More Evidence for Early Oceans on Mars 93
DestroyAllZombies writes "More news about Mars. The good news: New Scientist reports that more analysis of Rover data supports the claims for widespread oceans in Mars' distant past. The bad news, from the article: 'An ocean of water once wrapped around Mars, suggests the discovery of soil chemicals by NASA's rovers. But the same chemicals also indicate that life was not widespread on the planet at the time the ocean was present.'"
Bad news? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think most people would agree that a planet-wide extinction of all life would qualify as 'bad news'.
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What do I care if a whole army of amoeba got pwned by massive climate change?
Oh... wait.
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I think most people would agree that a planet-wide extinction of all life would qualify as 'bad news'.
Neither is good news or bad news. Science exists to quantify and explain, not to hope for something. If hope that life existed on Mars is the major reason for your research, you aren't being a scientist. You are being a cheerleader.
It would certai
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Scientists are human and are allowed to have motivations. They shouldn't let it bias their work, of course, but still. If hope for finding something interesting and exciting got them into science, and keeps them at it, that's fine.
Also, who restricted this to scientists? You don't have to be a scientist to be interested in whether there had been life on mars or not.
I think the way "bad" is used in
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Wrong. Anyone who uses scientific method in his research is a scientist. It doesn't matter if he's motivated by dreams of going Kirk with alien females, or gets his kicks from abstract knowledge; purity of motive is irrelevant. The only requirement is the application of scien
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Having proofs of ancient life on Mars would have put us a step nearer the alien contact. Of course the crowd here is mostly optimistic about aliens intentions
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Only if it could be shown that this life had a different origin from that on Earth.
Is that really a question at all? (Score:2)
Is that really such a question? Given that there are a bazillion (heh, scientific, I know) planets out there, there's a huge number of Earthlikne planets as well, making it likely that there is something similar elsewhere life-wise. Also, once we look past our "Star Trek" prejudices, there's the likelihood of even more different types of life in a variety of ot
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The Star Trek universe is actually filled with non-humanoid life; it's just that humans tend to make contact with humanoid life and not interact much with any other life forms.
For this, we can only make the wildest of guesses, since it is impossible to generalize from a sample set of one.
Neither is it impossible, nor do we only have a sample of one. We have a p
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I thought of mentioning that, but figured I'd leave it at the more superficial level of Trek, rather than deep Trekkiedom. You know, where the public knows "Star Trek" as a show where starships travel around the galaxy and interact for the most part with aliens that are nothing other than humans with forehead bumps.
We do only
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Life is extinct? (Score:2)
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If the water was there, where did it go? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:If the water was there, where did it go? (Score:4, Informative)
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You misspelled owned.
Pwned.
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TEH HAX!!!!
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Sure, it is possible, but the field that is there is very weak (on the order of 1/100th of Earth's, if memory serves). Since we have only been measuring the magnetic field of Mars for the last 9 years (thanks to Mars Global Surveyor) there isn't the same long term magnetic data to compare with that of the Earth.
Is there definite proof that Mars doesn't have a molte
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Then why did it even exist ? (Score:2)
Was there an atmosphere once ?
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So does that mean Earth is just loosing H2O more slowly than did Mars? Comforting, sort of.
But I get a kick out of astro-science. We know so little about the universe it isn't funny. We assume the universe is growing, while it may be that we are
But how oceans were formed in the first place? (Score:2)
If the observations are correct and there was water on Mars, then its atmosphere was different than it was today, and perhaps a catastrophic planetary-level event destroyed it.
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That doesn't make any sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
But disregarding that, just because there was a lot of phosphorus in the water doesn't mean that life couldn't exist there. It just means life identical to the structure of life on earth couldn't exist there. Who's to say that life has to be built just the way it is on earth?
Indeed (Score:2)
I hope we don't find life on Mars, and that it never existed. Why? Because there will be one less argument (however frail) against terraforming the place.
The cold (Score:2)
But, the cold? Will, a green house effect be enough to heat it? Are there any published estimates of timings and what effects may be had?
(BTW, who would like to have near Antarctic weather [coolantarctica.com]. Yes. It's cool, but...)
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</badjoke>
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Physics and chemistry says there is only a strictly limited series of chemical reactions that can drive life - and only a strictly limited series of enviroments where it can arise. (Yes, I know about the various extremeophiles here on
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Physics and chemistry point out some things that probably won't work, and a few possibilities for others that could. There's a lot around the outside that we simply won't know about until we find it though.
