'Life on Mars' Meteorite Rejected After 10 Years

An anonymous reader writes "Ten years ago, NASA announced that the Martian meteorite ALH84001 showed evidence of life on Mars. The announcement made headlines around the world, and even prompted President Clinton to make a statement. Ten years later, most scientists believe that everything in the meteorite can be explained by non-biological processes. "We certainly have not convinced the community, and that's been a little bit disappointing," said David McKay, a scientist behind the 'life on Mars' paper. Unfortunately, David McKay's own brother is one of his critics. "He [David] got a little testy about the results we were getting," said Gordon McKay. "What we have shown is that it is possible to form these things inorganically.""

Comments

The hard truth

[canuck57]

No one wants to admit life started out there somewhere. For all we know the meteorites seeded life on Earth... and elsewhere. Why is it so hard for people to believe life exists beyond earth? The probabilities and facts dictate the earth is not the center of the universe.

I for one think it would be good for mankind to have a significant first contact with a superior race. At least then we can then look to exploration and not war to keep us occupied while we grow up.

Re:The hard truth

[Anonymous Coward]

No one wants to admit life started out there somewhere. For all we know the meteorites seeded life on Earth... and elsewhere. Why is it so hard for people to believe life exists beyond earth?

Just because people believe life started elsewhere doesn't mean that this rock is an example of life. Wanting life to exist elsewhere does not account for good scientific judgement. I fear that Mr. McKay has much of the former but little of the latter.

Re:The hard truth

[Anonymous Coward]

This stuff is science, not religion. All that's being said in the article is that there are explanations for the contents of that chunk of rock other than life. That doesn't rule out the possibility that life was involved, but it does rule out the meteorite as proof that there was life. So, we're back where we were before: no one knows for sure.

Re:The hard truth

[Reality Master 101]

No one wants to admit life started out there somewhere. For all we know the meteorites seeded life on Earth... and elsewhere.

Er, exactly how would life begin on a meteorite? Exactly what chemistry would allow that to happen? I think it's a tad more likely that life would begin on a planet with the requisite natural resources.

The probabilities and facts dictate the earth is not the center of the universe.

We have absolutely zero evidence for life on planets other than earth. On the other hand, we have considerable evidence that we're alone in the galaxy (other galaxies are too far away to know anything about).

I for one think it would be good for mankind to have a significant first contact with a superior race. At least then we can then look to exploration and not war to keep us occupied while we grow up.

I for one think magic wands would be good for mankind as well. Then we could keep busy with our wands and not war. It would also eliminate resource limitations, which are fundamentally the reason for war. Magic wands are about as likely as alien life, so why not go for broke?

Re:The hard truth

[gEvil (beta)]

So are you telling me that Gil Gerard DIDN'T go back in time and ejaculate into the primordial ooze?

Bidibidibidi...Yup...Bidibidibidibidi.

Re:The hard truth

[starseeker]

Science has to be skeptical about anything. For example, let's take two statements:

1. Life had its origins on Earth, and is not to be found elsewhere.
2. Life started elsewhere, and is only present on Earth by virtue of some metorite hitting the right spot.

Science will accept NEITHER of these without proof. Science (good science anyway) is always testing EVERY hypothesis. Anything in science is ALWAYS open to being challenged, revisited, updated, or thrown out if contradicted. If it isn't, it's not science.

This is a very uncomfortable thing for lots of people, who want certainties in their lives. But science is what it is - certainties last only as long as the evidence supports them. F=ma could go out the window tomorrow if conclusive experimental evidence indicates it isn't true. (Now, after a certain point, things are assumed to be correct until proven otherwise, in order to make progress possible. But EVERYTHING in science is ALWAYS subject to challenge. Your challenge had better be good for F=ma though, since there is a VERY large body of evidence suggesting that relationship is a useful description of part of the natural world.)

So I'd say that instead of it being hard for people to believe there is life beyond Earth, it is important that any evidence of such life be subject to skeptical and rigorous test. This is why you have people looking for ways something could NOT be a sign of life - to make sure we don't overlook something in our hope that there IS other life out there. Good science has no favorites, and the facts will ALWAYS overrule wishful thinking (one way or the other.) If someone gets a result they want, one of the best things for them to do is sit down and think of ways this result could NOT mean what you want it to mean.

If we have first contact with a superior race (what is superior, anyway? more advanced? more peaceful?) the consequences will likely be completely unpredictable. I doubt meaningful communication would be established for a VERY long time (if it even CAN be established) - science fiction grossly underestimates that difficulty, in my opinion. And no doubt a sizable percentage of the population wouldn't be able to handle it, particularly if it/they are really different from us. We have enough trouble handling ourselves, nevermind something REALLY alien.

