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NASA Mars Rover Finds Organic Matter in Ancient Lake Bed (theguardian.com)
NASA's veteran Curiosity rover has found complex organic matter buried and preserved in ancient sediments that formed a vast lake bed on Mars more than 3bn years ago. From a report: The discovery is the most compelling evidence yet that long before the planet became the parched world it is today, Martian lakes were a rich soup of carbon-based compounds that are necessary for life, at least as we know it. Researchers cannot tell how the organic material formed and so leave open the crucial question: are the compounds remnants of past organisms; the product of chemical reactions with rocks; or were they brought to Mars in comets or other falling debris that slammed into the surface? All look the same in the tests performed. But whatever the ultimate source of the material, if microbial life did find a foothold on Mars, the presence of organics meant it would not have gone hungry. "We know that on Earth microorganisms eat all sorts of organics. It's a valuable food source for them," said Jennifer Eigenbrode, a biogeochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The Curiosity rover also discovered that methane on the red planet changes with the seasons. The Verge: Where the methane is coming from is still a mystery, but scientists have some ideas, including that microbes may be the source of the gas. Researchers at NASA and other US universities analyzed five years' worth of methane measurements Curiosity took at Gale Crater, where the rover landed in 2012. Curiosity detected background levels of methane of about 0.4 parts per billion, which is a tiny amount. (In comparison, Earth's atmosphere has about 1,800 parts per billion of methane.) Those levels of methane, however, were found to range from 0.2 to about 0.7 parts per billion, with concentrations peaking near the end of the summer in the northern hemisphere, according to a study published today in Science. This seasonal cycle repeated through time and could come from an underground reservoir of methane, the study says. Whether that reservoir is a sign that there is or was life on Mars, however, is impossible to say for now.
... of complex life on Mars. Of the sort that screams: "The great filter is still ahead of you guys and it's coming for you too!"
Ooooh, creeeepy. That would have me scared.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Are there the remains of a red Tesla roadster scattered around the area?
it doesn't seem likely ANYBODY will discover life on another planet...
Not true. We will likely find life on exoplanets soon. We just need some improvements in spectroscopy so that we get detect molecular oxygen in their atmospheres as they occlude their mother star. That is a sure sign of life. Other than photosynthesis, there is no other plausible explanation for high levels of O2.
The James Webb Space Telescope will launch in May 2020, and can do atmospheric spectroscopy. We may get our first sign of exolife shortly after.
"Organic," in chemistry terms, is the study of all the fun things Carbon does.
"Organic," in the minds of many, means "non-GMO farming."
As you can see, there is a lot of difference in the scope and implications of those two categories.
And "organic" in the original sense of the word, "relating to or derived from living matter."
(cf: https://dictionary.cambridge.o...)
I think that this is the confusion here. "Organic" molecules, originally, meant molecules which were derived from living matter. But after 1828, when Friedrich Wöhler first synthesized Urea (an organic molecule), it was realized that the carbon molecules labelled "organic" could also be created by non-biological means. The word continues to have both meanings, chemists using it to mean molecules containing carbon, and non-chemists using it to mean molecules derived from living organisms (and, more recently, foods grown without technological intervention.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Life On Mars never gets old.
Finding God in a Dog
Given we are not leaving the solar system, ever,
Wrong!
it doesn't seem likely ANYBODY will discover life on another planet
Wrong! I'm sensing a pattern here.
We are marooned here for the duration of our survival, which will be either until we destroy ourselves, or the Sun takes care of it as it expands and fries earth to a crisp before the end of 5 billion more years.
Wrong!
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Doesn't seem likely. Mars was the best option and it's not panning out. Europa is about the only other option but that's a slim chance. Given we are not leaving the solar system, ever, it doesn't seem likely ANYBODY will discover life on another planet... We are marooned here for the duration of our survival, which will be either until we destroy ourselves, or the Sun takes care of it as it expands and fries earth to a crisp before the end of 5 billion more years.
You're just a ray of sunshine aren't you? ;-)
With science, unlike mathematics, there is never certain proof. All we ever have is evidence. Once the degree of uncertainty is small enough, it is a discovery.
But will the uncertainty diminish enough, using just spectroscopy, to consider the presence of certain gasses or compounds evidence of life? That seems shaky, and subject to confirmation bias. As much as I would love to find some form of extraterrestrial life, I also have to acknowledge that it's possible there is none, at least in this system.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
we aren't ever likely to actually find life since we have no way of observing it directly
Think bigger than the some number of decades you have left.
So, I'm flamebait but the OP, which is clearly a Troll is just fine? Very well, that is fine.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Chemists know what organic compound means (somewhat), but to a significant percentage of the population organic means "natural". Heck even chemists can't agree on a definition of "organic compound". Maybe "carbon" would have been more specific and therefore more clear, if that's what is meant.
