Might Mars Contain Life? 368
stagmeister writes "According to the BBC, the Viking probes to Mars in the 1970s "detected strange signs of activity in the Martian soil - akin to microbes giving off gas," and that while those findings were not acknowledged as proof of life then, "in 1997, reached the conclusion ... that the so-called LR (labelled release) work had detected life." At the same time, the British are launching a probe to try to find life on Mars."
Why not do an easier search instead (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, wait...they're hoping to Succeed...silly me.
Re:Why not do an easier search instead (Score:2, Funny)
Or first posts... ;-)
Re:Why not do an easier search instead (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Why not do an easier search instead (Score:2, Funny)
Different Impressions (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, I hail from Tennessee, so I see a lot of this sort of thing. Bring on the Martian trailerparks!
Re:Different Impressions (Score:5, Funny)
sorry, couldn't help myself...
Re:Different Impressions (Score:3, Funny)
those are the trailer folk that the fartians abducted.
Re:Different Impressions (Score:2)
You're a gas.
Re:Different Impressions (Score:4, Funny)
Funny quote from the above link:
In human hospitals, there have been many explosions in the colon triggered by use of electrocautery performed through a proctosigmoidoscope.
So be careful out there.
Re:Different Impressions (Score:2)
Re:Different Impressions (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Different Impressions (Score:3, Funny)
Comfort (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what is scarier: that we are alone in the universe - or that we are not alone in the universe.
Re:Comfort (Score:3, Funny)
I think it was Sagan that said it depends on whether their old ladies wear stretch pants.
Re:Comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Comfort (Score:2)
But from a bigger view, I see your point
Re:Comfort (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Comfort (Score:2)
Re:Comfort (Score:2)
It was a running gag.
Re:Comfort (Score:4, Funny)
Mars Climate Orbiter. [uncoveror.com]
Mars Polar Lander [uncoveror.com]
Colonization [uncoveror.com]
Re:Comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that but in the background through the stars are glimpses of thousands of galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions more stars.
Everywhere we look in the universe the picture is the same. Billions of galaxies, countless trillions of stars. Was the universe "created" so only one planet orbiting just one of these stars would produce life? I don't think so.
Re:Comfort (Score:2)
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
and revolving at 900 miles an hour,
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
the sun that is the source of all our power.
The Sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
are moving at a million miles
Re:Comfort (Score:3, Funny)
and revolving at 900 miles an hour,
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
the sun that is the source of all our power.
The Sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
of the Galaxy we call the Milky Way
I wonder if I could get frequent flyer miles for that
Re:Comfort (Score:2)
Re:Comfort (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the key issues here. If we find life on Mars or Europa or Titan or elsewhere inside our own universe, then the should bolster the theory that "since we find life here, it has to be the same in the rest of the universe.
While I agree with the above statement, there will ALWAYS be those who will refuse to believe or even claim that the discoveries were false. "Oh, some scientist must have forged the data" or "They just want to destroy religion" or "There was contamination".
What I am trying to say is this. It will take more than finding microbes on a foreign planet or moon to convince the stubborn, and even then, the most stubborn will still refuse to believe, no matter what.
And to be fair, it's the same on the other side. The last line in the article in question shows this.
"If we find no evidence of life on Mars it may just mean we have looked in the wrong place."
Paraphrased: "Life DOES exist elsewhere in the universe! We just haven't found it yet!" That is, there is no way you could convince these people that there is a possibility that they might be chasing something that isn't there. The absence of proof doesn't faze them at all.
I guess we just have to wait and see what happens.
-John
Proving a Negative (Score:2)
However, you cannot prove that life does not exist elsewhere, since to do so would mean a very thorough examination of every planet, asteroid, and other assorted bits scattered throughout the cosmos.
I can imagine trying to get the grant money for that.
Remember the time before planets around other suns was merely a theoretical possibility? Now we take this for granted.
Re:Proving a Negative (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me propose the analogy of the elementary arithmetic textbook. It describes some properties of the real number system and describes how to calculate with it. Does it describe all the properties of the real number system? Does it detail other mathematical structures that have the same properties? Does it detail how to derive those properties from Peano's postulates, or how to use those properties to prove the consistency of all higher mathematics? No. There mathematical truth outside the elementary arithmetic text, but that does not invalidate the truth in the textbook. The focus for the elementary student is learning arithmetic; the other stuff makes a lot more sense when arithmetic is mastered.
