were forgetting about the whole alien overtone. Also, the water isn't there anymore. They are still looking for the big alien device to bring it all back.
Also, I'm voting for Arnold when he runs for King of Mars. I'd like him to fix the drought.
...don't question it!!!
Well, the news may not have been announced by feb 29, but the evidence may have been found by feb 29.
Liberty.
Even though I am an atheist, I must disagree with what you say. The revelation only refutes a portion of the Judeo-Christian(-Muslim?) tradition of the creationism story (which could easily and eventually be modified and bent to the new evidence). But in terms of philosphies, especially in regards to how we treat one another and our surroundings, abundant life in the universe is a non-issue. Other religions like Buddhism aren't touched by the news either.
My $0.02...
[ insert your own witty .sig here ]
This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.
Finding God in a Dog
and at the end of the conference, they'll pretend that it's over and say:
and one more thing... we found life on Mars!
Interesting...That means we could possibly come back with a another rover that not only could look for life, but could possibly "repair/rejuvinate" the current rover by 'sweeping" the dust off of the solar panels? I would imagine just leaving the rover would be interesting to engineers and scientists to see what happens to a man made object that sits out in the open for extended periods of time....good information if you want to build stuff on Mars.
Anybody out there like to comment? Is it a possibility? Could we come back with another rover and get Opportunity working again after it runs out of juice?
Also, Methionine is an essential amino acid that is not synthesized by the body and must be obtained from food. It is one of the "sulphur-containing" amino acids and is important in many body functions.
It is likely that sulphur, coupled with the different ferrous hydrides can produce viable conditions for life.
The common knowledge was that the ice caps are carbon dioxide ice - dry ice.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The conference is going on now and theres new news: Not only was there a large amount of water, there's good evidence that it was salty.
No link in the article. Here is the press release: NASA Press Release
Actually that is not entirely true...
St. Augustine, back in the day, posited that if there are other planets with life on them, Jesus would have had to visit them all in order to "save" them.
If Jesus did in fact do this, it would remove the uniqueness of Jesus. Since the bible states that Jesus' is unique, this could not have happened.
Thus he surmised that there is no life on other planets.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Why would most religions care?
Christians (at least _informed_ Christians, yes there are some) in particular, would not be disturbed to find that God had created life in more than one place. Why shouldn't He? It's not like the Bible says somewhere in it "Oh, and by the way... this planet is the only one with life on it."
C.S. Lewis discussed the subject fairly completely in an essay decades ago. In case you don't know, he was a famous and very influential Christian author, as well as writing some science fiction and fantasy. Besides writing a non-fiction essay about it, you could view his "Space Trilogy" fiction as an examination of the life-on-other-planets issue with a Christian background.
The more interesting question (also discussed by C.S. Lewis and many others) is how different religions would react to the discovery of _intelligent_ life somewhere else in the universe.
Microbes on Mars... scientifically, that's amazing. From a religious point of view... well, it's "just" another example of a Creator God at work.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Liquid water on Mars required the atmospheric pressures to be higher than they are right now. There was no proof, only speculation, that this was the case. Now there's something closer to proof.
Gentoo Sucks
Of course, I understand your criticism, which is, I think, directed mostly at dogmatic adherence to ancient traditions without questioning them. However, religion will survive, I am sure. Religion and science are not mutually exclusive. Science is concerned with one aspect of our reality - the quantifiable, and predictable. Religion is concerned with all those things that you cannot quantify - love, anger, thought, the experience of death, wonder, awe, consciousness. They are both parts of our reality, and neither can be used to explain everything.
They mentioned that they are going to go check the nearby rock outcropping named "Big Bend" and do basically the same that they did on this rock, in order to see if these rocks were laid down there. I think they're checking exactly that, i.e. whether or not this whole area is laid down with rocks of the same origin (soaked in water), or if they were thrown here by a collision or something.
They said that they weren't sure if the rocks were sedimentary or not. From the sounds of it they aren't, but they did happen to be "soaked in water" or whatever the quote was, allowing the concretions to form in spaces in already existing rock. They haven't found any evidence of layering yet, as far as I know, which would mean sedimentary.
Scientists have concluded the part of Mars that NASA's Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past.