Re:The hard truth

[4D6963]

For all we know the meteorites seeded life on Earth

So far the theory of panspermia is very far from proven, and the most widely accepted theory about the formation of life on earth is not panspermia but chemical reactions forming aminate acids, or somethnig of this kind.

Why is it so hard for people to believe life exists beyond earth?

When it comes to science, thou shalt ban the verb 'to believe' out of thy vocabulary.

I for one think it would be good for mankind to have a significant first contact with a superior race

Why do people systematically consider that an extraterrestrial race would have to be superior to us in the same way that we are superior to the rest of animals? Keep us occupied while we grow up? What's making you think that we're growing up? Our nature is immuable, the only way we can give ourselves the feeling of evolving is through the evolution of our civilization, but that's not going to make us closer to any hypothetical superior extraterrestrial race, if there even can be such a thing as animals significantly superior to us. It seems that the idea of us being probably the most evolved life form possible has went through relatively few people's minds.

Back to the topic, scientists have no trouble admitting some forms of life might exist or might have existed in the universe, even inside our very own solar system. But the object of this article is about determining whether this precise piece of rock reveals the existence of any actual extraterrestrial form of life, it's not about determining whether there could or could not have been life in the Universe, nor even on Mars.

It's all about this precise rock.

Re:The hard truth

[Schemat1c]

A superior race would be more likely to simply enslave us, eat us or kill us for sport.

See the colonization of the Americas for a good reference.

Are implying that the Native Americans were an inferior race? They were the same species that the invaders were. After they were decimated by the European's small pox and other diseases they simply didn't have the numbers to defend their land.

A 'superior' race would have survived and evolved past tribal behaviour or they couldn't be called superior. And who says they would have ever even had a tribal phase at all? We evolved from an territorial, male-dominated hierarchical ape and seem to still be in that phase. Hell, we probably wouldn't even recognize a superior race if we saw one. Many could argue that whales are superior to humans. Sure they don't build cities or eat hamburgers but they do have much larger, more complex brains than us. And playing the the ocean all day sure seems superior to my life.

Re:The hard truth

[Reality Master 101]

Life doesnt "begin" on a meteorite, but the building blocks can be found on meteorites.

And why would "building blocks" be more likely to be found on meteorites rather than Earth itself? And conversely, why would Earth not have any building blocks?

And why does it matter at all what role meteorites might or might not play in abiogenesis?

Re:The hard truth

[Schemat1c]

The colonizers certainly considered themselves superior, and their greater technology meant that they were able to prove it to themselves.

What greater technology? Guns, religion, butter churners? It didn't take long for the Indians to get guns. It was the diseases from the Europeans filthy way of life that did them in, after that is was simply the vast numbers of ever increasing invaders that finished them off. It had nothing to do with superiority.

Re:The hard truth

[kiracatgirl]

If you use a different process, it just isn't called science. Science IS the process, and skeptism is part of the process - that's in its definition. Taking the skeptism out of science is like taking purple and leeching the blue out of it, and then trying to claim that the red that's left is still purple. No one is saying "Science is the one and only correct way of determining the truth!" However, if you are following the scientific process, i.e. using science, then you are going to have to use scientific skepticism as an intrinsic part of said process, as the process has been defined by decades or even centuries of development. Since you seem so adamantly opposed to the scientific method, I'd assume you have a better idea? Why don't you share it with everyone so we can do things the RIGHT way?

Re:The hard truth

[donscarletti]

What a useless post. The grandparent meant more powerful by "superior" and you should have been able to work that out. We are superior to whales, because we can kill a whale whenever we want and they can't stop us. We are safe from them but they are not safe from us. The native americans got killed by a bunch of people who had developed industry, wheras they had not, thus their attackers had guns and were more powerful than them, thus superior in a way that can be measured without going all existential or post modern. And IIRC, early humans lived in matriachal societies (humans closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos still do), male dominence was a later development. As for whale's brains, they are larger because they have more bits to control, Human brains scale linearly with body size, male brains are larger than female brains because the bigger you are, the more stuff you need to work, big people have big brains, but are not always smarter. If whales have big, complex brains it could be because they are superinteligent, but it also could be because they are the size of a city bus, one or the other because it isn't nearly big enough for both. A whale's brain is TINY compared to its body size with even smaller neocortex, suggesting that it undeveloped and not much good for doing anything apart from working its flippers.