Science is not antithetical to religion; it is merely irrelevant to it. Science is the study of the world you can see, touch, hear, and otherwise measure. It will be gone (from your perspective) when you die. God and the essence of you, on the other hand, are presumed by religion to last forever. So, what is the point in studying a system that will be obsolete in 100 years when you could be studying one that will be useful for eons?
Re:Comfort (Score:3, Interesting)
Religion is a memetic virus. It mutates, adapts, and evolves for the sole purpose for propagating itself.
Language is a virus, too.
Re:Comfort (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, science and religion don't have to be at odds. In fact, they shouldn't be at odds -- religion and technology may often have a beef with each other, but science should just be seen as exploring God's creation.
Re:Comfort (Score:3, Interesting)
This is based on what? The planets we've detected thus far? Well, since we can only detect extrasolar planets that are as or more massive than Jupiter it's no wonder that they're all looking awfully big! I bet if you go to a Ford plant and look at what cars they make you'll only find Fords too. Doesn't mean that there ar
Re:Comfort (Score:2, Funny)
That's nice (Score:5, Funny)
Not a new controversy (Score:5, Informative)
This has been batted around for several years now. It's an interesting controversy, since the scientific community studying Mars life has seen a lot of turnover since then. We're going to have to wait for the new data.
Also not a new story (Score:3, Informative)
I quickly found this [slashdot.org] by doing this [slashdot.org].
Next time, please search [slashdot.org] before you post.
sure it contains life! (Score:3, Funny)
oh you mean the planet.. never mind
Where's the Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me read this again:
Dr Levin, one of three scientists on the life detection experiments, has never given up on the idea that Viking did find living micro-organisms in the surface soil of Mars.
Beagle is looking for life He continued to experiment and study all new evidence from Mars and Earth, and, in 1997, reached the conclusion and published that the so-called LR (labelled release) work had detected life.
He says new evidence is emerging that could settle the debate, once and for all.
A crazy guy has been ranting for almost 30 years about his own personal theories and only now, shortly before we go back to mars, does the "new evidence" emerge? Please. Maybe the beeb should wait until they get hard evidence before printing paranoiac fantasies like this one.
moderators begone... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Dr. Levin was the second scientist funded by NASA to build a life detection instrument for planetary missions to Mars. Dr. Levin has been a co-investigator for NASA's Mariner 9 misson to Mars in 1971; a Principal Investigator for the Viking Biology Team in 1976; a JPL Mox Team co-experimenter on the Russian Mars 96 mission to Mars."
Now, I'm not sure if your own credentials surpass DR. Levins, but seems only a "crazy, paranoid" person would label this man as such.
N
Science (Score:2)
I don't. But in general, yeah, it is pretty damned annoying. Look at global warming research for a good example.
Of course, if you think it's bad in the "hard" sciences, don't even think about examining social sciences. There, "We can't evaluate that theory because it has to be wrong. It's not politically correct" is a perfectly valid reasoning.
Hum (Score:2, Redundant)
New standard for life, microbial farting! Bonus points if it reeks like hell, extra bonus points if the gas is combustible! Cookie for CBN if the microbial farts smell worse then his!
Re:Hum (Score:2)
Re:Hum (Score:2)
Carl Sagan said no (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Carl Sagan said no (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Carl Sagan said no (Score:5, Informative)
So, the landers landed, did the experiment, and immediately detected a whole bunch of the gases. Woohoo, life! Well, not really. They examined the data and decided the results were due to some unusual chemistry, not living organisms.
The experiment you're talking about produced amino acids and was done here on earth by Miller and Urey, not Sagan.
Re:Carl Sagan said no (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Carl Sagan said no (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't recall off the top of my head if it was the preasure/temp or both that changed.. but the environment in the experiment was not that of mars surface which caused the problem.
Its been known for a long time.... (Score:5, Funny)
Of Course There's Life! (Score:2)
Seriously, though... no, I got nothing. I'm a hack.
Right now we just don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
As it stands right now, both sides can use the very same data and say either "There is!" or "There isn't!"
That's how firm and solid the information is so far.
I'll wait until we have something reliable and reproducible to go on, OK?
(Personally I think there IS and hope there is.)
--
Tomas
Sagan (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice to see the BBC article invoking Carl Sagan by repeating his famed aphorism that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
No disrespect to Sagan, but does nobody see the glaring error in that statement?
