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Mars Rover Investigates Possibility of Ancient Microbial Life

Posted by Zonk on from the people-of-earth-greet-you dept.

Riding with Robots writes "The robotic geologist Spirit, now scurrying to reach a safe haven before the harsh Martian winter sets in, has found signs that explorers say point to hot springs or fumaroles in the Red Planet's distant past. That possibility is not only interesting geologically, but potentially biologically, since those kinds of environments on Earth teem with microbial life. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Opportunity continues its descent into a deep crater, where it has found other clues about the ancient waters of Mars."

10 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Other Title by Kamokazi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I liked this title better: "Mars Rover Investigates Steamy Martian Past" But on a serious note, those rovers continually prove they were one of the best investments NASA ever made.

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    1. Re:Other Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It wasn't merely as insurance against a failure. It was also insurance against landing someplace utterly boring with one of them. Their landing method wasn't capable of getting into the places they knew were interesting, so they picked spots where they had a good chance of landing within driving distance of something that looked interesting from orbital images.

      They originally thought they struck out with Spirit. Sure they had a few rocks to grind on, but they were all ejecta from the lava plains. Basalt isn't very interesting if you're looking for evidence of past water.

      However, as the mission wore on, they realized they would probably have time to drive to Columbia Hills, which they in fact accomplished, and that turned out to be a trove of information. These possible fumeroles are on the far side of Columbia Hills from where they landed.

      Opportunity was just lucky from the beginning. Sucker landed right inside a crater. The Spirit team was more than a little jealous.

  2. Offtopic, but funny journalism. by Technician · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article;

    "Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity have remained on Mars for much longer than originally planned. "

    I never knew they were ever planning on leaving Mars. ;-) I think the reporter should have said the rovers have functioned longer on Mars than originally planned.

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    1. Re:Offtopic, but funny journalism. by shawnce · · Score: 5, Funny

      The only way NASA could get the rovers to go in the first was by telling them that they would return home safely at the end of the mission. Of course that was a lie but sometimes you just have to lie to get things done (just don't let the rovers know this).

  3. Ah, robots! by Tatarize · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, as far as I'm concerned we should put those little robots any place we can. We should have a dozen on the moon and let people pay to control them. At the very least they'd make a great welcome party for the Chinese.

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  4. Microbial life on Mars by NJ+Hewitt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's very likely there is life on Mars, but not necessarily native Martian life. Given that we've found lots of Martian meteorites on Earth, a lot of Earth rocks must have made it to Mars - and living organisms pervade the upper crust of our planet.

    1. Re:Microbial life on Mars by MtViewGuy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I still think Mars may still have microbial life--but you have to dig under the surface at least about 1,000 mm to find them. They're living off water trapped in the deeper Martian soil. We'll find out more when the Mars Science Laboratory rover arrives in 2010.

    2. Re:Microbial life on Mars by Ihlosi · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It's very likely there is life on Mars, but not necessarily native Martian life. Given that we've found lots of Martian meteorites on Earth, a lot of Earth rocks must have made it to Mars - and living organisms pervade the upper crust of our planet.



      Given that Mars was hospitable to life earlier than Earth was, life on Earth might even have started on Mars.


      Also, it's probably easier for meteorites to travel inward than outward in the solar system (due to the sun's gravity well). We've found lots of Martian meteorites on Earth, by how many Venusian meteorites ?

    3. Re:Microbial life on Mars by AikonMGB · · Score: 4, Informative

      From long ago, perhaps, but there is an important difference in the past several (hundred? thousand?) millenia; Earth has a much thicker (pressure-wise) and thicker (altitude-wise) atmosphere than Mars does. A meteor(ite) that enters Earth's atmosphere is far more likely to burn up before impacting than one of the same size entering Mars' atmosphere. Furthermore, because Earth is so much bigger, we have a deeper gravity well, meaning you need a greater impact energy to get ejecta to reach escape velocity.

      Aikon-

  5. Not Holding My Breath by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not that I relish being negative, but I don't recommend getting too excited. I've seen way, way too many of these kinds press-releases -- especially about Mars and especially-especially about evidence of life there -- to get excited yet. Even if they find any evidence of life, it will almost certainly quickly be disputed by other groups and then counter-disputed by the original group and the whole thing will turn into a non-score tie. It also seems like the Martian astrobiology folks have a rather lower threshold for "exciting evidence" of life than many of the rest of us. (Maybe that's a selection effect and maybe that's just common to all scientists, each in his or her own field.)