Seriously, what's this post modern stuff about the meaning of supremicy (and male dominated hierachical societies for that matter) doing on slashdot? Here we love technology because it allows us to control our environment and makes our species powerful. Superior technology = superior society, superior aliens = technologically advanced aliens, otherwise they are just moving goo to me. So far I've been a really good sport listening to people complaining about how other seemingly primitive cultures have better societies than industrialised cultures, but taking it to the species level is going futher than I'm willing to tollerate. I like human society, we live easy, keep outselves feeling busy and useful with pointless work, have fun in many ways and keep the awkward bits of nature under control, if you don't like humanity, YOU CAN GEDDOUT!.

Re:The hard truth

[JavaLord]

So it wasn't that the Europeans were better or superior. They just had a superior environment in which to develop.

God forbid! Nobody could be superior to anyone else!

Lets face it, European culture was superior which led to their technical advantage. Why do people ignore the truth? Does it hurt that badly to say one culture is inferior to another?

Take a look at the middle east today, what does that shithole have on western culture?

Re:The hard truth

[Fordiman]

Well, think about it. Organized crystal structures form much more readily in low-gravity, and an impact event (two asteroids violently meeting in the black) could easily produced the sort of initial chaos needed to allow for a life-formation event (formation of amino acids and proteins as the rocks cool). Smash that into the earth, and you have a similar situation. I wouldn't be surprised if an impact event is the catalyst for life on those planets which can support it.

Before people start getting uppity about silicon-based life and how it could exist on a very hot planet, keep this in mind: Yes, silicon organics are possible and have been synthesized - but what would they use instead of water? In order to be as flexible as carbon organics, they have to be much hotter (> 100C), so there is a need for a liquid that handles those temperatures with similar properties (Anyone know the properties of Li2S?)

I submit that it is no accident that earth life is carbon-based. Lower energies needed to remain pliable and adaptable at the molecular level, and it just happens to be the most promiscuous atom to be found (can handle four covalent bonds and links up far more rapidly to the next-best, silicon).

I think if we're going to find life out there, we should be looking for a planet with similar heat characteristics to earth, with an asteroid belt or cometary system that would cause likley impacts every hundered thousand years or so (often enough to produce many many high-energy impact events to stir things up enough to form life, but not often enough to kill all life before it's got a chance to go multicellular)

I mean, once you're in our temperature range, water's a no brainer. Just captured solar wind over the millenia may be enough hydrogen to allow enough water to accrete on a planetoid (especially if there's enough oxygen in the planetoid's original mass-mix).

No overlords after all

[cheesygrapes]

Well, this reporter was...possibly a little hasty earlier and would like to...reaffirm his allegiance to this country and its human president. May not be perfect, but it's still the best government we have. For now.

Re:Only now?

[Zen Punk]

no, not really

burden of proof

[Bartmoss]

Just because these things can be formed inorganically doesn't mean they were. Still the burden of proof definitely rests on those who says it is organic in origin. Especially now.

Luckily, just because the meteor may not have signs of former life, doesn't mean mars never had any. It would be really sad if our solar system turned out to be sterile.

Re:burden of proof

[mark-t]

It would be really sad if our solar system turned out to be sterile.

I assume you mean the REST of our solar system... Otherwise, yes, it'd be not only sad, but devastating.

But grammar nitpicking aside, why would it be sad if the other planets were sterile, exactly? What difference would that _actually_ make to us, here on Earth?

cool science

[fermion]

This is the kind of subtlety that people seem to miss in science. Just because something could be true, does not mean it is true. In this case the samples in question could have been formed by an organic process, but they did not have to be. And since the overwhelming evidence is that there is no life on mars, and in fact we have no real process as yet that would have developed life on mars, the reasonable person still concludes that life probably does not exist. Now some people just are going to believe for personal reasons, and that is cool. Those people need to look for evidence in an attempt to prove their case. But this particular piece of evidence appears to have been taken out of contention.

Re:cool science

[LiquidCoooled]

I tend to take the opposite view to life on Mars (and other planets/moons).
I assume there will be "life" in most places.
Just look around this great varied Earth of ours. In the furthest reaches, in the darkest depths and the most impossible places we find that it flourishes.

We have barely begun to look around on Mars and we certainly haven't dug far below the surface, give it time and I think we will find it.

Why is it so difficult to believe we are alone?

Re:cool science

[lawpoop]

I take a somewhat different tack.