Evidence the rover found in a rock outcrop led scientists to the conclusion. Clues from the rocks' composition, such as the presence of sulfates, and the rocks' physical appearance, such as niches where crystals grew, helped make the case for a watery history.
"Liquid water once flowed through these rocks. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "We've been able to read the tell-tale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion."
Dr. James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said, "NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check whether at least one part of Mars ever had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life. Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Yes."
Opportunity has more work ahead. It will try to determine whether, besides being exposed to water after they formed, the rocks may have originally been laid down by minerals precipitating out of solution at the bottom of a salty lake or sea.
The first views Opportunity sent of its landing site in Mars' Meridiani Planum region five weeks ago delighted researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., because of the good fortune to have the spacecraft arrive next to an exposed slice of bedrock on the inner slope of a small crater.
The robotic field geologist has spent most of the past three weeks surveying the whole outcrop, and then turning back for close-up inspection of selected portions. The rover found a very high concentration of sulfur in the outcrop with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies chemical elements in a sample.
"The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts," said Dr. Benton Clark of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. "Elements that can form chloride or even bromide salts have also been detected."
At the same location, the rover's Mossbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing minerals, detected a hydrated iron sulfate mineral called jarosite. Germany provided both the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the Mossbauer spectrometer. Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer has also provided evidence for sulfates.
On Earth, rocks with as much salt as this Mars rock either have formed in water or, after formation, have been highly altered by long exposures to water. Jarosite may point to the rock's wet history having been in an acidic lake or an acidic hot springs environment.
The water evidence from the rocks' physical appearance comes in at least three categories, said Dr. John Grotzinger, sedimentary geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: indentations called "vugs," spherules and crossbedding.
Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager reveal the target rock, dubbed "El Capitan," is thoroughly pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long and one-fourth or less that wide, with apparently random orientations. This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water. When the crystals later disappear, either by erosion or by dissolving in less-salty water, the voids left behind are called vugs, and in this case they conform to the geometry of possible former evaporite minerals.
Round particles the size of BBs are embedded in the outcrop. From shape alone, these spherules might be formed from volcanic eruptions, from lofting of molten droplets by a meteor impact, or from accumulation of minerals coming out of solution inside a porous, water-soaked rock. Opportunity's observations that the sp
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
Do you honestly expect every single thing God created to be written down?
And Sirius begat M-551, and M-551 begat Polaris, and....
Someone's going to say "Life elsewhere would be pretty important."
Sure, to you. Probably not so interesting to most people living 4000+ years ago, who would have been quite shocked to discover that there was more than one continent, or that the world was round.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Before they even got to the good bits about the Ewoks...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oooh... so maybe humans were originally on Mars... and they screwed up their planet with pollution, overuse of resources, etc., but managed to transport a few people to Earth to start over...
And maybe we'll look to terraform Mars and move there once we've hosed this planet too. The cycle continues...
Heh... yeah. Anyway, back to work now.
Archeabacteria are closely related to the oldest life on earth. Many are thermophilic, acid tolerant, anaerobic, sulphur-loving microbes. Just the sort that would be happy in the acidic hot springs hypothesized on ancient Mars. And they go dormant when the conditions are not just right so the ride to Earth on some rock fragments splashed out by a meteor impact would have been in suspended animation. People who can't grasp the Out of Africa concept are really gonna have trouble with Out of Mars.
Excellent point. I think my fundamentalist brethren tend to forget that when God came to Moses, he wasn't dealing with a Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking -- or even a Galileo. He was dealing with a guy whose claim to fame was running away from a life of luxury to tend sheep. At the best, Moses' idea of the universe might have dealt with Egyptian gods, and a universe whose origin was a direct result of some rather kinky onanism.
God came to Moses in a way Moses could understand, in a way that his fellow shepherds and stonemasons could understand.
Imagine Moses up on the mountain, getting the first four books of what we now call the Old Testament from the Almighty:A bit cheeky, but the point is: God comes to us in a way we can understand. That's different for an illiterate goat breeder in 2000 BC than it is for a nuclear physicist in 2000 AD. Whether you choose to believe doesn't have as much to do with how God appears as it does with your own faith.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Crap. Fine print says...