Extraordinary claims require the same amount of proof that absolutely mundane claims require! If some claims required more proof, science wouldn't be very scientific, would it? Who knows how much truth has been cast aside because the evidence just wasn't extraordinary enough?
Re:Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
If I claim that I saw a fully-grown African elephant in your bedroom, you would require significantly more evidence before you would believe me.
If both claims would require the same amount of proof before they would be accepted, we would either be accepting virtually nothing or virtually everything.
The reason science works is that the proof is never 100% final.
Re:Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
If I claim that I saw a mouse in your bedroom, you wouldn't require much evidence to believe me.
I would simply want to see the mouse, or some physical evidence like mouse tracks or mouse droppings.
If I claim that I saw a fully-grown African elephant in your bedroom, you would require significantly more evidence before you would believe me.
Once again, I'd want to see the elephant, or some physical evidence like elephant tracks or elephant droppings. This seems like the same amount of proof to me.
Saying that some claims require an extraordinary amount of proof is just a convenient way for "skeptics" to avoid dealing with things they'd rather not believe.
Re:Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
But the key is this: a claim is plausible if most of the evidence required to prove it is already known and accepted by the skeptic. In other words, the same amount of evidence is required, but for implausible claims, more of it is lacking.
Imagine someone shows you a picture of a mouse in their backyard. The fact that mice are alive and scurry through backyards is proven. You'd be inclined to accept this man's story with a simple picture of the event. Now this person claims an alien is in their back yard. Aliens have never been proven to exist, and therefore have not been proven to have landed on Earth -- ever. If someone makes this claim, it would be an extraordinary claim.
Yes it would. But in both cases, the following evidence is required to prove the claim: evidence that
--- said creatures exist
--- said creatures scurry in backyards
--- one such creature did so at the time and place claimed.
Now for mice, a skeptic is likely to concede that the first two pieces of evidence are readily known and accepted. For aliens, the skeptic would make no such concession.
But again, in the end, the same amount of evidence is needed; but more of that evidence is lacking in the case of the alien.
Look at it this way: what if you grew up in such a way that you had never heard of a mouse? Suddenly the claimant has more work to do before you'll believe a mouse was in his backyard!
Re:Sagan (Score:2)
If I claim that I saw a fully-grown African elephant in your bedroom, you would require significantly more evidence before you would believe me.
If both claims would require the same amount of proof before they would be accepted, we would either be accepting virtually nothing or virtually everything.
The reason science works is that the proof is never 100% final.
Not really, technically they should both re
Or put another way (Score:2)
Re:Sagan (Score:5, Insightful)
Offender #1 gives you an ID that says "John Smith". You believe him and give him his ticket.
Offender #2 gives you an ID that says "Yahweh, creater of the universe". You don't believe that could be correct.
Other than that, the ID's look the same. The difference there is that when you make a claim of a larger magnitude, you need more evidence to back it up.
Who knows how much truth has been cast aside because the evidence just wasn't extraordinary enough?
And who knows how much crap has been swallowed whole by people who don't have open minds? Remember, the definition of an open mind is a skeptic that can be persuaded by sufficient evidence. See also, burden of proof.
Re:Sagan (Score:2)
Think of proof or evidence as "effort expended to present sufficient evidence." It makes sense. Like the mouse/elephant guy said, I could very easily make you believe that the woman who raised you is your biological mother, but if I presented you with a random woman whom you'd never met, it might be harder. On the other hand, my mother is adopted, so if I went and got grandma
mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:mod parent up (Score:2)
I'd do it myself now that I have mod points, but something tells me it wouldn't quite be kosher. ;)
And, yes, I do know that I can't mod myself up...it's a joke people, just like Michael Moore.
Re:Sagan (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, there is.
Ordinary claim: I saw a light in the sky last night.
Extraordinary claim: I saw an alien spacecraft over my house last night. It was piloted by aliens from a planet in the galaxy we know as M33. It was constructed of elements from the trans-uranic island of stability and had a faster-than-light stardrive. Oh, and it used marshmallow Easter peeps for power.
what to look for? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have to agree, this is the tough part. The evidence is 20 years old from Viking, and its still being debated. Remember the martian rocks that "contained signs of life"? Me either.
. We're not even sure what to look for ... at least we're pretty damn sure what water looks like at this point ... these missions are expensive, I wouldn't waste a mission on something unlikely to succeed anyway.
