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Space Science

New Hope for Life on Mars 22

Posted by michael from the once-upon-a-time dept.
Peter_Pork writes "New images sent back by NASA's Mars Odyssey have prompted an interesting theory about Martian gullies, as reported today by Washington Post and New Scientist. Odyssey's images show snow accumulations near the gullies, suggesting that the gullies were formed by melted snow. Scientists have developed a new weather model based on 100,000-year cycles in which snow first accumulates in highlands and it is then melted by the action of the sun. Liquid water, protected from evaporation by a superficial layer of snow, would carve the gullies in a few thousand years. This idea gives further hope to the search of life forms in Mars, since liquid water is suitable for sustaining life. Upcoming landings (three in the next two years) should shed more light on the question, but they will most likely not land in the rocky areas where this phenomenon occurs."
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New Hope for Life on Mars More

New Hope for Life on Mars

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  • Contamination of Mars et at. with terrestrial life (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DocSnyder ( 10755 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @08:41AM (#5342895)
    I'm sure they will discover life on Mars in the near future - and discover later that they brought it themselves with their space vehicle. Some microbes are strong enough to survive the space trip and settle on even hostile environments, of which Mars would surely be good enough.

  • New life on Mars? (Score:3, Funny)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @08:44AM (#5342923) Homepage
    New life on Mars? Only if the old life on Mars, the Zhti Ti Kofft [uncoveror.com] decide to tolerate newcomers. They have been very unfriendly, historically.

  • And... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by edwilli ( 197728 )
    What are opinions on why it's so important? What would life on mars, or evidence of past life on Mars tell us?

    • What would it tell us? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That life can evolve on planets other than our own?

    • Re:And... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by C21 ( 643569 )
      that it is that much easier to establish ourselves on the planet. If life, of any kind can sustain itself, well then we can work off of that as a platform.

    • Re:And... (Score:3, Flamebait)

      by DoraLives ( 622001 )
      For one thing, it would play fits with certain religious fundamentalist creationist dogma, and therefore the religious dogma itself. Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.

      I'm hoping for dayglow green with large fangs and slimy tentacles, but I'll settle for a little bacteria-looking stuff.

      Most anything at all actually, just so long as it takes some of the hot air out of the fundamentalist's (pick your less than fully sane belief system of choice) sails.

      • Re:And... (Score:3, Funny)

        by Alsee ( 515537 )
        Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.

        That depends which holy handbook [xenu.net] you check.

        -
      • Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.

        I saw a very interesting show on the History Channel (IIRC), where several theologians made the case that the whole Bible is about extra-terrestrials influencing mankind. It was actually more compelling than I would have thought.

        Their claims: aliens gave Moses the ten commandments, the Jews followed alien guides in the sky for their years of wandering, the aliens provided them with their 'manna', the aliens got them across the Red Sea, the aliens destroyed Sodom for unknown reasons, etc. It boiled down to a story about an alien race that, for some reason, wanted to give us Religion, or at least we interpreted it as Religion when it may have been just a helping hand.

        Wasn't it Arthur C. Clark who said, essentially, that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear to be from God or at least appear to be magic?
        • Your sig is so appropriate here...
          I don't remember the name of it, but one of his [Clark] short stories hints at just this, and is basically about what happens when the aliens return.

          (I read that story wondering why the aliens never let people see their true forms, until at the end their 'demonic' appearance is revealed.)
      • If finding things like this [berkeley.edu], or the fact that there are more suns in the universe than grains of sands on earth, doesn't convince religious fundamentalists of evolution, do you think that the discovery of a bunch of microorganisms will convince them?

    • Re:And... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 )
      If we find life next door to us then given the vastness of the universe the probability of life, perhaps even sentient life increases (ignoring the fact that its likely we contaminated mars or vise versa). It would be a huge shot in the arm for continuing space explortion.

    • Re:And... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 )
      Who the hell knows?

      Some knowledge is immediately, obviously useful. Some isn't useful at the time it's acquired, but turns out to be immensely useful later on. Some is never useful ... except in the sense that knowledge is always useful; the ability to gather and pass on knowledge is, as far as we know, one of our defining characteristics as a species.

      People want to know if there is or was life on Mars because that would be an amazingly cool piece of knowledge. If you don't understand that ... well, I can't help you.
    • why is the parent modded up on such an obvious question? well, i will answer it anyway...

      "What would life on mars...tell us?"

      That we are not alone in the Universe.

    • This means great spring skiing conditions on Mars. Just bring your breathing mask and some warm clothing.

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