If only they could have booked the conference room for the press conference 2 days ago instead of using it to hold Jerry's retirement party.'cause I *really* wanted to have that free jumbo shrimp.
dammit.
The downside being, if there was any chance of saving hubble before, it's gone now. I heard the story on NPR a few days ago... something like $200 million in parts are built and ready to go, just waiting on a shuttle mission that would extend hubble's lifespan beyond 2006. "safety concerns" were cited as the cause, but reduced budgeting due to mars' popularity is a far more likely reason. (listen to the audio stream of the program)
*sigh* The bell tolls for yet another victim of society's apathy.
Considering the difficulty evolution has in explaining the origins of life, finding life on Mars would not boost evolution as much you'd like to think.
Even Dawkins admits that selection can't work until the right proteins are in place and can replicate. In his book the Blind Watchmaker, he basically admits that abiognesis is required involving some VERY unlikely chemical combinations, before evolution can get started and then, in my opinion, offers a huge copout by basically saying: Well, with so many planets in the universe, the odds of it happening at least once may not be so improbable.
The odds of it happening twice in the same solar system strain credibility.
I suspect the explanation will be that life on Earth actually started on Mars.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Add some mass to the planet for added gravtiy, massive heat increase to melt the ice caps and creat liquid water...
Make it pay per view to keep it profitable!
We can call it a Weapon of Mass Creation!
WE CAN'T LOSE!
Frankly I'm disappointed. Until now they roam around and claim that the findings are not wholly conclusive:
"The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer. So scientists plan to maneuver Opportunity closer to the features for a better look. "We have tantalizing clues, and we're planning to evaluate this possibility in the near future," Grotzinger said.
Besides hydrated minerals were already hinted by Spirit. One of the very first press releases pointed to that fact. Besides this is not the only weird thing between Opportunity and Spirit outputs. If one compares the first wave from results from Spirit with Opportunity's then it seems that the second robot is clearly giving very thiny results. Until now I could not see broadscale spectral and infrared analysis like the ones Spirit did. Maybe I'm missing something but frankly it seems that data feed from Meridiani goes a long way from it could.
PS: To those who are discussing theologies... Frankly don't get you people. Try to find a super SF author by the name of Nicolau Cusanus and his bestseller "De docta ignorantia". He already discussed a lot of what you keep rumbling till now...
The results they are finding imply water was in a liquid state for a significant amount of time. It was long enough for hydrated minerals to form and salt lake signatures (sulfur and bromine deposits) to form, similar to what forms in dry salt lakes.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
they had found some Spice.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."
Why they are all talking about the water of the past and not about the "mud" which is more exciting news about the "current" water. Also why nobody asking the question regarding this?
Mars has a very weak magnetic field since we speculate that its core has mostly cooled. This means that the planet is poorly protected from harsh solar and cosmic radiation, which is strong enough to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen. These atoms would indeed just float off into space, since the gravatational pull of the planet is not strong enough to retain such light atoms.
That's why I'm not holding out much hope for terraforming Mars. But that doesn't mean we can't still live on it, just in protected chambers on the surface.
You didn't even read my comment. Evolutionary theory as it currently stands requires some form of abiogenesis to get started. It would NOT have good explanatory power for the life getting STARTED.
If you do the math on the chances of the right precursor molecules spontaneously forming without selection pressures, the odds are ridiculously low. I'd have to look it up, but it's on the order of 10^26 against, and that's with ridiculously optimistic concentrations of the right chemicals in the soup. In that time frame, a trillion years is nothing, thus Dawkins' comments.
To be fair, Dawkins does try to get around the limitation by assuming that the precursor molecues got a kick start from a non-organic matrix that could undergo selection (clays), but he fails to explain how the molecules would be embedded in the right amounts in the clay (a random process). A critical analysis shows the argument to be basically flawed, and we're back to the abiogenesis requirement again. Even Dawkins' doesn't give the clay idea much more than a "just-so" story treatment.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Actually, bacteria do in fact leave fossil records
I don't know much (actually, anything) regarding purported non-carbon "life," but regular ol' bacteria can leave fossils, believe it or not.
The NASA scientist held up a sample of Jarosite. For the curious, here's a definition. Note -- the page referenced has several very cool links for more information.
