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Scientist Says Potential Signs of Ancient Life in Mars Rover Photos

Posted by samzenpus on from the did-you-see-that? dept.

mpicpp notes that a scientist named Nora Noffke says she thinks that the Curiosity rover may have found fossils on Mars. "Time and time again, as we carefully scrutinize the amazing high-resolution imagery flowing to Earth from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, we see weird things etched in Martian rocks. Most of the time our brains are playing tricks on us. At other times, however, those familiar rocky features can be interpreted as processes that also occur on Earth. Now, in a paper published in the journal Astrobiology, a geobiologist has related structures photographed by Curiosity of Martian sedimentary rock with structures on Earth that are known to be created by microbial lifeforms."

20 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. No coverup by meglon · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's not that NASA is covering up the proof of life they've found on Mars, it's just that they're trying to figure out who this Kilroy guy was before publishing the report.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    1. Re:No coverup by Deadstick · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're showing your age.

      OK, OK, I'm off your lawn.

    2. Re: No coverup by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I read a whole book on that experiment, and the long and short of it is that it was inconclusive, there are known non-organic circumstances that could be responsible, and the follow-up experiments were cut because budgets were cut and it was heavy, and most of the scientists on the teams were skeptical.

      There has always been a minority at NASA making those claims in the open. I think it is clear that it is not something "obvious" that NASA "didn't want to admit," but something that some smart people passionately believe, and the majority of their equally smart peers believe is inconclusive.

      Jumping more quickly to a conclusion isn't more science-y, even if you're really excited by the preliminary data and certain interpretations.

  2. Slashdot today. by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seven comments in, so far there's 4 jokes, 2 anti-us spam/trolls, and 1 crank. Quality discussion there.

    1. Re: Slashdot today. by DustinB · · Score: 3, Insightful

      More like koala tea. All jokes aside, this place isn't what it used to be... :( at its best its usually just inward bickering back and forth instead of discussion. I don't know where to go for insighful intelligent discussion online anymore.

      --
      Dustin - A different story...
    2. Re:Slashdot today. by iONiUM · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To be fair, there have been many of these "we think we may have found life / ancient life / we have a big announcement" type things out of NASA in the last few years, none of which had "conclusive" (or at least, relatively so) evidence of life.

      It's getting to the point where there's nothing really to discuss until they stop releasing these meta-statements, and actually give a real "we fucking found life FOR SURE" statement.

    3. Re: Slashdot today. by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't know where to go for insighful intelligent discussion online anymore.

      I go to Ars. They actually have journalists who write stuff and all. And you get the tech news 2-3 days before here.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    4. Re:Slashdot today. by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Funny

      What spam filters?

    5. Re:Slashdot today. by disambiguated · · Score: 2

      That's the price you pay for a completely uncensored forum. Personally, I think it's worth it.

      You don't have to read at -1 (you should if you're modding, though.) You're also reading and posting when the story has literally been here 15 minutes. There hasn't been time for quality discussion and moderation to take place (jokes, trolls and spam begin immediately, real discussion takes longer.)

    6. Re:Slashdot today. by solios · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...and unlike reddit, a registered and logged in user can dock "funny" posts and read at a threshold that scrubs most of the jokers and trolls under the rug. A feature slashdot has had since the 90s; a feature the rest of the internet still hasn't implemented.

    7. Re: Slashdot today. by smaddox · · Score: 2

      Thanks for the suggestion. I've been looking for somewhere better than slashdot. However, the lack of threaded comments is abhorrent.

    8. Re:Slashdot today. by farble1670 · · Score: 2

      Nora Noffke, a geobiologist at Old Dominion University in Virginia...

      NASA didn't release anything.

  3. Time for some leaps and not baby steps by DumbSwede · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is it me, or does NASA seem scared to get the answer to the question of is/was there life on Mars?

    Viking’s results where ambiguous, so we decided – NO LIFE – no need to go back for over 20 years.

    Now we keep getting a tantalizing clues, but can’t seem to summon the will to do a sample return mission. How many sample return missions could the ISS fund? How much more scientific benefit would come from it?

    Of late it almost seems like they want to be just shy of proof so they can keep sending missions, getting us just a little closer each time. Call it the scientific method if you want but as Keynes once observed – “in the long run, we are all dead.” How-about we get our answers now?

    How about a real microscope on one of these missions, not just a camera that can take photos of small objects -- far short of microbial dimensions – then insist on calling it a microscopic imager. Hell, why not a scanning electron microscope?

    Most of the scientific instrumentation seems focused on geology. Granted Geology can be related to conditions for life and is important knowledge, but what we really want answered is “is there life on Mars”, not “is there hematite on Mars?” OK hematite on Mars is cool to know, but not as important I think as the Life question.

    When we went to the moon there were far less important questions to be answered. How can the Life question on Mars be so much less a priority when it could up-end so much of scientific knowledge?

    One final note to my rant – is it possible there is some drag on this quest so as to maintain the status quo and not upset a largely religious electorate that assumes we should only be concerned with our fate here on Earth as their God has decreed, or that life on Mars might raise too many uncomfortable questions.

    --
    Letter To Iran
    1. Re:Time for some leaps and not baby steps by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they're afraid of saying there is life and being wrong. They're not currently saying there isn't life, they're saying they dont know either way. They have no definitive proof.

      I don't think anyone in the scientific community has any doubts that there was life there at one time. It's just a matter of proving it. I think it's rather likely that there still is life on mars and it will be surprisingly similar to microbial life hear on earth. I suspect our two planets have been inoculating each other for a very very long time.

