Slashdot Mirror
Maps Show Mars Was Once More Like Earth
vrioux writes "NASA scientists have discovered additional evidence that Mars once underwent plate tectonics, slow movement of the planet's crust, like the present-day Earth. A new map of Mars' magnetic field made by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft reveals a world whose history was shaped by great crustal plates being pulled apart or smashed together. ."
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the majority of solid planets that we examine undergo the same basic geologic mechanisms. Tectonics, subduction, spreading, etc, are probably far more common in the universe than we think.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Seeing as how we do not behave exactly like every other animal...
Please tell me you're being facetious. I'm sure you'll find that no two types of animals behave *exactly* alike. However, a whole lot of them (including us), do exhibit many similar behaviours.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Rubbish. We came from the Pak homeworld.
In other words, no. We, as in humans, didn't come from Mars. We're definitely mammals, closely related to the other great apes. It's about as plain as you could ask for at every level from DNA right through to gross anatomy.
It is conceivable that life originated on Mars and spread to Earth in the days of nothing but single-celled organisms, but that's quite another matter.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Does that mean the Earth will end up like Mars in the future?
And how will this data help us terraforming Mars?
Far from answering, I think this only leaves us with more questions asked.
We're incredibly similar to every other animal - same basic chemistry, most of our genome the same. We have the same ancestors as every other living thing on this rock. A better (and open) question is whether all life on Earth is descended from (primitive) life that originated on Mars and was carried here by meteorites before Mars became uninhabitable.
I am trolling
Life would still have the potential to exist elsewhere, but would have to adapt to a different environment.
This is a fairly common theory (especially in the wake of the early findings that the other planets in the Solar System are uninhabitable by humans), but our studies of our own solar system suggest it to be untrue. If life were as adaptable as suggested, then we'd find inflatable beings on Jupiter, Crystaline entities on Venus, creepy crawlers on Mars, and other life forms well suited to their environment.
Yet no such creatures have ever been found. Hope is still held that water creatures may be found on Jupiter's Icy Moons (specifically Europa), but we've pretty much exhausted the remainder of the Solar System.
Turning back inward toward Earth, we can't find life in many combinations. Pretty much all life on Earth follows the pattern of Carbon-basis with DNA information storage. About the most extreme variations are the circulatory systems of animals, with some having Copper-based blood.
Some organisms are able to survive extreme conditions, but they tend to not actually thrive in such environments. There are no signs of life that has specifically adapted to survive in conditions equating that of the more extreme planets. Even the Silicon-based Lifeform theory suffers heavily from a lack of any known examples.
While we occupy only an insignificant portion of the universe, our best evidence to date suggests that we may be far more alone than we might have hoped.
P.S. The Wikipedia article on The Fermi Paradox goes over many of these points in detail.