We simply look for what we know because that's wh
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Um... yes, they do. You won't for example find a life form based on a Helium/Uranium reaction. Or any one of thousands of of other possible reactions. (For example it's impossible to base life around endothermic reactions - there has to be some exothermic reactions.)
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Here's a clue for you - helium is an inert gas. What science exactly is your PhD in? Fingerpainting analysis?
Thank goodness there's no life on Mars (Score:2)
Of course there could have been water on Mars... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Of course there could have been water on Mars.. (Score:2)
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Re:Of course there could have been water on Mars.. (Score:1)
More Evidence for Early Oceans on Mars (Score:1)
A long way to go... (Score:1)
"The researchers admit that the similar phosphate-to-sulfate ratio seen on opposite sides of the planet could also arise if wind mixed these materials together after the bodies of water disappeared."
The evidence may suggest similar water chemistry across the planet, but it doesn't prove it. I think we need to dig a little deeper, literal
Evidence of underground water? (Score:2)
Is there eny evidence of underground aquifiers like in the books?
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There is a story about the possible causes of martian channels over at Space.Com [space.com] that speaks to this.
It could be life, but not as we know it... (Score:2)
"To a first order approximation, you couldn't have had a biosphere that was anything like the one on Earth," Greenwood says.
Maybe there was life that created phosphorus instead of converting it, that's what they are saying.
To the submitter: RTFA
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Arrrr!! (Score:5, Funny)
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No, I'm not religious (Score:2)
To understand why, consider the galaxy is only about 100,000 light years across. Super intelligent species are super intelligent because they crossed biological distances, and the same forces will cause them to cross galactic distances and explore.
some may say 100K light years is so large as to be impossible to explore. But consider this idea. What these civilizations will do is create cell size
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You suggest human life will still exist in the 22nd century? Talking about an optimist point of view...
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I find it fairly convincing but many people don't.
I think the most plausible explanation is that simple life (RNA or equivalent) may be common, but complex life (DNA or equivalent) is very rare. Considering all the things we don't know, though, any particular explanation at this point is probably wrong.
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What are the chances there are just several (2, 3, 4) intelligent life forms in the Galaxy? I think the chances of this are very low. I believe 1 intelligent life form is much more likely than 2, 3 or 4, and I also think that many intelligent life forms in the galaxy is more likely than a small number. Given many intelligent life forms, it would seem one of them would seek us
Your logic is severely flawed. (Score:2)
1) the amount of time that humans exist on Earth is every small. Our recorded history is in the range of 10000 years, which is a very small amount of time, in cosmic terms, for other intelligent lifeforms to find us.
2) we have been sending radio signals to space for almost 100 years now. Considering the direction and width of radio emissions, the chanc
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1. I would think that a race advanced enough to explore the galaxy would have anough capability to realize if intelligent life were likely, and continue to observe it.
2. is the main point of the argument. In a short biological period of time we will be able to explore the entire galaxy. So radio waves not reaching other planets, etc., is moot.
3. is addressed in the main post as a possibility. I believe that there is only one intelligent race in our galaxy is more likely than that t
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I would think that a race advanced enough to explore the galaxy would have anough capability to realize if intelligent life were likely, and continue to observe it.
Your hypothesis makes the assumption that the advanced race would want to stay here to observe our evolution. Perhaps there is a better assumption that they will come back.
is the main point of the argument. In a short biological period of time we will be able to explore the entire galaxy. So radio waves not reaching other planets, etc., is
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You will notice I made no mention of biological progress. Just a short period of time biologically speaking. Very different th
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The fact remains that neither the pessimistic view or the optimistic view can be regarded as established: we simply do not know (and can not presently know) what has happened in the rest of the galaxy or the universe.
Personally I go with the optimistic view, because it is more logical than the pessimistic view: if God does not exist and Earth is the creation of chaotic processes (orders does come out
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I mentioned this where?
I contend there are indications there is no other intelligent life in this galaxy (I would guess it exists elswhere in the universe). From a probability perspective we can cut out:
All those instances in which we become aware of that other intelligent life.
I like to argue the set of universes in which intelligent life exists and the set of intelligent life exists and we are awa
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Uhm... They are simply following the Prime Directive. As soon as we develop warp technology, we will hear from them.
And we will get them drunk.
So it has been written, so shall it be.
Life could of existed on mars from my perspective (Score:1)
Intelligent life springs up everywhere (Score:1)
Good news? Bad news? (Score:2)