THE MINERAL JAROSITE
Chemistry: KFe3(SO4)2(OH)6, Potassium Iron Sulfate Hydroxide.
Class: Sulfates
Group: Alunite
Uses: Only as mineral specimens.
Specimens
Jarosite is not a common mineral. It is closely related to the mineral natrojarosite. Jarosite is isostructural with natrojarosite which means that they have the same crystal structure but different chemistries. In this case, jarosite contains potassium instead of natrojarosite's sodium (natro is derived from the Latin for sodium, natrium, from where sodium gets its symbol, Na). The two minerals are difficult to distinguish without a chemical test.
Both minerals are isostructural with alunite with a formula of KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6, who lends its name to the Alunite Group of which all three minerals belong.
The symmetry of jarosite is the same as the members of the Tourmaline Group. Crystals of jarosite however do not form prismatic crystals like those of the typical tourmaline mineral. Jarosite's crystals are more flattened and resemble nearly cubic rhombohedrons. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Color is an amber yellow or brown.
Luster is vitreous to resinous.
Transparency: Crystals are transparent to translucent.
Crystal System is trigonal; 3 m
Crystal Habits include tabular to flattened rhombohedral looking crystals. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids. Crystals are somewhat scarce and small, more commonly as earthy masses, films or crusts, botryoidal and granular.
Cleavage is good in one direction but only seen in the larger crystals.
Fracture is uneven.
Hardness is 2.5 - 3.5.
Specific Gravity is approximately 2.9 - 3.3 (average to slightly heavy for translucent minerals, but hard to obtain from crusts)
Streak is a pale yellow.
Associated Minerals are barite, turquoise, galena, goethite, limonite, hematite and other iron minerals.
Notable Occurrences include Jaroso ravine, Sierra Almagrera, Spain and Iron Arrow Mine, Colorado; Maricopa Co., Arizona; Idaho and California, USA.
Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, associations, color and hardness.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
My kids are growing up in a conservative Christian household and I am highly encouraging them to choose what they want and what they're good at for a career. I hope that they want to study science, but will support them every step of the way regardless of their decision.
I know that doesn't help you any, but I thought you should know that Christianity and a love of science are not mutually exclusive. Any belief system (or lack thereof) will have a few bonehead adherents, but that doesn't mean that's the norm, or even particularly common.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Probably? Life on Mars would be the biggest scientific discovery in all the human lifetimes lived thus far, I would say.
I mean, maybe Copernicus... no... or Galileo... no... Darwin... maybe, but I'd really say that each of those would be mere stepping stones on the way towards the discovery of exobiology. Personally, I'd give my right leg to live in a time when extraterrestrial life is discovered. Maybe others don't feel that strongly, but it would be history-changing.
Good point about this discovery, though. This is significant, but I agree, maybe more on the level of the peak of an individual's career, and a milestone that people will point to later. But not quite lifetime status. :)
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
There are international guidelines on the amount of biological hitchhikers that are allowed on the probes that are sent to other planets. Presumably, Spirit and Opportunity were de-contaminated to these standards (as was Pathfinder/Sojourner). Incidentally, Viking landers were both put in ovens a sterilized before launch, but these days the standard has been to only sterilize certain parts like this and wipe-down disinfect others, which is probably better on the electronics in any event.
Bush Lies On the Record.
The common knowledge was that the ice caps are carbon dioxide ice - dry ice.
This is 5, Informative in a sneaky small print kinda way. Yes, common knowledge was that the caps are carbon dioxide.
Today common knowledge is that the ice caps are a mix of CO_2 and water. In the last couple years, there has been mounting evidence that it is actually mostly water ice, with some CO2.
Google mars polar caps if you don't beleive me.
Posted anonymously 'cause most moderators today wouldn't notice anyways.
I'm sorry, what the hell does finding water on Mars have to do with religious belief? I don't see anyone of any religious faith claiming that there was no water on Mars because their religion says so.
