Slashdot Mirror
Mars Soil Appears To Be Able To Sustain Life
beckerist writes "Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the lander's instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the spacecraft's robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected. Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists: 'It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard, you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us.'"
They went to great lengths to avoid contamination of the Mars environment with life from Earth. One of their objectives is to see if there's life on Mars, remember?
Well, while the soil may very well be conducive to growing asparagus, the temperatures most certainly are not. Asparagus is fairly hardy (depending on the cultivar), relatively speaking; but surviving -70C (or even -70F) is too much to ask of the plant.
I must say this is the first time my knowledge of vegetable gardening has ever come in handy on Slashdot!
#DeleteChrome
The entertainments you call fitting for adults strike me as juvenile pursuits. I would never seek to make it illegal for you to pursue them, but please clearly understand, I will never accept your claim that these interests make you a more mature adult human being.
Bringing about the birth of living worlds from previously dead worlds may be an impossible dream, as you claim, but the beauty of its potential is stirring enough to make it a worthy goal for a mature intelligent species.
If we fail to achieve this goal on Mars, we can and should find other planets where it can succeed. If we also fail to do that, it will be because we allowed ourselves to be distracted by short term pleasures such as those you describe, or because we followed your siren call to pour all our resources into repeatedly failing "solutions" for perennial problems such as poverty or disease. By all means, let us continue trying to solve humanity's problems on this planet. But don't use that as an excuse to shut down all space exploration efforts.
I care about humanity more deeply than you seem to be able to imagine. I care enough to want a future for humanity that extends beyond the lifespan of any single planet, beyond the lifespan of any single star system, and if possible, beyond the lifespan of any single galaxy. How is this any less mature than the desire of parents to hope their children and grandchildren might continue to prosper for many future generations?
If we fail to secure such a future for our descendants, the end result might very well be a sterile, dead universe, where nobody else will ever again have the chance to enjoy sex, skydiving, skiing or anything else adults do for excitement.
Bringing Mars to life may be so difficult it approaches the impossible. But it may be the best place to take the first step toward opening up the universe for humankind, and that makes it worth the effort.
I think the news here is that you would not have to bring native soil to Mars if you wanted to farm. Yea, you would have to farm under a dome but at least you don't have to transport a few tons of topsoil!
Can we ever conclusively determine that there is no life on Mars?
Given that we are still uncovering life in the most unlikely places on Earth, who knows where it could be found on Mars. Do we need to look under every rock, and take a billion core samples before we are satisfied that the introduction of terrestrial life will not destroy any chance of finding native life?
My brain is pretty fried right now to do it (long day at work), but you really need two data points:
1. escape velocity of mars
2. distribution of the velocity of the molecules comprising the proposed atmosphere
There are some relatively simple kinetic models for #2 that do a decent enough job. Long story short, if the bulk of the distribution of #2 is greater than #1, then the gas will escape, as it has more velocity than escape velocity. At what rate? Again, depends **how** far above escape the bulk of the distribution is.
Here on earth, the vast bulk of the distribution(s) of each of the consitutents of air fall under the escape velocity of earth - so we lose very little in the way of our atmosphere to space. But we do lose a little here and there. The lower escape velocity on Mars is what hurts its atmosphere potential.