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Seeking Signs of Ancient Martian Life

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 13, 2008 02:35 AM
from the speed-dating dept.
Mars Space NASA Science
StonyandCher writes in about a collaboration between NASA and a leading Australian exploration and mining scientist, Dr. Brent McInnes, to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. The plan is to develop and miniaturize the "Alphachron" — an exploration technology currently employed by the Australian minerals industry to determine the age of minerals. If the Alphachron can be miniaturized, it could fly with the next rover mission set for launch in 2010. "The highest priority is to understand when liquid water was present on Mars. 'The same minerals that can be found in [Western Australia]... can also be found on Mars,' McInnes said. Accordingly, by using the Alphachron to date minerals on Mars and thus tell when liquid water may have been present, it can be inferred when life may have been sustainable near the surface of the planet."
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Submission: New Aussie technology may help find life on Mars by StonyandCher (1121349)
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  • Most life evolved based on water in our planet, because there's a lot of it here... that doesn't mean life couldn't have evolved based on hidrogen, or methane, or whatever substance is abundant on a specific planet.

    Even on our planet, living creatures have been found in strange places like lava and volcanoes.

    Save that money for understanding Mars as it is NOW, before investigating his history.

    • Re:why they always think water == life? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RiotingPacifist (1228016) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:56AM (#23389184)
      I cant rember where i read about it, but theres quite an interesting concept about life on a neutron star (where it would be based about nuclear interactions instead of electronic interaction, somewhere. I think it was probably sci-fi but it is a cool concept.

      Generally people consider water essential to life because:
      Chemical based life forms are much more likely than nuclear or gravitation based life forms (too small or too slow)
      Carbon based life is much more likely than non-carbon based life
      Carbon based life depends on water for alot of interactions (mainly due to hydrogen bonding)
      Considering non-carbon life forms, if life where nitrogen based, it would probably also depend on water
      There is the possibility of phosphorus based life (which would probably be hydrophobic tho)
      The possibility of silicon based life also exists (which wouldn't depend on water)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dreamchaser (49529)
      From what we know now you need a good solvent. Ammonia is a potential candidate. Hydrogen is not. Methane could be used for respiration in conjunction with life that evolved in ammonia.

      Of course, there's plenty we do not know and it's always possible, but with the ubiquity of water and it's favorable properties it's the best place to start. Also, we may be more likely to recognize life that evolved using water as it's solvent. More alien types may just elude us.

      That being said, we are talking about lif
        • If there was life on Mars I think we would know by now. Life is adaptive and it tends to occupy all the available space. Telescopes hundreds of light years away would have no difficulty detecting life on Earth.

          I just don't think we are going to find anything. I hope I am wrong.

  • Venusian Life (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bananatree3 (872975) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:03AM (#23388754)
    When the solar system was cooling, both Venus and the Earth were probably in similar states. There is the possibility that oceans too formed on Venus, many billions of years ago. Of course now it's hell incarnate, but it may have been able to birth life eons ago.
    • Of course now it's hell incarnate, but it may have been able to birth life eons ago

      No, I'm pretty sure Detroit is still in Michigan...

  • Wouldn't it be really funny if some space ship that we send to Mars to look for signs of life accidently has some bacteria on it, which goes into the Martian soil and eventually evolves into an alien race?
  • It does the same experiment that the 1970s initial Mars Landers did.
    The signs then were inconclusive and will be inconclusive because: We look at other planets with the same glasses we look at Earth.
    Heck even on earth, we are still surprised daily by new findings of life we thought could not support life.
    And these were detected after so many years and with so good tools.
    What makes you say a rover-sized tincan will magically detect past life on Mars?
    Has life detection techniques improved so fast in 30 years?
    Get about 10 kgs of Mars soil from various locations to Earth orbit (ISS) and let the ISS search it for life.
    Stop wasting money and sending tincans all over again.

    • The Article is Off-Base (Score:4, Informative)

      by iamlucky13 (795185) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @01:23PM (#23393688)
      First of all, no this is not the same experiment the Viking landers did in the 1970's. The Viking landers carried cameras, meterology instruments, a sampling arm, a seismometer, and a small biology experiment. You're probably thinking of the last one. The results were inconclusive because they realized after the fact there were factors they didn't control for that more than likely spoiled the results. This does not mean that these factors can't be effectively controlled for.