Celebrate the finer things in life
One signature may be small magnetite crystals. One the controversies with the "fossils" in the martian meteorite was how to be sure they were really fossils. The argument pretty much devolved into two lines of reasoning when it was reduced to the simplest form. The objects pro) looked like fossils, but con) they were far, far smaller than expected from comparable earthly forms, but pro) contained magnetite (hematite) in a form that ONLY occurs in lifeforms on earth, but con) they came from Mars, which totals up to "no one has the vote." Interestingly, hematite was one of the attractions of the Opportunity landing site.
The ISS and Mars have the forest. Hubble needs a tree.
The cost so far for this most recent mars mission is over $800 million. Budgeting through further missions is set to exceed $15 billion. The ISS outdoes even this, with an expected cost of near $30 billion to finish the station, and estimated operating costs of $1.5 billion a year once completed.
Hubble needs about $100 million for a single shuttle launch. $200 million in equipment has already been constructed and is only waiting in a warehouse for a mission.
I don't deny the importance of the ISS and Mars missions. All these projects have significant importance for science, technology, and society as a whole. Hubble is about far more than "getting to see a black hole". We have made dramatic advances in astrophysics with the help of the telescope. We have gained immense insight into the depths of our universe, to an extent that won't be possible again for a very long time.
Taking relative cost of the three projects into account, Hubble is by leaps and bounds the most effective. Do the math. Fixing the hubble will only take 0.2% of the cost of the ISS and Mars missions. Given the advances in science and technology we have extracted from Hubble, the return on this small investment is tremendous.
That's why I sigh.
What was that Rabbit thing. opportunity photographed on Mars and why did Nasa destroy it ??
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I am really tired of people "looking for life on (insert planet/moon name here)." If it can't jump up and say "Howdy!", prance around in a skipmy outfit like that Vulcan chick from Enterprise, or shoot a ray-gun with a tentacled appendage, who cares! Evolution is king, baby: let's not coddle those weak little Martian organisms. If they can't handle the competetion with some strapping Earth-born organisms...fuck em!
Think about how long it takes to terraform a planet. Shouldn't we have started by now? It's past time to seed some plants to eat the carbon dioxide, release some oxygen and let them begin digging the water out of the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.
Speaking of plants, I wonder if tossing cactus/sensamilla seeds out of a baloon bourne lander would be a good way of finding water. Those plants are pretty hardy, and anywhere the plants start to grow would potentially have water sources near the surface. I bet I could devise some wicked experiments to carry out on Mars with plants that were modified genetically to withstand the harsher conditions.
If only the scientific community would grow some gonads we would have a great decade of science and experimentiton ahead of us.
What is the matter officer? I have obeyed all of your silly Earth laws!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Here at JPL, it is an interesting mixed feeling the scientists are having.
On one hand, we've acomplished almost all of the stated goals of the mission. I saw the Long Term Planning briefing and the chart had item after item checked off... only the endurance section was left unfinished.
Think about it. We landed not one but two fully functional rovers on mars, with the most comprehensive science package ever sent to another world. We have spectrometers of unmatched precision, we have the ability to examine betneath the surface of rocks and outcrops, and we've taken the most detailed pictures of mars ever recorded.
We've explored rocks and craters and soils, and that was just the first few sols! All of this is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering the track record. The engineering part alone is enough to consider the mission a success.
But since last week it's been clear to us here that we've found what we were looking for: evidence that clinches the case that Mars was once wet. That's when I say, "Mission Accomplished". That's more than many hoped to find, though we sent the mission as it is primarly because we expected this was *possible* if even somewhat unlikely.
But we're not done yet. In fact if anything we have more questions to answer now. Mars has never failed to throw curve balls at us. There's all kinds of minerology that we're not sure about. We don't even know yet if this was just ground water, or actually lakes or oceans. But as long as these rovers still have life in them we'll continue to advance our scientific understanding of the planet.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the specifics of the President's plan, it's clear that public support for the program is very high now, considering that we have learned from our mistakes and have accomplished more than we could have hoped. I'm very optimistic that future missions will unravel many of the new mysteries we have discovered. It is truely, as they said on the briefing, a great time to be alive. The field of astrobiology is finally beginning to be taken seriously by the scientific community and even the public at large. We have seen that Faster, Better, Cheaper *can* work - as long as we don't try to bite off more than we can chew.
I don't know when we'll actually have humans on Mars, but I'm hopeful that there's a real chance that in my lifetime (and maybe even my parents') we will find evidence of previous life on Mars. It'd be nice to know we're not quite alone.
