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A Lake On Mars May Once Have Teemed With Life (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Verge:
Once upon a time on Mars, there was a crater that had a massive lake that may have hosted life. Now researchers are saying that a whole variety of organisms could have flourished there. Sure, that life was probably just microbial, but this is another exciting step toward understanding just how habitable Mars may have been around 3.5 billion years ago. Petrified mud that was once at the bottom of the lake suggests that, at the time, the lake had different chemical environments that could have hosted different types of microbes.
The rocks also show that the Red Planet's climate may have been more dynamic than we thought, going from cold and dry to warm and wet, before eventually drying out. We still don't know whether life once existed on Mars when the planet was warmer and had liquid water. But today's findings, published in Science, give a much more nuanced and detailed picture of what this area of Mars could have looked like through time... "The lake had all the right stuff for microbial life to live in," says study co-author Joel Hurowitz, a geochemist and planetary scientist at Stony Brook University.
NASA's Curiosity rover spent three and a half years collecting data from the crater, and that data now suggests that a habitable environment existed there for at least tens of thousands of years -- and possibly as long as "tens of millions of years."
The rocks also show that the Red Planet's climate may have been more dynamic than we thought, going from cold and dry to warm and wet, before eventually drying out. We still don't know whether life once existed on Mars when the planet was warmer and had liquid water. But today's findings, published in Science, give a much more nuanced and detailed picture of what this area of Mars could have looked like through time... "The lake had all the right stuff for microbial life to live in," says study co-author Joel Hurowitz, a geochemist and planetary scientist at Stony Brook University.
NASA's Curiosity rover spent three and a half years collecting data from the crater, and that data now suggests that a habitable environment existed there for at least tens of thousands of years -- and possibly as long as "tens of millions of years."
and yet no life found
so not deep enough to weed out the radiation from sun
How does this affect anyone?
It gives us a better understanding of how life happens, how it evolves. If we find evidence of life on Mars, or if we fail to find evidence, that helps us to understand life on earth. It is hard to point to a direct application of basic scientific research, but it has historically proved to be a very wise investment.
Can anyone justify the value of this research?
The "value" has to be compared against the cost. These unmanned robotic missions are way cheap. If you want to look for poor value/cost, look at the $100B squandered on the ISS.
I have a simple question for you Mr Faraday: how do your electrical parlour tricks affect anyone? What possible use can your moving wires have. Surely people must admit that this research serves no purpose for anyone. Can anyone justify the value of your research? I think not.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
> The "value" has to be compared against the cost. These unmanned robotic missions are way cheap. If you want to look for poor value/cost, look at the $100B squandered on the ISS.
Which is about the cost of five months of the 2003-2011 war in Iraq.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
"a massive lake that may have hosted life."
As of now, we have zero evidence that the chemical reactions that created life on earth have occurred in a similar fashion anywhere else. There is no real evidence that this lake hosted life, its just interesting speculation. The religious minded could speculate the lake is the lost Eden of the Bible with equal evidence to support it.
It may also have once teemed with aliens from the planet Zardoz. We really don't have any conclusive evidence to say it *didn't*, after all.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Not to mention that Laser thing Einstein dreamed up. I mean, ok, it's fancy, but in the end, what is it good for? Before there's any sensible home application, you'll see at least 60 years go by.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One day they may fly again. Come on! Anything (literally anything) *may* happen. Very, very unlikely but maybe. This article is pure speculation.
Indeed. The wise mandarins running the Ottoman Empire correctly saw that a mechanism for cranking a shaft by boiling water could do no better than replace a little boy, who might be employed, say, turning meat on a spit. What is the point of such things when child labor is cheap, and inattention can be discouraged by vicious beatings?
A more serious answer: if were we to ever decide to create a colony on Mars, what resources exist there would matter immensely. For now, we are going to do no such thing in the foreseeable future. But we might if we learned enough about Martian resources to bring the long term price tag down.
