Mars-Like Conditions Sufficient to Sustain Earth-Bound Microbes

skade88 writes "Does life exist on Mars? We might assume if there ever was life on Mars then it most likely came about when Mars was a wetter and warmer place than it is now. So the question is, if life did exist on Mars in the past, does it still exist? Ars takes a look at how microbes have survived on Earth in environmental conditions much like we currently see on Mars."

Comments

Re:Good and bad

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand, we have to be even more careful not to contaminate Mars. On the other hand, finding (or creating) bacteria that can survive there could be the first step of terraforming the planet.

The first problem is that we don't want to contaminate Mars until we have found out if there is life there or not. The second problem is that it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. If one could conclusively prove that we wouldn't have that much problem with religion.

I say let's contaminate the shit out of that bitch, if there was life on it that is anywhere near what we have on Earth then it would have spread enough for us to notice by now.

Re:No, the question is: what happened

[flyingfsck]

The expanding sun idea presupposes that the sun is gaseous. The sun has actually been found to be rocky. surfaceofthesun.com Therefore the sun may actually run out of gas fuel much much much sooner than previously thought and will not expand and will likely not explode either, but will more likely just fizzle out and die. It appears that the sun is not a second generation star but more likely a third or fourth gen. Most people just blissfully ignore this research.