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New Clue for Life on Mars?
thhamm writes "Recent analyses of ESA's Mars Express data reveal that concentrations of water vapour and methane in the atmosphere of Mars significantly overlap. This result, from data obtained by the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS), gives a boost to understanding of geological and atmospheric processes on Mars, and provides important new hints to evaluate the hypothesis of present life on the Red Planet."
Why the assumption that life can't evolve without water??
Put life on mars.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I read the article. It seems to me that they would get the same results from comet impacts slowly melting/evaporating in the equatorial regions, too.
I really hope life is there, but nothing short of shipping a bunch of naked apes with petri dishes, nutrients, and microscopes will resolve it.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
i mean, think of drakes equation, what are the chances that of the small amount of planets that can sustaine life, the first one happens to be next door....
Well, given that we know Mars is a planet that (a) exists and (b) is approximately suitable for life, we're now looking for the value of f_{l}.
Estimates range from 1e-{very big} (i.e., Earth is the only planet on which life arose, ever) to 1.0 {to a rather large number of significant digits} (i.e., almost all suitable planets have life).
There are good arguments in both directions. Let's just say I would be unsurprised with whichever outcome turns up.
unlikely, since were sitting in the golden spot for life, anywhere farther or closer to the sun wont be very good for life...
I believe that temperatures on Mars would be reasonable if it had a working greenhouse effect. Temperatures on Venus would be reasonable (although a _little_ on the warm side) if it didn't. Also note that there is a very wide degree of temperatures to which life has adapted here on Earth. The habitable zone is probably a lot wider than you think.
> Is life on Mars possible? Sure. Probable? Not really.
Could you show us those probability calculations?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'd just as soon leave it alone. We don't encounter new planets every day, and I'd really hate to have future generations say, "If only they'd left it alone rather than screwed it up." History is full of well-meaning scientists who didn't understand what they were doing and therefore lost valuable information. How many artifacts have been cut open or broken before we had X-rays and CAT scans?
Humanity will be around for a long, long time. There will be plenty of opportunities to seed Mars with whatever we want, but only one chance to see the untouched Mars and perform experiments we haven't yet conceived.
I guess this is a glass half full/empty kind of thing, because I see the exact oposite. People used to be sure there were men living on Mars. Look at the history of the Martian canals. Even in recent years they've rules out much possible life on Mars. Now they are looking for a few slow growing niche bacteria.
I still believe there are bacteria on Mars, but we seem to be having a real hard time finding them.
Well in the grand scheme of things, it's really not an important mystery to be solved; at least the cost-benefit ration is skewed. On the other hand, I didn't say it was insignificant.
I just find it suspect that every discovery coming from the surface of Mars is treated in light of the assumption that life exists/existed there. Talk about trying to prove your own presuppositions. It makes me wonder that if, in the rush to find evidence for life, we might be ignoring other data.
[ think ]
it says the simplest explanation for a given body of data is probably the correct one.
as we gain more data on martian phenomena, and if life increasingly becomes the most common simple explanation....
Moo.
That's absurd. look at all the unexpected places in the past 10 years where we've found life -- on Earth. and the majority of life doesnt have bones, or saucer wrecks, or is visible to the naked eye.
Moo.
People used to believe the reason for lunar eclipses was a dragon was swallowing the moon. They'd shoot cannons at the "dragon" to scare it off, and sure enough the moon came back into view. Guess that, in the lack of any better data or means of observation, the conclusion was rather scientific...
The same goes for the "men" living on Mars idea. You have very limited data, poor observation techniques, and a starved imagination. Result? Wild hypotheses. As data quality improves we can get a better understanding of what's going on, fantasies be damned!
=Smidge=
For a good part of the history of life on earth, you wouldn't find any of those things either, because macroscopic organisms had not yet appeared.
Is life on earth possible? Sure. Probable? Not really. That nasty oxidizing atmosphere must kill most of it.
Quite contrary. If I were an alien watching Solar system plantes, I would guess Earth has huge biosphere just by detecting so high concentration of pure oxygene in atmosphere. Oxygene is highly reactive and without biosphere, it would quickly return to CO2 and other oxides - that's how it is on planets with no lifeforms. "If there is Oxygene, something must produce it" - that would be my guess (of course, as an alien I'd say something like "Ghrrbrghrgzzz wzgzhzzzz wzstktsch").
The reason, of course, is that there is water in the Sahara desert. Less than there is in, say, Amazonia or the Pacific but plenty for life to get along nonetheless.
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate