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The Indirect Case For Life On Mars
Deinhard writes "Space.com is reporting that '[a] pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.' It is all based on methane signatures and not direct observation. Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ... unless this is just a particle of preanimate matter caught in the matrix."
Methane can also be produced by volcanic activity. By all means keep coming up with ways to look for life on Mars, but most likely the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Here is the scientist's proof:
http://xmlx.ca/images/37/o_martian.jpg
KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!!!
And they are just over the horizon with their Atomic Pistols!
If ancient life can be discovered under Antarctic ice, nothing is unpossible.
Given our accessibility and coverage on earth, we didn't know about this ancient life until recently.
And now we only have few rovers on Mars...
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
...Santa may be real because he leaves me presents...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
There ain't no genesis device in real life is there?
...
Well, you exist, right? So there is at least once...
I just feel sorry for the microbes which inhabited this planet before the device went off...
The show's not off apparently
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Microsoft releases the new Microsoft Genesis:
1. Terraforms any planet within 2 minutes.
2. Can only be used on Micrsoft Authorized, Genuine Planets and Asteroids (MAGPAs)
3. Any matter may be used, however the Matter Standard may be extended in the future.
Microsoft has critiziced GNU Terraform system, calling it 'anarchist'. Richard Stallman has responded, reminding about how Microsoft once lamented about how 'if people knew how planets were terraformed when the Earth became inhabitable, people would be in dystopian alien governments today.'
Meanwhile in an unrelated incident, a person has sued MMOINC for not letting him use a used copy of Marsland MMO.
The WiMax Foundation has come out saying that WiMax could blanket 99% of Mars. Microsoft has responded to GNU Terraform by making Microsoft Genesis free-of-charge.
Creature that secrete methane gas and spend their lives hidden in caves, never coming out for observation.
Well, of course, th-HEY! This isn't the "EULA Confusion w/ Used Copies of WoW?" thread!
I do hope that this isn't another false alarm. This comes at about the same time as this odd lichen-like feature was photographed: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_05 0216.html >. Fascinating developments.
On a slight tangent, I wonder if Larry Lemke is related to the savant Leslie Lemke.
Eh?
Years ago we were told that the best place to find life on Mars would be under rocks where there could be lichen-like lifeforms. It would shield them from the harmful UV and solar radiation effects. But so far JPL hasn't used the Instrument Deployment Device (the remote "arm") to turn over a rock and examine what's under it with the microscopic imager. They've looked all over the exposed surface of rocks and even dug small trenches in the soil and examined that. Perhaps they don't want to break it, but still I would like for them to at least try to look under a rock or two. There might be something interesting there!
The proper way to avoid flatulence (colloq: farting) is through a controlled diet, avoiding beans, cabbage etc. Drilling is apt to get them nowhere.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"Because know any sort of possibility of life on other planets is a hot button, we'll pull this theory out so that we can beg for funding."
It's all about getting more funding, and justifying what they have.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Dan Quayle, 8/11/89
I rest my case.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
... Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ...
Since the "Prime Directive" is centuries in our future we are free to f' over anything we find there as we terraform.
Cor.
Don't assume for a moment that we won't colonize and terraform Mars. It may take 100 years and start with little research outposts like those on Antarctica, but soon enough it'll all be plowed up and paved over and we'll bring all the plagues of earth, litter included.
I suppose there will be an environmentalist coalition of some sort and some fine parks will be set aside, i.e. Olympus Mons, but when competing national iterests pit India and China against any other comers, it'll be a race to colonize it and damn the environment and anyone who pipes up to protect it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And we probably sent it there on the Viking Probes!
(or it's from the remains of a long dead civilization that had a war with the fifth planet of the solar system. The fifth planet was turned to rubble and the aftermath of the war destroyed Mars. So the survivors fled to Earth and feasted on dinosaur meat until they hunted them to extinction...)
we can answer David Bowie's question.
Weren't large subterranean gas deposits on Mars of inorganic origin the plot of Total Recall???
I recommend we send Governor Schwarzenegger to investigate.
Proof of life on Mars is becoming strikingly similar to commercial fusion or anti-balistic missile defences - always just another contract down the road. It's not that I have anything against the exploration of Mars, nor do I not appreciate the difficulty of understanding an alien environment, but every time NASA hypes to the public I feel like I'm watching/reading politics, not science.
According to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7014 the scientists have not only detected methane, but also formaldehyde, which was measured at levels of 130 parts per billion. From the article:
He thinks that the gas is being produced by the oxidation of methane and estimates that 2.5 million tonnes of methane per year are needed to produce it. "I believe that until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life," he says. "My conclusion is there must be life in the soil of Mars."
Bruce
last I heard, Methane was frequently produced on Uranus.
I wonder how far the nearest cave is to the rover's current position? Does the rover have a flashlight?
and that is why humans will need another planet to live in the first place , because we dont respect the "lower" lifeforms
what WILL be gained now WILL be your doom tomorrow
"Humans are like virus"
and after mars? where will we go?
In the long run no, I think it would be rather silly to allow a few bacteria to deny us an entire world.
In the short run absolutely yes. Investigating a possible completely alternate abiogenic event? From a scientific standpoint that would be *more* than worth holding off the colonization for a century or two. The value of that information for understanding the distribution of life in the universe is incalculable.
On the other hand if it's just Earth gunk transported to Mars, away with it.
Is it just that I'm a cynic? They haven't even found liquid water and now there's "strong evidence" of life on Mars? Come on, I would be happy at the news just as much as the next guy but let's not jump the gun here...believing something is true does not make it true, not here, nor on Mars.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I don't think that the preponderance of evidence suggests that any present life on Mars has any chance at all of evolving into an intelligent species.
:)
As compared to say, Earth, you mean? There's not much evidence of intelligent life here either...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Evidence of methane and its coverage with water can be expained in at least one trivial way. Note Mars atmospheric composition:
C02: 95%
H2O: 0.03%
Now huge ultraviolet radiation breaks down H2O and CO2 to loose hydrogen/oxygen/carbon atoms (this process along with mars weak gravity is co-responsible for mars losing its once dense atmosphere). Additionally there is huge evidence of Electrical Discharge On The Martian Surface
Try simple high school science project: Load a container with water and CO2, add electrodes to create some discharge ('lightning') and you'll have your own PanGea in a bottle.
After some time all sorts of 'organic' chemicals will be present in the bottle along with most common methane (but also alcohols, higher carbohydrates and more complex molecules). I would think decent scientist would at least mention such possibility in reocurring articles on 'OH-OH methane is evidence of life on mars'
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen...
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on -
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know...
He's in the best selling show -
Is there life on Mars?
It's on Amerikas tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes -
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns...
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on -
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know...
He's in the best selling show -
Is there life on Mars?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, Mr Bowie, we nearly like your new song, but I'm not too sure about that second line. Now I'm only a record executive, and no nothing of rhyme and rhythm, but I think that it would scan better with an extra word tagged on the end.
How about the word "hair" ?
"She's furniture with a pulse"
...what if we brought life to mars?
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
We need a reason to be seeing the methane. It is destroyed in the atmosphere pretty quickly, so there needs to be a recharge mechanism.
Regardless of the mechanism, the discovery of methane in the atmosphere is a very important result. . .
Scientists releasing papers and ideas, especially ones that are obviously controversial, before the peer review/publication process has been completed is poor science. While the peer review process is not perfect with the potential to overemphasize mediocre/bad work or miss good work, the system is the checks and balances upon which science has relied for decades to ensure quality work.
For an example of how releasing scientific results to the media before it is fully evaluated can have disastrous effects, check out cold fusion.
Totally OT, I know, but there really were rats the size of cats (see about half way down), although the interviewee may have been turning Bowie's lyrics into fact. Or something.
Getting slightly back OT, the answer to the question "Is there life on Mars?" would seem to be a "definite maybe"
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Decades ago, a treaty was signed stating that Antarctica would be used for scientific purposes only.
Also, terraforming there would not be a good idea. We would have to warm up the climate, and before the temperature would rise, the glaciers there would melt, raising the ocean level significantly. The resulting death toll would make the recent tsunami look like a small splash. The same thing goes for draining the Mediterranean. The water has to go somewhere.
Eventually, we will have to expand out into space, if not for practical reasons (natural resources, living space), for psychological purposes. Throughout history, people have constantly been going west because of the belief that it was their duty as humans to control the land out there, an idea commonly known as manifest destiny. Now, if we go any further west, we'll end up in the Far East. The only direction lefr is up.
An entire universe is out there to explore and bring civilization to. All we have to do is grab it!
...making the indirect case for the existence of God. This is all very well and good from an "armchair philosophy" standpoint, but until I see electron micrographs of the native Martian fauna (or flora?), I won't believe there's anything alive there except any stray bacteria trapped deep within Terran probes (I'd say "Earthling probes", but that'd sound even sillier, not to mention like it's something that probes an Earthling...)...
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I was using the range provided by Sushil K. Atreya, Director of the Planetary Science Laboratory at the University of Michigan and keynote speaker at the International Mars Conference in Ischia, Italy, 19-23 September 2004. A single number is rather misleading, since there's a wide margin of error.
"Well, then fire it up and show me what this..." (sigh)
But we do know that there is a small amount of commerce of material between Mars and Earth without the use of space probes. Well, a billion tons has moved from Mars to Earth (see here). It's much harder for stuff to move the other way but it's not completely implausible. (It would require quite a kick of energy from somewhere, not just to get it out of the earth's gravity well, but also to push it out from the Sun. But it could get that by looping around other planets - eg. Venus. The journey might take many tens of thousands of years. But it's not impossible.)
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
For some years now, the principle investigator for the 1976 Viking Lander Labeled Release Experiment has claimed that his experiment did find evidence of life on Mars. The problem is that the results from the other Viking experiments was inconsistent with this, so NASA decided that the LRE detected a non-biological chemical reaction.
Is this new data about methane consistent with the Viking LRE data?
Somehow I seem to remember a Simpsons qoute about thermodynamics that's applicable to this situation. NASA should investigate this.
..........FULL STOP.
When it becomes easy...
well, yeah... that's the clincher, innit? How the hell is it ever supposed to become easy if we keep putting it off?
I know there's a lot of reasons - some good and some bad - for why we should send a manned mission, but for me the most important reason is that we need to learn how. And we need to start learning NOW.
It's not just about figuring out what color the sky on Mars is or if there's life in them thar hills - hell yeah, we can send a TON of bots up there to tell us that. But its a lot more than that... as a species we are literally trapped at the bottom of this gravity well and we're in serious danger of ending our days here. The sooner we get off this rock the better our chances of survival will be.
Learning to life and survive in space and on other planets is not going to get any easier or cheaper by waiting for some future to come of its own accord - we have to make it happen first. It's our experience and fine-tuning that makes anything cheaper and easier. You don't get 500Ghz processors with terabytes of RAM to build PC's with until you've cranked out a lot of 286's and 386's first.
It takes an idiot to do cool things - that's why it's cool!
I do agree that it's a hard choice to make, send humans to Mars or send more probes to interesting places like Titan.
But I think that long term, it's far more useful to have an extended manned presence through the solar system that will enable even more such missions than we might be able to manage only from Earth. Not to mention the mental boost we would get from really having a permanent human presence on Mars itself. It's a question of sending many questionable one-off mission rather than increasing the base of our reliable capability to send even unmanned missions.
I really recommend Zubrin's book for a very sober view of how we can get to Mars realistically. Indeed they are currently engaging in terrestrial-based experiments that address a lot of the little but crucial small practical details of the effort.
Although I am pleased with the current direction of the space program, I think the timeframe for that effort is rather long and I fully believe it will be a private mission that lands on Mars in about fifteen to twenty years or so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think serious work on looking for current life on Mars will come when the Mars Science Laboratory lander arrives on Mars in 2010.
Unlike the current Mars Exploration Rovers, MSL is designed specifically to look for the possibility that lifeforms existed on Mars either in the past or even now. Also, because it will most likely use the same type of "nuclear" battery that powered the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, it could run for two Earth years or more doing soil sampling, with the rover travelling well over 200 kilometers (124 miles) during its mission. It also means MSL can land and operate at higher latitude regions of Mars, which means the possibility of landing MSL near the polar cap regions.
We lose one crew on a manned Mars mission and all the time/effort/money we spent up to that point will be wasted due to the public outcry at the loss of important people on TV. Never forget that Americans really are that shallow.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/feb/HQ_05052