      But that doesn't matter, because the article isn't talking about looking for life now (although I'm not sure the author realizes that). Neither Mars Exploration Rovers currently on Mars nor the Mars Science Laboratory due to launch at the end of next year will really be looking for life.

      The instrument (alphachron) referred to in the article is used to date mineral deposits. The MER's established with a fairly high degree of confidence that liquid water existed on Mars in the past, based partially on the presence of certain types of minerals. If alphachron is flown on a mission, it will be used to determine the age of these deposits, thereby constraining when liquid water, and perhaps providing some key insights over how Mars evolved.

      I'm almost certain the article is off-base in suggesting this instrument might fly on the Mars Science Laboratory, which will launch towards the end of 2009 and arrive in 2010. It's not currently manifested, and since assembly is taking place right now and instruments have already been eliminated to keep the project under-mass and not too far over-budget, I can't believe there's any chance of it flying on MSL.

      It's also not currently listed on the manifest for Europe's ExoMars rover, to launch in 2013, but I don't think its payload is currently set in stone. The next NASA opportunity under the current plans is the 2016 Mars Astrobiology Field Lab, but Alphachron doesn't sound very complementary to the goals of that mission.

      Sadly, a lot of good instruments get developed, but never fly due to priorities and engineering constraints. This may end up being such a case, but at least it has commercial applications outside the space program.
  • Ancient Martian life? Why bother? All they'd do is show you pictures of their grand kids and talk about how great Mars used to be. What they should be doing is looking for some young, sexy, teenage martians. For that matter, why are they looking on Mars anyways? Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

    Has it really been so long since the original Star Trek aired that scientists have forgotten that the primary goal of space exploration is to find hot alien women to have sex with? I'm willing to forgive science for failing to deliver on its promises of flying cars and personal jetpacks, but if I don't have harem of hot alien babes soon, then I am going to be FUCKING PISSED.

  • I'm talking about all of our probes and landers, not impact events. I don't see how we can properly sterilize a spacecraft.

    I just watched a good documentary on mass extinctions and climate changes in Earth's geological past. It convinced me that nothing short of an act of God can extinguish life from this planet. We know bacteria can survive in space. The resiliency of life combined with our very human ability to overestimate our abilities leads me to believe we've already started the process.

    • We have martian rocks on Earth, and so there surely are a lot of earth rocks on Mars.
      Both are due to asteroid impacts projecting debris all around the place, including a few reaching neighbouring planets.

      Those rock were not sterilized either, so .. although it is good practice to think about germ contamination, it may not be that important to be certain to achieve 100% decontamination on gear sent on other planets.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by WalksOnDirt (704461)

        We have martian rocks on Earth, and so there surely are a lot of earth rocks on Mars.
        That doesn't really follow. It is much harder to blast debris out of Earth's gravity well than the smaller one of Mars, and the greater atmospheric pressured here adds another serious difficulty. Perhaps some material from the larger impacts on Earth made it to Mars, but I'd expect the quantity to be minuscule compared to the amount going the other way.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by kanweg (771128)
      "It convinced me that nothing short of an act of God can extinguish life from this planet. "

      One might think that because skydaddy doesn't exist we're safe then. However, mother Nature can do it well on its own: There are explosions in the universe so powerful that they can destroy life even if the explosion is hundreds of light years away. Google for gamma ray-bursts.

      Bert

  • Plenty of evidence (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:34AM (#23389332)
    Plenty of evidence for ancient life on mars, and the moon for that matter.
    I remember seeing websites that showed ruined buildings on both as well as many other anomalies that scientists (read closed mind almost like religious freaks, scared of speaking out as they're funding would get cut) dismissed. Keep an open mind when you look on the net for this stuff

  • Signs of life in Western Australia? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ultimately the scientists hope to establish whether it is possible for some form of life and ultimately culture to develop in Western Australia.

    • Re:Finding water = important; Finding life = ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vectronic (1221470) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @02:49AM (#23388692)
      It's important because it would be our first chance to essentially witness the demise of a once habitable planet, its along the same lines as the immense amount of energy spent on trying to figure out how, where, and why the dinosaurs died.