    2. Re:Time for some leaps and not baby steps by werepants · · Score: 2

      The followup to Curiosity currently in the works is a sample return mission. The long absence after Viking is a bit strange and I'm not sure what the explanation is, but I think the Mars rovers were a bit of a fluke, actually. This wasn't some big, orchestrated "find life on Mars" initiative. At the time of Spirit and Opportunity getting developed it was more like NASA was hurting from a couple of high profile failures and needed something doable enough that it was almost a sure thing, and compelling enough to capture the public imagination. Hence, a pair of cute little robots that could send back nice pictures and look for water along the way.

      The whole rover architecture is only obvious in hindsight - sure it has benefits, but before Spirit and Opportunity there was really only one successful science mission using a wheeled platform, which was a Soviet deal where they landed something and drove it to get a distance record, and collected minimal science. If you look at things in that light, you have the initial rover mission that has something attainable for that architecture (try to find evidence of water visually and using spectral analysis instruments) and pretty safe (small, cheap, enough so that you can afford an entire redundant rover). Then, you find that things worked really damn well, so you work your way up to Sojourner, which was also a remarkable success, although they have still been hampered by low mass budget and solar panel degradation. Then, develop a whole new architecture for a pretty massive platform, Curiosity, which can afford a lot more instrumentation and really explore some things in depth, get rid of the solar panel problem, and get into the kind of mass category you would need for something like sample return.

      So yes, in hindsight, knowing that rovers are really badass on Mars, you could have skipped a step or two and jumped straight to sample return. However, not knowing whether it would work (and not having this grand vision from the beginning that seems so obvious now), this iterative process has worked pretty well I think.

      As well, the first people they sent to the moon were geologists, and the principal investigators for Mars missions have been geologists, because all there really is to look at are rocks. Plus, if you want to find signs of something that has been there before, you again would want something between a paleontologist and a geologist (the fields are closely related), and not a chemist or biologist, except for niche cases. Geology is really all about detective work, trying to piece together the past, which is exactly the discipline you want here.

    3. Re:Time for some leaps and not baby steps by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, there is still plenty of room for reasonable doubt. The focus on geology is how they will find past life, dig up a chunk of Martian coal (plants), iron ore nodules (anaerobic microbes) limestone (plankton sea shells), quartz (sponge fossils), etc, and you have your extraordinary evidence. If there is microbial life on Mars today the geology experiments have shown it's very unlikely to be found on the surface. If there was life on the surface in the past it didn't last long enough to put down the scale of geology we find on Earth.

      Seasonal variations in methane plumes are the strongest evidence for extant life on Mars but whatever produces the methane is deep underground where there's enough soil pressure to allow liquid water to exist. Current technology can't reach the source so it's still possible that the plumes are just unusual geologic phenomena with no life involved

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    4. Re:Time for some leaps and not baby steps by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

      Mars ain't the kind of place you raise your kids. And a return sample mission is far more difficult than I think you grasp. This isn't some comet where we can just swing into the dust trail, and even that almost failed when it landed back here. Just designing and building the return rocket is incredibly difficult and far beyond anything we've ever done. Per Zubrin, it's right at Mars_ve = 5.00 km/s ==> 11185 mph. The escape velocity of Mars is 5017 m/s, Earth's is around 11,000 m/s. So for a return mission we would have to land both a rover AND a rather large rocket to get a sample back. We've landed ONE probe there in a fashion that MIGHT be able to also land a return rocket (the sky crane). Looking over the web real quick I don't see any complete mission designs for a return mission from Mars that have all these calculations. Our current crop of rockets couldn't delivery the needed payloads in one trip, we haven't yet got a system for precision landing (for multiple trips, ie one to land the lander, another to land a return rocket) to guarantee that the multiple landings will actually end up close enough to each other...more than a coup[le of clicks apart and the rover will never make it back to the return rocket as even Spirit only moves a few feet a day.

      Basically, we have to wait on SpaceX to perfect the Grasshopper, or something similar. Their getting close, and no one else is even really working on such a system. We'll also need something like the SSL or Falcon 9 Heavy to get it all there, neither of which are actually flying yet. But, at least someone is working on it and actually testing launches now, all the tech is coming together. In the next few years everything should come together for this though.

  4. Re:US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORI by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

    This list was compiled before 911, so it does not even include all the destruction and chaos that followed. May this be a good history lesson for you young hipsters brainwashed by your media.

    links or it didn't happen. also the islamists just shot up a newspaper in france, so glass houses my friend.

  5. evidence of RECENTLY existing life: on the tires by fikx · · Score: 2

    I keep waiting for the report that evidence of past life was found on the tire treads of one of the rovers.
    "Look: proof life used to exist on Mars! Quick, send a command to rotate the tire some before the press notices we ran over the last one on the planet..."

    --
    AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
  6. Re:ok... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. The scientist in question is arguably the foremost in her (admittedly obscure) field, the study of microbial mats and their effects on sediments on Earth. She literally wrote the book on the subject and has a very extensive publication record on it. She is a well-known and respected researcher for this work, although admittedly it's obscure stuff at the interface between sedimentology and paleontology.
    2. The pictures themselves are quite clear and are from the mastcam on the Curiosity rover. They aren't distant blurry pictures with huge blocky pixels and horrible processing, although they could be better. The structures interpreted from them, not so convincing, IMHO, but that has little to do with image resolution issues.
    3. She's an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia.

    I think you scored a 0.5/3. Don't trust your prejudices.

    That being said, I think the interpretations in the paper aren't correct.