It is true that we do find life in some rather inhospitable places, like highly radioactive nuclear reactor cores, inside solid rock, in boiling steam vents, metabolizing sulfur -- but does that mean life can arise in such places, or does it require particular conditions to arise, and then it is capable of evolving to adapt to such harsh environments? The basic amino acids that constitute life do not survive in such environments. The living organisms which live in such environments have special mechanisms to protect and repair their delicate parts.

But the places where we find the most diversity of life is in the oceans and the tropical rain forests. That tells me there are a few elements that life really wants -- a relatively small temperature window, light, and most importantly water. The oceans are water, and the tropical rain forests are almost always at 100% humidity. I would even say that the temperature range that life wants is the range of liquid water. Taking this a step further, I would say that anywhere we find liquid water, we will find life.

Let's hear it for the scientific process!

[iguana]

1. Unexplained evidence.
   
2. Testable hypothesis.
   
3. Testing of the hypothesis.
   
4. Alternative explanation for the evidence.
   
5. Revision or rejection of the hypothesis.
   
6. Goto step 3.
   

Compare to Creationism. *Cough* excuse me, "Intelligent Design".

1. Unexplained evidence.
   
2. God did it.
   
3. End of discussion. Or else.
   

If I may inject a personal note, I do believe in God. But I don't believe He created an existance so simple that anything we don't understand must have His hand directly involved.

Re:Only now?

[shawnce]

I think the tin foil hat is a little tight... it appears to be cutting off blood supply to your brain affecting your reasoning abilities. =P

Basically from the word go their has been many many scientist that questioned the theory presented for the origin of the features in the meteorite. A handful of those scientist did experiments over the _years_ since (research takes time) to see if any non-organic processes could have produced similar structures and they have found ones that can.

Tough Day to be a Martian

[DumbSwede]

Coming in the wake of this recent news about atmospheric hydrogen-peroxide possibly scouring Mars's surface of microbial life it looks like the odds of finding life easily on Mars are dwindling. Subsurface drilling still holds out hope.

Regardless of current life conditions I still hold out hope for past life fossil discoveries, multi-cellular past life. Several of the Mars rover pictures look to show fossils, but NASA is being very cautious in it assessments. Not sure what the ID camp or Creationists will make of bring back criniod like fossils from Mars estimated to be 1-2 billion years old. Actually I already pretty much do know, so consider the question rhetorical.

McKays

[FuturePastNow]

David....Gordon

Their third brother, Rodney, was unfortunately too far away to comment on the possibility of life on other worlds.

So...

[CiXeL]

Can we start trying to put it there now?

Re:So...

[bluebox_rob]

Absolutely not! All this means is that nothing has changed - we still don't know whether anything lives on Mars or not. If we try to introduce life there we run the risk of A) making it much harder to prove that any life subsequently discovered there is actually indigenous and B) wiping out, or irreversably changing, anything that does live there. Even if we had the means, we should hold back a good long while yet...

Re:So...

[solitas]

Absolutely not! All this means ... a good long while yet.

What's more important in this collective fetish to colonize Mars (manned bases, mining, etc.) - to determine that some kind of life was ONCE there? Or to prove that, whatever the circumstances, we can introduce sustainable life to aid in colonization? (And, yes: I've read K.S.Robinson's 'Red/Green/Blue Mars' trilogy.)

I can't see where it matters at all, in the grand scheme of extraterrestrial colonization, whether or not bugs (cells, bacteria, etc.) once existed there whereas I _can_ see the benefit(s) in determining what may be there _now_ - primarily to determine if the dirt there can support plant life or in any way contribute to nitrogen/oxygen/hydrogen/carbon production, along with the use of planetary ice(s).

All that dirt & ice are already there, and _they're_ going to be the determining factor in whether or not the planet can support a colony - _not_ whether bugs once lived there and are all dead now.

Unnecessary Evidence.

[crhylove]

Whether that little rock had evidence or not, I agree with Einstein: There is no logical number between 0 and infiniti. Therefore if there is life HERE, there is and has been life all over the damned place. One little rock doesn't change the statistical likelihood of that.

rhY

Re:Unnecessary Evidence.

[evilviper]

Therefore if there is life HERE, there is and has been life all over the damned place. One little rock doesn't change the statistical likelihood of that.

You cannot give any statistical analysis with only one (positive) sample. That is a statistic with an infinite margin of error.

If you ask 100 people a yes/no question, and only one person says "yes", does that mean 60 million people in the world would also say "yes", or does that mean in a freak of chance, you just happen to get the one single person of all 6 billion? Until you get at least one more positive, you can't even begin to GUESS what the statics really are.