      Its all very interesting, even if for day-today life, its really quite insignificant. Especially considering the same effects that have happened to Mars, could very plausibly happen to Earth aswell even if its not for many more millenium (Millenia?)

      And building bases on Mars wont really destroy all the information instantaniously, only dismiss some methods of gathering information.

      • And building bases on Mars wont really destroy all the information instantaniously, only dismiss some methods of gathering information.
        Like what? You can't gather information where the base is, and that's it. Mars is a big place. However, you do get people up there who can look for stuff much faster than the current approach.

        A Mars base should be a net benefit from this angle too.

      • Re:Finding water = important; Finding life = ? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by maquah (965242) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:04AM (#23389440)
        Looking at Google's three-layered Mars [google.com] map: dunno how they determined their 'zero' with the elevations, but it looks like there are significantly more meteor craters on the 'above zero elevation' parts of the map (Surface water = insulation from meteor impact).
        A few thoughts:
        (1) Arsia Mons - the enormous volcanic mountain - is almost exactly on the other side of the planet from the -9 km near-circular depression, Hellas Planitia (there's a map with geographic names linked to the the USGS astrogeology image gallery [usgs.gov]). I wonder if Hellas Planitia is the scar of a meteor that penetrated the planet's crust, and the volcanoes on the other side of the planet from the shock of the impact?
        (2) Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Odyssey Mars radiation environment experiment [wikipedia.org] seems to have focused on the impact of solar and other cosmic radiation, rather than scanning Mars for any naturally 'hot' spots? It seems as though Argyre Planitia might be a place to 'look' for higher-than-average radiation of planetary origin: according to Google's Map [google.com] - the 'infrared' scans - it's thermally "hotter" than surrounding areas, could that be from radioactive decay? Was there a thermonuclear 'event' on Mars, millions of years ago???
        (3) It seems that most ecologists do not think all that deeply about the overall and very powerful influences of 'life' on the ecosystem: moderating temperature, plant roots bringing water back to the surface and then transpiring water vapor into the atmosphere, etc., etc. The living ecosystem has a bigger role than most people realize, in maintaining an life-sustaining environment... but if was stressed beyond certain bounds, it would collapse.
        Thermonuclear event??? Ecosystem stressed beyond life-sustaining limits??? Like the drifting dunes of what was once the Sahara Forest, perhaps we are looking at the consequences of a planetary ecological disaster, millions of years ago... and, how many 'signs of life' might a Rover find, randomly looking, on the arid drifting sand of Earth's deserts?
      • That Mars life had a demise? We have only explored a tiny fraction of the planet. You are making multiple unsupported ass-u-me-s here.
        Let me explain:
        1) Life may still exist on Mars, we just haven't found any yet, but given the only places we've really successfully landed were deserts, this isn't surprising;
        2) Any life found may possibly still be contamination from probes we've sent;
        3) You offer no evidence that Mars is: (a) "once habitable" or (b) "no longer hospitable";
        4) You are assuming Mars is similar e
    • I think the point is to see if anything has developed on Mars before we go there and contaminate the environment, thereby making it impossible to determine if what is found came with us to Mars or was pre-existing.

      Czech out the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Ann in those books makes a very good argument on that basis.

    • WHHHHHHHHAT?! C'mon dude.

      So you're not the least bit interested if they share the same characteristics as us, such as: DNA, amino acids, organelles, etc, etc?

      There are a million and one things I'd prefer to see from life on Mars before I ever knew the location of water (if it exists). I know what water looks like, but extra-terrestrial life, I have no idea.
    • If we find an instance of life anywhere that is not on earth then it is highly significant.
      It will help us to understand a little better the variables in the Drake equation.
    • PETM (People for the Ethical Treatment of Martians) will focus its attention on whatever means of harming innocent Martians humanity may conceive. We will educate, protest, legislate, and even rescue Martians, with an undying dedication to preserving the valuable and sacred Martian life.
      • I don't know man, Valentine Michael Smith never seemed to need much help once he got going. I am sure if properly motivated he could kick even Chuck Norris's ass without much effort and he was not even really Martian.
        • And while Ziggy Stardust was indeed abused at the hands of humans, wasn't that his purpose? Can't be the messiah without the abuse and dying.
      • I thought it was People Eating Tasty Martians
    • We don't know if life is common in the universe or if earth is an exceptional place whose unique conditions were the only one to allow for life to form. That is quite interesting if you ask me...

