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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."
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!
and yet no life found
so not deep enough to weed out the radiation from sun
"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.
One day they may fly again. Come on! Anything (literally anything) *may* happen. Very, very unlikely but maybe. This article is pure speculation.
Drone strike on American soil PROVEN
Blast effects from Indianapolis explosion prove it was a military bombing.
Jim Stone, freelance journalist, updated May 15 2014
Initial report:
Indianapolis blast caused by high velocity explosive
There is little information coming out of Indianapolis, but all of what is coming out indicates that it was a high velocity detonation which occured a few feet off the ground.
There is little concrete foundation remaining at the house the explosion happened at, which totally rules out gas. The lack of high definition photos is damning, we are getting nothing of the blast epicenter and only the debris in the streets. I managed to find a super high quality photo of the neighborhood that does not focus on the house where it originated, but it is clear enough overall to seem to show that the foundation is gone and there is only dirt. But there is so much rubble that it is really hard to tell what is there without a better photo. I am working on this now, and will update it later.
I have received requests to explain the following photo better. When I mention the decompression damage, this is what I am trying to say. If you have a detonation from a military grade explosive, rather than a natural gas explosion, the shock wave that goes out from the blast is supersonic and forms a wall of bunched up compressed air as it moves outward. This creates a vacuum cavity in the heart of the detonation, which can go outward for several hundred feet. Air needs to rush backwards to fill that void after the blast wave has passed, and this creates an enormous suction after the intital blast that can cause significant damage in addition to the initial blast damage. So the arrows are pointing at windows, garage doors, and exterior walls of houses that got sucked off by this negative pressure wave. The fact that the houses I refer to had the external sheathing ripped outward, instead of being blown inward, proves that this was no gas explosion, which is subsonic, it was a detonation of military grade ordinance. Explosions are subsonic, detonations are supersonic, and detonations will cause the reverse pressure wave following the blast. Subsonic explosions will not. This is what I am referring to in the high res photo.
Click the image to enlarge it.
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?
Astrophysicists love to talk about life on other planets. Unfortunately this is probably the last group of humans you should ever talk to about this topic. If you want to know about life on other planets, talk to a biologist or someone who understands DNA and how insanely, insanely complex it is. The odds of life forming on any planet is so insanely small, that even given a near-infinite number of planets, there is almost no way for it to happen. To expect it on Mars shows a real knowledge problem. When people talk about areas beyond their expertise, you get garbage. It's why you don't listen to people like Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about philosophy. They don't know anything about it. It's just huberis.
We now may be closer to answering the question David Bowie asked more than ~45 years ago.
If your going to speculate, do it right. "NASA scientists determined that the microbes developed religious beliefs and then fought a holy war to the bitter end. The last remaining muslim microbe committed suicide after discovering there were no goat microbes left to fuck."
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.
You won't get funding for your next mission unless you dangle the "well there could have been life there" card.
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.
The rest of the world may not agree to let the US venture off this planet. If they can't take care of this planet.......
...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
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".
Then again you and your Hillary could lose yet another election and blame it on the "Russians".
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.
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.
"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.
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
Is that too complicated for you?
Don't be a jackass.