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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.
"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.
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.
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~ |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
It seems that NASA is well aware of extremophiles, but even considering the range of environments that support life here, there's still a limit. There is no life on Earth that exists without water, nor is there an alternative solvent available on Mars. There is no life on Earth that exists outside of a relatively tight temperature band (as far as the cosmos go, -50 C to 150 C is pretty narrow). There is no life on Earth that is able to survive a temperature swing of more than 100 C. Etc.
Maybe there's silicon-based life somewhere in the cosmos, but the chemical reactions that are required to sustain carbon-based life have certain limits. Temperature, pressure, the availability of certain minerals and the availability of water are chief among them.