Biological Activity on Mars 489
visination.com writes "Recent ground based observations of Mars have confirmed the presence of water and methane. The 300 year life time of methane on Mars is short, giving scientists reason to beleive that Mars may be biologically active." From the article: "Every one of these longitudes shows a very substantial enhancement in the equatorial zone...So this is a very intense source of methane on Mars in this region. It also requires a very rapid decay of methane...more rapid than photochemistry would allow..."
Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
K'breel, speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
When challenged by pro-life activists present at the conference, who asserted that the invaders were living beings just as we are, and that we did not have the right to arbitrarily exterminate an entire species, K'Breel replied tersely:
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
I hope the deductible is reasonable.
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
Biological life on mars --> fossils --> oil
therefore, I give Dubbya 5 days to declare a war on Martian WMD's, terrorism, or being anti freedom. And hey, if the above news about the asteroid comes to light, he'll have a 50% strike rate on invading for legitimate reasons!
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:2)
However we have already invaded Afganistan, and I belive most people would say that was justified, so our strike rate is already 50%, and would go to 66%. If you disagree, than the strike rate would be 33%. If we have invaded another country, please advise and I will stand corrected.
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod this however you want - flamebait even - I'm depressed at the death of idealism now... bloody secret polic^H^H^H^H^Hservices
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps "reasons used to try to persuade the world" ... because let's face it, the world was not persuaded. Actually the reasons were really only good for domestic consumption.
LOL! How many countries has the US invaded?!!
For over a hundred years the US has been invading countries all over the world, from Mexico, to Russia, to Nicaragua, to Vietnam... must have been literally dozens of places, even if you leave the World Wars out of it. Bogus justifications (e.g. the Gulf of Tonkin "incident") are the rule rather than the exception.
But if you're talking about invasions in the last few years then you'll have to include Haiti, supposedly invaded to bring peace and respect for human rights to that troubled country ... starting by kidnapping the democratically elected president and sending him to Africa. I don't think that one does the US "strike rate" any good either.
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
Nah! After Mars is reduced to a giant, radioactive Christmas tree ornament it will turn out that the above letter was a "misinterpretation" by the "intelligence" community.
It will come to light that the actual letter said:
"A disease has wiped out most of our male population. Mars needs geeks to insure the survival of our species, and our women are HOT! Them pulp novel covers? Phhhhhhhhbt! You ain't seen nothin' yet, Earth nerd. Because our need is so pressing and so great we have converted an asteroid into a transport ship and will be sending it right over. Fill it up with everyone who knows how to root, if you know what I mean."
Oops.
KFG
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, no. I'm not falling for that one again.
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't Arnold become president in that movie, Demolition Man? Maybe it wasn't so much of a movie as a prophecy?
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:2, Insightful)
Life was predicted years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
He went on to describe how bacteria are routinely found in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and how meteorite impacts are almost certain to propel them into space. Furthermore, he described
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:5, Funny)
"Someone tell the editors it's not April fools anymore" (+3, Funny)
"It's a dupe! Doesn't Taco read his own site?" (+2 Insightful)
"I paid subscription rates for *this*?!" (+1 Insightful)
"DUPE!!!" (-1, redundant)
"I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords" (+3, Funny)
"Slashdot has gone really downhill lately, don't they check their sources?!" (+1 insightful)
and while they chatter away, the Martians will take over the world and kill everyone.
Or something.
Re:Late-breaking news: (Score:4, Funny)
by 'our' I mean your, and my 'your', I mean not mine.
There it is..No, there it is! (Score:5, Funny)
Why does it feel like our scientists are just chasing after the wind when it comes to the search for life on Mars?
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that there is any other reason to go. "Resources" some say. Resources are cheaper here.
"Offworld backup of Humanity", say others. Any disaster that would wipe out humanity would wipe out so much of the ecosystem that these people wouldn't be able to return anyways.
There are two good reasons to go to Mars. The best one is "Because we can". However,
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:2)
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:2)
They are chasing after someone elses broken wind...
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:3, Funny)
Methane (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Methane (Score:5, Informative)
Right?
Re:Methane (Score:3, Insightful)
methane, biological life, etc... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:methane, biological life, etc... (Score:4, Funny)
Or... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Terraforming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Terraforming (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Terraforming (Score:2)
NIMBY!
Re:Terraforming (Score:2)
Re:Terraforming (Score:2)
Re:Terraforming (Score:2)
Re:Terraforming (Score:3, Interesting)
But don't worry, we are probably just picking up methane from frozen deposits that are slowly melting or something like that.
Re:Terraforming (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, nothing will form there. Nothing IS there. It's just like the search for the missing link from ape to man. It simply won't be found out.
