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Possibility of Life On Mars Looking More Remote
Riding with Robots writes "The never-say-die robotic geologist Opportunity continues its extended explorations in Victoria Crater on Mars. The latest findings from the mission suggest that while plenty of water did exist in this location, it was so salty that life would have a very hard time gaining a foothold. 'Not all water is fit to drink,' said Andrew Knoll, a member of the rover science team. 'At first, we focused on acidity, because the environment would have been very acidic. Now, we also appreciate the high salinity of the water when it left behind the minerals Opportunity found. This tightens the noose on the possibility of life.'"
I suppose it hasn't occurred to them that the rover might be in a Martian equivalent of the Dead Sea? There are plenty of inhospitable places on Earth, too.
I don't think it's a question of 'is' there life on Mars. It's more like 'was' there life at any point in it's history.
There's a chance of the existence of A HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL? Possibly somewhere in the region of my pants??? The fact that there is even a chance I must now search high and low! I Believe!
Yes the idea that the life on Mars is all off looking for the remote would be so much more believable if they had like found a TV or something.
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"The rovers [can] do in a day what a skilled field geologist can do in 30 seconds." -- Steve Squyres.
Squyres was given the 2005 Wired Rave Award for science by Wired for overseeing the creation of Spirit and Opportunity that had, at the time, lasted thirteen times longer than expected.
As we approach sol 1500, this means the rovers have done about 12.5 hours of field geology. And that's being generous, as Squyres was talking about the combined work of both rovers and only one of the rovers has been operating at full capacity.
So maybe, just maybe, Andrew Knoll is a little premature in declaring the planet dead.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Too salty? Is there such a thing? Here on Earth we've found life everywhere where there's energy and liquid water: even apparently-unliveable places like the nuclear waste tanks at Hanford or the superheated water of deep-ocean vents. Excessively salty water might kill off life not adapted to it, but there's no fundamental reason why life can't form in extreme saltwater.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
When a certain impertinent youngling pointed out that there have been so many 'turning points' in this terrible conflict that surely, the Illustrious Council must by dizzy by this time, K'breel denounced him as a traitor and decreed that his gelsacs be lacerated until he admitted his guilt and confessed his onerous crimes. The youngling confessed later that evening, and was immediately executed for his awful crimes.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
We are still waiting for the second down here on earth.
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Of course, given that we probably couldn't completely 100.00000000000% sterilize what we sent there, the next question is:
Is there life on Mars now? (that we've been there)
Sooner or later, we're gonna find our own bacteria on Mars if we keep sending stuff there.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
You act all surprised. Guess how shocked I was when I found out this story had nothing to do with televisions.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Am I the only who has, for tears, 'known' that there is no life on Mars?
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
- Carl Sagan
Every time I read an article like this, I'm amazed at how the term "life" is used. They don't mean life, they mean "life, as we know it on earth" (and often even more restrictive than that). Looking at the extremophiles right here on earth should be enough to see that life can adapt to many "unsuitable" environments. Are these people really that myopic?
If I'm not mistaken, the lethality of salty environments (for "life as we know it") is related to osmatic pressure at a cellular level. Too many assumptions there to rule out realistic adaptations (and "adaptation" assumes that the lifeform originated in a different situation) to such an environment.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
David Bowie lyrics from the early 70s: "It's on America's tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow. ....
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?"
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