Re:what to look for? (Score:3, Funny)
We've seen this new world so many damn times! At what point do we send a ship full of people to just circle the place once and come back? I'd be happy to see a NASA mission go out from the Earth and back for just six months to get beyond the moon.
Signs of life are not going to change what we are going to do to that planet. The real interest is a) w
Fascinating, Mr Spock (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, is the life DNA based? All life on earth is DNA based, and if the life elsewhere isn't then we are going to learn a lot by studying it - it will be an using an entirely different mechanism to do essentially the same thing as DNA. How does it work? How did it evolve?
And if it *IS* DNA based then we need to find out if DNA is the logical conclusion of evolutionary biology... ie, I can imagine that intelligent life elsewhere have designed the same things we have (think "the wheel") because there are only so many ways you can do something. Therefore, is DNA (or something very similar) the only mechanism life can use to sustain itself? Or did the DNA originate from the same place as DNA on the earth? And if so, how?
Re:Fascinating, Mr Spock (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fascinating, Mr Spock (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, is the life DNA based? All life on earth is DNA based, and if the life elsewhere isn't then we are going to learn a lot by studying it - it will be an using an entirely different mechanism to do essentially the same thing as DNA. How does it work? How did it evolve?
There is evidence for at least _some_ cross-contamination between Earth and Mars occurring. If we find DNA or RNA based organisms there it may just be that they were seeded from here (or vice versa, back when Mars had water and a thicker atmosphere).
The place to look for *really* interesting things is environments that are isolated from ours, or that have conditions different enough that a different basic chemistry would be required.
Thermal vents on Io would be one option - there's lots of interesting sulphur-based chemistry upon which complex organisms could be based.
The oceans of Europa would also be an interesting spot - it's far from earth, and the potentially (earth-like-) life-bearing areas are beneath a thick crust of ice, so cross-contamination is less likely.
Cold worlds like tidally-heated moons of the outer gas giants would also be an interesting place to look. At those temperatures, life would a) run much more slowly and b) have to be based on lower-energy processes and substances with weaker binding forces for the available energy to be used to break down and rebuild biochemicals.
When we finally have probes capable of doing really detailed chemical and biological surveys of the outer solar system, we're going to find some very interesting things. Our own world shows us that microbes, at least, will show up wherever there's the energy and chemistry to support them.
contamination (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the chances those probes contaminated Mars with terrestrian microorganisms? Since the 1970's it was discovered life is more resilient than it was thought, with bacteria not only surviving, but thiriving, in mediums considered to be sterile - like in thermal water springs or nuclear reactor cores.
The meaning of "sterile" has changed a lot - see what measures NASA is preparing to take now for a (still theoretical) mission to Europa (Jupiter's satellite, for the challenged).
Re:Contamination is not a problem - it's desirable (Score:3, Insightful)
Two problems with your argument.
First, evacuation to Mars is not practical, period. Figure out
Also (Score:5, Informative)
Both of these missions land later this year / January. They'll be providing more information about Mars over the following year then have gathered in total over the past 50. That is assuming they work.
Ready, set... (Score:2)
[...] signs of activity in the Martian soil - akin to microbes giving off gas
Let the Taco Bell jokes begin!
RIAA? MPAA? (Score:2, Funny)
Hint: I know it's an unmanned probe - it's a joke...
A Closer Look at the Summer of '76 (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember the summer of 1976 well.
Not because our big cartoon-broadcasting neighbor to the south had just turned 200 years old. Not because the Olympics were in Canada, nor because Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history - causing one of the most famous computer crashes in history. Not even because Disco Duck was Top 40.
I remember the summer of 1976 vividly because Viking 1 touched down on the flat plains of Chryse Planitia on Mars, and shortly thereafter discovered the first scientific evidence of extraterrestrial life - a very big event for a nine year old spacegeek like me. Curiously though, not long after NASA announced discovering life on Mars, they retracted their statement and said what they detected was not life, but rather an unusual chemical reaction.
Re:A Closer Look at the Summer of '76 (Score:2)
And the difference would be...what, exactly?
Close encounters... (Score:4, Funny)
anthropology (Score:2)
how does nature guarantees it? few mad men can easily destroy intelligent life on earth. theoretically, even nearby stellar systems are not safe, since we can always send virii there. the only way for nature to ensure that intelligent life can exist over cosmic time, is to distribute life over cosmic distances. these means that intelligent life exists throughout the universe. furthe
Re:anthropology (Score:2)
Martian Cult (Score:5, Funny)
Life elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother-in-law is that kind of person, she said one night that we are the only living planet in the universe, I had to point out how would she explain the sheer diversity of life on this planet alone? Whereever life can survive it seems to do so.