The rocks also show that the Earth's (Red Planet's) climate may have been more dynamic than we thought, going from cold and dry to warm and wet, before eventually drying out. We still don't know whether life once existed on Earth (Mars) when the planet was warmer and had liquid water. But today's findings, published in Science, give a much more nuanced and detailed picture of what this area of Earth (Mars) could have looked like through time... "The lake had all the right stuff for microbial life to live in," says study co-author Joel Hurowitz, a geochemist and planetary scientist at Stony Brook University.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The ISS served a purpose but no one has had the vision to build on what has been learned. The hardest, most dangerous, and most expensive part of exploring space is getting into orbit. The IIS should have served as the core component of an enlarged orbital construction and vehicle dock. The ISS and the old space shuttle program has provided a wealth of data on orbit repair and construction techniques and the physiological impact of those working for prolonged periods in that environment. We have multiple private sector companies capable of delivering materials into orbit. Build the initial ships on the ground but dock and re-launch them from orbit. Some of the newer and more esoteric space propulsion engines don't require millions of explosive chemicals required to get something on any size into orbit. And sooner or later all the private companies will go broke once when the number of satellites needing to be launched suddenly dry up.
And if Mars had water and life at some point in it's history it had to be when the planet still had a molten and rotating core to produce a magnetosphere capable of providing a minimal atmosphere of some makeup needed to support life as we know it as well as some radiation protection. If Earth's core faltered in the slightest and reducing the magnetosphere the planet would die a quick death and billions of years from know some intrepid space travelers would be looking to see if Earth ever supported life.
We now may be closer to answering the question David Bowie asked more than ~45 years ago.
And a fraction of the trillions the Pentagon "misplaces" every now and again.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You think that's bad, you should see this laughable black powder the Chinese have come up with. The only thing it's good for is shooting fireworks up into the air. What's the use of that?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The ISS served a purpose but no one has had the vision to build on what has been learned.
There was very little learned from the ISS that we hadn't already learned from Skylab and Mir. We could have kept Mir in orbit, and retrofitted it for 1% of what was spent on the ISS. Instead, deorbiting Mir was a precondition for Russian participation in the ISS.
I think not!
You said it, brother.
the TOTAL amount of money given to NASA for the entirety of its life is less than the Department of Defense got in one year(2016).....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
> The "value" has to be compared against the cost. These unmanned robotic missions are way cheap. If you want to look for poor value/cost, look at the $100B squandered on the ISS.
Which is about the cost of five months of the 2003-2011 war in Iraq.
Yes... but every 100 billion spent on "frivolous pure research" is 100 billion not spent killing each other.
So whatever science was gained from the ISS can be considered a peace dividend. And the results of pure science always pay off eventually.
Nothing was wasted.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Or shovels into Boeing's coffers
If we're able to find out about life billions of years ago, we might one day detect intelligence in creimer's brain today!
I'm about as tired of reading news about what might have been on Mars as I am hearing about how a new battery technology "might" increase energy density by a factor of ten.
Decades of this crap. Show me hard evidence of live (or fossilized) microbes, or give it a rest.
Butchering out pestilent Muzzi-wogs right-now is more important than happenstance 3.5-billion old ( non-existant ) Martian bugs.
You won't get funding for your next mission unless you dangle the "well there could have been life there" card.
At least ISS is up there already. Look at the billions squandered on SLS, which so far hasn't even had its first test launch yet, and still won't launch a human for a few years to come.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
There was also all that basic research on turning lead into gold - it was so common at one point that it had its own name, Alchemy.
The reality is that there is a lot of less media sexy basic research that is NOT being funded because we are spending money on NASA. Its hard to point to useful results from NASA's missions. The real value has been the stuff created to carry out those missions, largely solving problems identified using basic research funded elsewhere. Nasa has mostly turned gold into lead.
...and did those life-forms listen to warnings from their scientists about global warming ? Hell no - I think there's a lesson for all of us here.
Nullius in verba
"ISS that we hadn't already learned from Skylab and Mir"
The ISS project absorbed the data collected from the earlier orbital stations and then surpassed them in every way. There is a wealth of online information about Mir, Skylab, and the ISS. You best go study up before you make anymore stupid remarks.
"deorbiting Mir was a precondition for Russian participation in the ISS"
It was a "precondition" because Russia couldn't afford to maintain Mir and meet it's financial obligations required to participate in the ISS program.
A Lake On Mars May Once Have Teemed With Life OR, it may not have.