My congradulations to the science team for an incredible discovery, and I extend that to the taxpayers that graciously fund us, and to our supporters in all nations of this earth. We could not have made these discoveries without our valued partners in Europe, and they deserve to share much of the credit.
I know some of you on slashdot ask why fund the space program. I hope that this makes it clear that you are getting your money's worth. Thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Developer
Mars Exploration Rovers
Mars is already contaminated with Earth Bacteria. There has been significant exchange of materials between Earth and Mars as a result of meteor impacts splashing small bits of each planet into space. It has been demonstrated that lots of bacterial species can cope with the tremendous forces and pressures that these bits would be exposed to, so they could (and almost certainly do) easily survive an interplanetary trip. Discovery of DNA-based life on mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would not answer the question about whether or not we are alone in the Universe, as all that life is very likely to have come from the same single source.
Maybe I can provide a Christian perspective on this (as I am a practicing Christian).
The Bible was not written as a scientific text book. It has a different purpose: To reveal God's interaction with humankind. Some of the language is poetic, some historic, some is written in a very pictorial language. This shouldn't be surprising if you consider the Bible is composed of 66 books written by many different people in different times and different cultural contexts.
My personal view that those who say the Bible is to be read completely literally ignores the historical context and we can easily apply our cultural norms to a situation and get something completely different out of it. I don't believe that the world was created in 7 days, although I do believe that God could do it that way if He wanted to. The point of the opening part of Genesis is to establish that God was around before the world, that He was responsible for creation (the actual details are pictorial) and that the mess we are in today is a result of us rebelling against God. That's the important bit - the relationship between God and us.
Now to stay on topic, I believe in a Creator God. A God that looked at His work and was pleased. We have a pretty rough idea of how big the universe is and the thought that it's all empty apart from this little planet may be true, but the God portrayed in the Bible is more likely to have created a universe that is teeming with life.
Was there life on Mars? I wouldn't be surprised, because if God wanted to put it there (or created the laws of physics that enable it to start) he could.
Hard to say. Except for earth, we don't have any examples yet, which means there could be only very rude educated guesswork.
But i'd say the chances are pretty good, since it's known (or at least highly possible) that primitive live like one-cell-organism could survive in space for a long time through hybernating. And it is known that planetary material could be ejected into space (like from meteor impacts or violent vulcanic explosions like in Krakatau - see here and here and land on another planet like mars.
Although the chances of survival for one-cell-organisms in a single incident are fairly small, there must have been thousands - if not millions - of these catastrophic events in earths past. One of the biggest was presumably the asteroid that created a thermonuclear winter about 65 million years ago. This one is known to have ejected material out of earths orbit.
So, all things considered, chances are that some bacteria could have survived an ejection from earth, the travel through interplanetary space, reentry into mars' atmosphere and adaption to mars' climate.
For the chances of complex life-forms: Well, it pretty much depends on many factors: The past climate of mars, if the first life-forms were native or not - and if not - how sucessfull presumed introduced life-forms from other planets adapted to the given and changing climate on mars.
As for fish, i'm don't really know, i'll rather bet on plant-life and rather primitive water-based or sand-based animal life-forms.
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
Mars lost its magnetosphere eons ago. This caused the solar wind to blow away and boil off it's atmosphere over a few million years (a relatively short time all things considered).
They have presently been doing research related to Earths fluxuations in its magnetosphere. At present the major indicators used to determine the stability (as we understand it) has been dropping. The speculation is that we are going to eventually have a poll flip (north becomes south and vice verse). In the interim their will be a period of time where holes (for lack of a better word) similar to those existing at the north and south poles that cause the Aurora Borialis will exist in multiples. In otherwords, during this period of time these will drift around the surface of the earth until the fields stablize. The results will be spectacular night sky showings in such unlikely places as Paris or Hong Kong or where have you - the downside is the exposure to solar radiation of people under these zones.
The magnetosphere is dependent on the internal heat generated by the Earths core and it's rotation. In Mars case it is speculated that its core went cold a very long time ago and this was the primary reason its magnetosphere failed and let the solar wind work away the atmosphere.