    • Re:Finding water = important; Finding life = ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BearRanger (945122) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:37AM (#23388894)
      Finding life is important for at least three reasons. First, the philosophical--if there's life on Mars we're no longer alone. It's an age old question that will finally have an answer. Life on Mars won't be intelligent life, but our estimate of the probability that there's other intelligent life out there somewhere will greatly increase.

      Next, Mars has similarities to Earth. If it once supported life but no longer does what changed? Could that same change possibly happen to us?

      Finally, scientific curiosity. It's just darned interesting to know these things for the sake of knowing them. What's Martian life like? Is it going to kill every human who sets foot on the planet? Might it yield valuable insights into how life evolved here?

      I guarantee, if we find life on Mars there will be people who will disagree with you about who owns it. After all, manifest destiny was a great idea unless you were a Native American.
    • I've thought about this for a while and just can't figure out what the need to search for life on Mars is all about. Except for 3rd rate B-movies featuring little green men, life on Mars isn't really interesting at all.

      It is enormously interesting for biology.

      Why? Because no matter what is there when we finally get around to building our Mars base will be destroyed in order to develop a useful environment and atmosphere for humans. Mars life be damned.

      We'll get the DNA we need before then. And, frankly, I
    • Believe it or not, there are whole areas of science NOT concerned with finding more land, killing off the inhabitants, and consuming all the local resources. Finding life on Mars, or the evidence of past life, would impact so many areas of human life, it's hard to really fathom them all. Every expert in religion to biology would weigh in, not to mention the psychologists as we assimilate this new though suspected information into our collective psyche. If it was past life, then what happened to it? What level of complexity did it reach? Was there ever anything close to what we are, as a species?

      In fact, finding evidence of life from either the present or the past would be a prime factor in just how much we DO colonize the place. It's all well and good to think we would just bulldoze the area level and set about building, but what if the life is microbial and the wee beasties kill us off?

      Sticking a shovel in the Martian surface is NOT the same as it is on Earth, where at least we have a fairly solid understanding of what we are likely to encounter. I, for one, would want to know all about whatever might be living there, past or present, before I build a shelter in which I will shower, use the toilet, etc.

      • Re:Finding water = finding life = meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Thanshin (1188877) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:31AM (#23389102)

        Take a look around you folks -- this is our planet. We're stuck here. Get used to it.
        Stuck here for how long?

        20 years? 50? 1000?

        It's no reason to stop investigation. Your line of reasoning can be compared to saying studying distant galaxies is useless because we won't reach them anytime soon.

        Maybe you find researching new forms of energy is useless because the petrol we still have will last at least for your life's length.

        Climate change? The earth will most probably endure us for a couple hundred years, leave the investigation to our sons.

        Exploring Mars may be useless if you're looking for instant rewards, but sooner or later we'll establish colonies there.

        Maybe only jump bases for longer trips. Maybe sun energy collectors. Maybe "martian soy" production fields with robotic managers that regularly send the crop back to Earth. Who knows?

        The problem with investigation is precisely that you need to start to be able to know where you're really going; sometimes you even reach a completely unexpected benefit.

        And still, life's quite better now than in the 13th century.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ihlosi (895663)
        It is inferior to Earth in every possible way.

        It's still available. You don't have to kill anyone (well, except for some microbes, maybe) for it. (Yes, yes, I know. Killing people and taking their stuff takes much, much less energy than getting anything to Mars. Some people may find the former ethically objectionable, though).

        Someone has been reading too much sci-fi -- just try playing around with high school physics for about five minutes on exactly how much work would be required to lower an entire atmos

        • Oddly enough, humanity has managed about +0.8K here on Earth in about a century, and that was entirely unintentional.

          The important bit in that statement is the + sign - we can raise temperatures ALOT easier than we can lower them...
          • The important bit in that statement is the + sign - we can raise temperatures ALOT easier than we can lower them...