Mars Forest area, possibly conifers, many tree trunks visible, game over NASA
Using Google Earth I found an area with obvious trees and both the vegetation and MANY tree trunks are visible. Furthermore the trees at the edge appear to face away from the camera while the ones in the middle are seen more head on, exactly what you would expect to see. This is game over NASA
Given the current administration's decisions and path, I feel like you could jump forward a few years and substitute "Earth" for "Mars".
$100B squandered
Seriously? Just the index of accomplishments 2000-2011 is a frigging 1341 pages long.
Then again you and your Hillary could lose yet another election and blame it on the "Russians".
I have a simple question. How does this affect anyone? This is 3.5 billion years ago that we're talking about, on another planet. Whatever might have lived in that lake is long since dead. How is anyone affected by this? Can anyone justify the value of this research? I strongly suspect that I'll be modded down to -1 so people can ignore my important post and pretend it doesn't exist. Otherwise, people would have to admit that this research serves no purpose for anyone. Can anyone justify the value of this research? I think not!
Let me quote an erstwhile editor of New Scientist magazine. "Science is interesting, and if you don't agree, you can fuck off.
Do us all a favour, and fuck off. You're on the wrong website. Bye.
Notice that I pointedly did not address your argument. That's because your argument is worthless and I wouldn't dream of dignifying it with a response.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
DNA didn't exist when the earliest life arose. Thanks for demonstrating that you know fuck all beyond mystery-mongering. Let's pop you in the box marked 'last group of humans you should ever talk to about this topic'.
To expect it on Mars shows a real knowledge problem. When people talk about areas beyond their expertise, you get garbage.
Are you trying to punch a hole in reality with sheer irony?
Oh, and it's "hubris".
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
If your going to speculate
You're clearly very smart.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
First you check for the conditions. No point looking for hard evidence if the conditions aren't/weren't even there. Is that too complicated for you? Why are you reading this anyway? You should have a good think about that question.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
In addition to what the other AC said, you should probably be aware of Mir's many other issues. I don't know what sort of retrofit you had in mind, but it's probably uninformed nonsense.
From a Biblical perspective, the lake on Mars has never teemed with life. This would imply that there is sin and death elsewhere in the universe, other than here on planet Earth. We fundamentalists know otherwise, and thus can say with certainty that a lake on Mars did not once teem with life. And while I'm on the subject, we can also say with certainty that the entire SETI project is a waste of resources as well. :)
Another fake news "may have hosted life" without even a remote scent of proof that life ever existed anywhere outside of Earth.
If we find evidence of life on Mars, or if we fail to find evidence, that helps us to understand life on earth.
But, how about the other bazillion-plus factors that would affect Martian life? We neither know them nor can reasonable infer what things were like 'back then' - factors, I'm sure, are different from those involved in a Terran system.
If it makes you mad, it's worth it. If it enrages you, it's worth even more. If spending a penny on it makes you suicidal, I'd spend ten bucks.
"Show me hard evidence of live (or fossilized) microbes, or give it a rest." Sure, we have such evidence already. Found in the middle of rare class meteorites that fell on earth and even some we brought here from space missions. Yes we have already found evidence of life in space. In 9 different meteorites we have found fossilized evidence of indigenous cyanobacteria (Blue green algae.) I believe the science is very sound, the problem is politically the government will shy away from openly supporting any evidence that may indicate life on earth may have been seeded from elsewhere.
Well, the energy density of lithium-ion batteries has gone up by a factor of six or so since 1990, in terms of Wh/kg. And it's gone up by a factor of 10 compared to the crummy Ni/Cd batteries I had when I was a kid... I admit though, I probably only needed to hear the news of battery improvements 5 or 6 times tops over the last 30 years.
$100B is about what the U.S. spends each month on medicare + medicaid (war in Iraq ~= 1 year medicare + medicaid). A total annual NASA budget of around $20B is small compared to other expenses. 1 year of food stamps is about 3.5 years of NASA
Well, for one it would make all religions redundant, as obviously the Earth and Humans turn out not to be Gods special snowflake, but just one of billions of planets that host life. So I'm all fore showing proof of life on Mars, either on the past or still there.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Yeah, actually I would. Something useful might come out of the space program someday. Getting anything useful out of negroes is pretty much a non-starter.
How would your death affect anyone? You are a nobody that hasn't ever accomplished or contributed anything. By your logic, you should do the world a favour and kill yourself right now because you are so worthless.
Is that too complicated for you?
Don't be a jackass.