Of course, a certain percentage of Slashdot readers would think "carbon" means "omg Martians were burning fossil fuels and destroyed their planet by global warming", but I guess no wording is completely idiot proof.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Point taken. I should have done better than that. Lets see if I can.
The over all point of the original post was that we will never find life on another planet because we will never leave the solar system. I will now explain why he is wrong.
People do not realize how advanced our technology really is. If we pulled together all our technology from all areas, and tossed some untried technology but technology that we are reasonably sure will work we could launch a interstellar ship that could reach our nearest star in 40 years. The untried technology that I'm thinking about is the Orion space drive that could theoretically reach 10% the speed of light.
If we look at theoretical technology that exists only on paper but we are reasonably sure will work with some work, we could launch ships to every star with in say, 20 light years in a few decades. I'm thinking of fusion drives where we could potentially reach 20% the speed of light.
It is not technology that restricts us to earth and our star system, it's economics. Launching any such star ship would probably bankrupt the world economy but that will not always be the case.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Well first of all the original post was that we would never find extraterrestrial life because we will never leave the solar system. I hope that my post response how incorrect that was. Nothing in ether post was anything said about a colony.
With that being said, I think your post has merit. At 10% the speed of light with a 80 year round trip time to Alpha Centari I believe we can assume that a ship going there will be a one way trip. It would be inhuman and waste full to spend such resources without the end goal of establishing a colony there.
I'm going to disagree with you with the technology to set up a colony. Launching a ship with on a 40 year voyage will clearly need to be a self sustaining colony on its own. Again we have that technology. We are capable of growing food stuff in a green house. With genetic modification we could even modify any plants we send to grow specifically in artificial environments. The reason so many colonies failed on Earth in the early days of colonization of America was because crops failed due to weather and other environmental factors. Growing food in a artificial environment will completely remove any chance from the growing environment.
Establishing a colony on Mars would use the same technology. In fact building a colony on Mars would be easier than building one on a starship. Most of the resources you need are already there. You have CO2, water, and soil. All just need to be processed for plants to grow. Again, we have the technology, we just don't have the economic resources to pull it off.
As for a colony in Antarctica. It would be cheaper to establish such a colony but I doubt it would be easier for it to be self sufficient as a Mars colony. Virtually all the resources that you need to sustain a colony in Antarctica are locked under 2 KM of ice. Virtually all raw materials for everything will need to be imported. Besides, we don't need colonies in Antarctica. We need to establish off world colonies soon as possible. You know, "having all our eggs in one basket", kind of thing.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Ring Ring .. here is your wake up call.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Please take the time to read the linked to article. The part that proves you wrong is under Theoretical applications. Freeman Dyson, a man who is probably way smarter than both of us, clearly shows that a mission to Alpha Centauri is possible in just over 40 years with a Orion drive system at 10% light speed.
Since your argument seems to be based on the mass required to get a star ship up to the speed required. That being the mass of the fuel. There are plans that will work where the ship doesn't have to carry the fuel on board.
One of these plans is the send the fuel ahead of the ship. The fuel would be launched ahead of the ship. The ship as it accelerates would over take each fuel package. It is called a acceleration trail.
Another method would denseness with fuel and reaction mass all together. In system lasers, big honking lasers, would be used to push a starship to a star using a version of the solar sail plan.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
A link was provided in the original post. A unknown reader can do the research for themselves and make up their own mind.
Lets take you, an unimaginative slashdot poster with little understanding of the discussion at hand. Who says it can't be done. Yet can't or won't produce any evidence to back up his clam.
Then we have Freeman Dyson. Probably one of the most brilliant man alive. A world renown physicist and mathematician. A man who say not only is it possible, has done the math to back it up.
So, which of you two do you think we should go with? Yeah, I think we'll go with Freeman Dyson on this one.
As for Alpha Centauri , there is evidence of a earth size planet in the habitual zone of Alpha Centauri B. Taking the data from the reports I dropped it into Universal Sandbox and created a model of the system. I found it is possible for a planet to be in the habitual zone and have a stable orbit.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Still, the fuel thing is... pesky. Is it possible to pick up material on the way somehow?
Why yest there is. Many years ago I read a paper about a ship designed to go to Alpha Centauri. From what I remember the project looked pretty do able. I can't find a copy of the paper online now but I did save it in a pdf and have it some where.
One of the things that has stuck with me for a number of years is how the author came up with a solution to the fuel problem. "Pellets" of fuel would be launched from the home system at speeds slightly slower than what the ship should be going when it catches up to the fuel pellet. The author called it an "acceleration trail" or something like that.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.