            There are also plans for lowering a planets temperature, and they don't involve building a big honkin' planet-wide AC to send the heat off into space (which would require tons of energy). Removing even a small fraction of the solar power input to a planet is going to cool it off quite a bit. That could be achieved with a bunch of launches, which take much less energy than the AC plan mentioned

      • I find it very interesting that all negative comments to finding life on Mars have been modded down. Seems to me that certain people don't like criticism or contrary opinions.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by JerkBoB (7130)

          I find it very interesting that all negative comments to finding life on Mars have been modded down. Seems to me that certain people don't like criticism or contrary opinions.

          When I have mod points, I rarely mod things down. However, I think that the other moderators are actually correct in their downmodding of these posts.

          It's not so much that they're quieting dissenting voices -- it's that they're weeding out comments that don't add to the discussion.

          Anyone familiar with the concept of Stop Energy [blogspot.com] will u

          • Wow... if by "Stop Energy" we mean "don't point out flaws" then this seems a fairly bad approach to things. Or perhaps this is my bad behaviour in causing stop energy for Stop Energy. Yet the concept has flaws - big ones!

            The parent poster made some reasonable comments. It would take a lot of effort to terraform a planet. He also made the point that we really should be looking after our own planet before we consider looking for life on Mars - let alone colonize the planet.

            • Re:Finding water = finding life = meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)

              by JerkBoB (7130) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:22AM (#23390778)
              You're missing the point.

              Here's a scenario: Someone says, "I want to do X. Here are some thoughts/plans that I've put together for accomplishing my goal. Please help me refine my plans and give me constructive criticism."

              Response A: "Don't do that. Your idea is stupid/doomed to fail/a waste of time. Here is a list of reasons why you shouldn't do it."

              Response B: "Well, I may not agree with the overall premise, but there are some interesting ideas. Here are some thoughts of my own about how to refine your plans. For example, you're working from flawed assumptions here and here ..."

              Do you see the difference? Do you see why response A is seen as not contributing to the discussion? Anyone can quickly come up with reasons why something is not worth doing. It takes time and thought to actually contribute to a discussion.

              For example, I could have just called you a stupid hoser and left it at that. But instead, I decided to try and contribute to the discussion. I'm not sure I added much signal to the noise (especially since it's off-topic), but I'm trying.

              Response C: ""

              And finally, there's the "didn't your mother teach you that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" approach. By "nice", I mean constructive. There's nothing wrong with ignoring something that you don't agree with.

              This is Slashdot, not Congress. No one is deciding on funding for NASA here. You can rant all you want on Slashdot, but I can guarantee you that your congress-critters aren't going to read your pithy screed about why Mars colonization is a bad idea.

        • And yet you don't find it strange at all that that all the flamebait trolls with negative comments about our dark-skinned human friends are getting modded down. Hint: They're modded down because they're stupid, ignorant and backwards.
          • Really? Are you saying that the following comment has no validity whatsoever?

            "Terraform a planet? Someone has been reading too much sci-fi -- just try playing around with high school physics for about five minutes on exactly how much work would be required to lower an entire atmosphere one stinking degree, and then compare that to the power consumption of the human race."

            Probably not couched in very gentle terms, but seems a reasonable position to hold!

            Perhaps you don't like dissenting comments? Just becaus

            • "Terraform a planet? Someone has been reading too much sci-fi -- just try playing around with high school physics for about five minutes on exactly how much work would be required to lower an entire atmosphere one stinking degree, and then compare that to the power consumption of the human race."

              Air temperature over the US increased by two degrees C in the days after 9/11 because aircraft were grounded and unable to release particles into the air. More heat got to the ground as a result.

              You can lower the temperature by reflecting heat away. You don't have to do the work yourself.

    • Re:Minerals = Funding (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheLink (130905) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:20AM (#23389516) Journal
      If you land on Mars you have to expend lots of energy to get off, whereas if you mine the asteroids, it's a lot cheaper.

      We're doing things the wrong way.

      Steps should be:
      1) Space station with artificial gravity (classic spinning wheel, or stuff on tether)
      2) Space station with artificial gravity and decent radiation shielding
      3) Figure out how to build space stations from asteroid materials
      4) Send space stations to asteroid belts or wherever.
      5) Space colonies.

      Whereas right now, there's crazy talk of
      1) Space trip to Mars

      That sure sounds like a one way trip. That's only worth the $$$$ if we can vote for politicians to send on that one way trip. Do that regularly and it'll be a net benefit to the world ;).

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