The more we look, the more we find, we've looked deep underground and found life, we've looked at cold arctic areas and found life, we have found life floating high in the atmosphere.
So, life on Mars? You bet some microbes are doing just fine there, and who knows what else.
Let's also not forget that life existed LONG before humanity ever came into being, of course some people refuse to accept that fact too.
Hmmmmm.... (Score:2)
The British? (Score:2)
Peroxides != life (Score:5, Interesting)
They found nothing more than solid peroxides (which tend to evolve oxygen when exposed to water), along with some unusual (but entirely explicable) iron-catalyzed reactions (remember why we call it the "red" planet).
Now, that doesn't disprove the presence of life, particularly a few meters below the surface. It does, however, present a VERY hostile surface environment (even ignoring the temperature and lack of an active planetary magnetic field) to life as we know it on Earth.
Hey, I'd like to find life there as much as the next guy... But it takes quite a leap of faith to interpret the Vikings' readings as "life". And science does not (or at least, should not) include any aspect of "faith".
Re:Peroxides != life (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you tested EVERY theory that your hypothesis relies on in preparation of your current experiment?
No?
Are you *SURE* gravity on earth is 9.8m/s^2? When was the last time you tested it? And are you sure of that meter?
Science is just chock full of "faith"... read any experiment which begins "Given X..." You have to trust that you know what X is and that it is true.
Re:Peroxides != life (Score:3, Insightful)
First, let me just say that, to a point, I agree with you (thus my original qualifier of "should" <G>).
That said, however, as long as a given proposition takes a phrasing similar to the one you mentioned ("Given X..."), that does not invalidate it... In fact, it makes it more valid, in that it doesn't just say "Y holds true", it makes Y conditional
maybe its just me (Score:2)
at least i can dream, anyway
Life on Mars... (Score:3, Funny)
Little green men... (Score:2)
Pretty nasty if you ask me
Life in the universe (Score:2, Funny)
link to evidence (Score:2)
Oligatory slam... (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmm. Replication... intellectual property... replication... intellectual property...
Juristictional issues notwithstanding, how long do you think it'd be before the RIAA puts a stop to this?
Why not seed life? (Score:3, Interesting)
This whole life on Mars things is a red herring (Score:2, Interesting)
Exploration is not about finding answers to pre-formulated questions. It is much more open ended than than, its about expanding horizons and finding new unexpected opportunities.
Another problem with the life-as-a-reason to explore mentality is that at some point the jig is g
Get Ready (Score:2)
Got to be ready when the Martians land.
The most interesting question to me is... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can not wait to hear the spin put on that one.
Note: I am serious when I say it is the most interesting question. I really do want to hear how the world's religons grapple with this issue if/when it does arise.
SARS (Score:2)
"War of the Worlds" now has new meaning. Martians might very well kill off humanity - except the only martians are microbes.
I kinda suspect that there are a lot of people that don't believe in God will use this, and similarly related items, as "direct evidence" for evolution (to the degree of saying that there was no creation). (The simple principle of cause and effect kind of n
Martian Farts (Score:3, Funny)
WMD (Score:4, Funny)
We've known this for thirty years (Score:4, Interesting)
(For those who remember the Cosmos series by Carl Sagan, there is a section on this where he mentions the experiment designed by his friend Wolf Vishniac, which IIRC was not one that was included on the Mars jaunts, but did discover life in Antarctic valleys previously thought sterile.)
There were three experiments. It was agreed that the likelyhood of life was so low that a positive in any one would be treated as evidence of living processes. Two were positive, the other was negative. Despite the undertakings before the mission, the single negative was treated as the official and definitive answer to the question "is there life on Mars". The other two were explained away as 'merely chemical processes'. (Of course, so are things like respiration and digestion.)
Given the current state of evidence, the best we can say as to life on Mars is 'maybe', and we need more experiments -- experiments where the rules aren't changed halfway through because the data is unexpected would be nice!
Well (Score:3, Funny)
And it might contain lots of red sterile rocks. Either way the excitement will be just too much for many.
Re:Finding life on Mars - the cliche anthology (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! The -red- planet! Ha!
Re:Oh, that's just great (Score:2)