Re:its belief that keeps it going

[Dilpo]

And that the rover actually got back rock from the mars?
the rock in question is actually a metiorite(sp?) that fell in antartica, I dont believe we(humans) have ever brought anything back from mars, its a one way trip.
If some scientists believe there is life on mars, why try hard to disprove them?
Its part of the scientific process, nothing is considered fact even so called "Laws" its just not disproven yet. One of the other posts on here outlined the scienfic process in a really simplistic way, maybe look at that or google the scienfic process so you understand why its so important to attempt to disprove things. If you are to lazy for that or want the easy quick answer it basically comes down to this. If you never attempt to disprove something then you'd never know if it was really true or not. Lets say I have some evidence that supports my hypothesis that (just making stuff up dont flame for this) I am somehow genetically surperior to you, if you never attempt to disprove me how will you know if I am right? my evidence could very well suport that hypothesis but I could miss something that points in a totally different direction. This post is a lot longer than I originally intended so the end.

Superior races

[mangu]

it would be good for mankind to have a significant first contact with a superior race

Yet, even assuming such races exist, the probability for our meeting them is exceedingly small. Consider that it took about ten thousand years for us to go from the stone age to space exploration. Viable planets for developing life had existed for several billion years before life arose in the Earth.

Therefore, for us to meet a race that's more advanced than us, but not so advanced for that contact to become completely irrelevant, we would have to meet a race that developed just a tiny bit of time, percentage wise, before we did.

If and when we find life outside the Earth, it will most probably be either very primitive or very advanced relative to us. Baring extreme coincidence, any more advanced race we are likely to meet will have as much to teach us as we have to teach to a garden slug.

Terrible

[bigmauler]

I feel a great disturbance in the net. As if millions of slashdoters cried out and were suddenly smacked with a cold reality they couldn't accept.

I can't help but think of using this for religion

[deft]

NOT getting the results that most of the scientific community would REALLY want as such a cool discovery that could advance thinking is a great example to show religious types.

This is what it looks like when the process beats an idea with logic and testing and eventually disproves what they really wanted to be true. In things like "intelligent design" it could never ever come out with such a neutral result agreed upon by people who may have been very much for the idea the entire time. No lying, not falsifying, no BS logic.... just the truth through science.

I applaud their dilligence, and wonder if that guy in Vegas who one the "when will life on other planets be dicovered" jackpot gets to keep his $$$ :)

Meanwhile, at the McKay family dinner table

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, at the McKay family dinner table...

David: Hey Mom! Guess what? I just discovered life on Mars!

Gordon: Did not!

David: Did too!

Gordon: Did not!

David: Did too!

Mom: (Sigh.)

From a programming perspective

[Millenniumman]

char* explainEvidence (char* evidence, char* method)
{
char* explanation;
if (method == "scientificMethod")
{
while( 1 ) explanation = test((hypothesis)evidence);
}

if (method == "intelligentdesign") explanation = "God";

return explanation;
}

Sorry, but your scientific method gives us an infinite loop. Revise it.

It's always been BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked in Antarctica off and on, for 12 years.

I'll never forget the very intelligent and very adament scientist who told me the "Mars life Rock" was total BS. He went on to say that it was geology, not biology.

Mind you, he also told me that NASA would ride it to the end to make sure that they could send missions to Mars.

The woman that found it was a minor celebrity and ran the lab for several years.

So how much did this rock cost me?

[patio11]

As I remember, "life on Mars, wow!" was used to justify a NASA budget increase. So, does anyone know how much we paid for a garden-variety rock?

Re:Dunno how *likely*, but it's certainly *possibl

[evilviper]

If one person in a hundred says yes, chances are a few more in that 6 billion will agree.

No, that's the whole point. You don't know if 60 million others will agree, or if absolutely no-one else will agree. At the absolute least, you need more than one sample to make an educated guess.

if life can exist in one place, it's an excellent bet that it also exists in many many other places.

No, it's not a good bet at all. You don't have any way of knowing that what we have here is common, or an utter freak occurance.

The chances of us being the only biosphere in the entire universe are ridiculously small, to put it mildly.

Prove it. To even claim that, you would have to know EXACTLY what it takes to create life (good luck with that). And, you have to know exactly what percentage of planets have conducive conditions to life. With the Earth being the only example we know of, we don't have any way of telling how likely that is that a similarly developed environment could exist elsewhere.

There are too many variables, that are utterly unknown, to even make a rational guess at the problem. It's entirely a question of beliefs.