And one of these days' I'll look forward to presenting the evidence to you directly and without a doubt people will know.
Re:Terraforming (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Does this life chemically resemble life on Earth?
2. If it does, does it use RNA/DNA or something very close to these molecules?
3. If it does, then is Mars or Earth or possibly some other place in the solar system the point where the initial abiogenesis occured?
4. If Martian life does not appear to be closely related or at all related, then what possible abiogenesis pathways occured to produce Martian organisms?
There's a lot to be learned about both worlds from this, so I hope before someone decides to terraform they learn a considerable amount about any potential biotic activity on Mars.
Soy-forming (Score:2, Funny)
Wrong, (Score:4, Funny)
"I for one welcome our new Terra-ist overlords!"
1. Build Mars colonial Mission
2. Begin Terra-izing Mars.
3. ????? (Encase resident Martian lifeforms in epoxy souvenir blocks)
4. PROFIT!
Woo hoo I found step three!
Re:Terraforming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Terraforming (Score:5, Insightful)
right?
Just Curious (Score:5, Interesting)
After reading that article, and then reading another article advertised on the same page here [livescience.com] I was starting to feel as if i would be surprised if we DIDN'T find evidence of life on mars. Anyway, I was just wondering what remifications such a finding would have on the bible followers. Is there any reference in the bible as to whether life on other planets exists. Almost every scientific discovery is met with religous opposition, so I was wondering if anyone had any opinions from the religous area. Does the bible say anything about life on other planets?
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, no, finding life on other planets would also not mean there is no God or that the bible is false. The ramifications for reasonable people would be very little, but there are plenty of nutcases, religious people and athiests, that will tell you otherwise.
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Insightful)
religion, if it hopes to survive will adapt or die of denial... a kind of natural selection for religion.
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound like a close encounter to you?
Re:Just Curious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Informative)
Ezekiel 1:1
1 Now it came about in the thirtieth year, in the fourth [month], on the fifth [day] of the month, while I was in the midst of the exiled people by the river Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I began to see visions of God.
Then it proceeds to describe the vision.
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Insightful)
Ezekiel could have seen a real event and reported it as such, or could have seen a real event and reported it as a vision, or could have seen a vision and reported it as a real event, or could have seen a vision and reported it as such. After a few millienia and several translations, it's d
Not too difficult to say, actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Since this occurred thousands of years ago and nothing in this dude's life could have possibly seeded his imagination in such a way as to make him hallucinate about advanced technology and non-human pilots, we c
Re:Not too difficult to say, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the one that makes most sense is that some people now interpret the description as resulting in something like what they believe alien ships (as opposed to 'UFOs' which are often quite mundane) would look like.
You could interpret the description into something like you believe a flying saucer to be, but it isn't the only interpretation, or the only way people think alien space ships are. Claiming this description is 'exactly' like that of a UFO seems a massive reach to me.
So you can add
or
(E)
Vision of God (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north-an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Funny)
Sound like a close encounter to you?
Sounds like Pimp My Chariot, Ezekiel style...
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
"...and there was much defecation."
- Ghost of Christmas Past.
Re:Just Curious (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Religion being opposed to science in many ways, that has been very true. Even Gallileo was imprisoned by the catholic church because he believed that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
You must realize though that these conflicts were between *religion* and science, not the *Bible* and science.
The Bible, while not a scientific
God Didn't Invent Religion, People Did (Score:2)
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
Galileo learned what he did through study and could prove it. Isaiah speaking of the "circle of the earth" and scripture saying the earth hangs by nothing hold no more "simple scientific truth" than a missive from Nostradamus.
The ideas presented are not science. No matter how you look at it, we cannot assume that scientific process was used to come to those conclusions--they're statements without the all important thing called proof. Faith is not proof.
Besides, we all know it's turtles all the way down.
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Informative)
And then over millenium and a half later, Columbus underestimated it by 25% and thought he was in India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus [wikipedia.org]
For flat earth, see wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth [wikipedia.org].
Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Funny)
Not yet, but it might after the next major revision. From here [bible.org]:
I bet they could slip in something about life on Mars during the next revision.
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
Bible XP (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Interesting)
Q. What is the chief teaching of the Catholic Church about Jesus Christ?
A. The chief teaching of the Catholic Church about Jesus Christ is that He is God made man. (A Catechism of Christian Doctrine: Revised Edition of the Baltimore Catechism, No. 2. Paterson, New Jersey: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1941, 15)
But when I later went to a Catholic university, I could not help reflecting
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
I have not yet read anything that out and out talks about other planets. I have not yet read anything that leads me to think that there is something at a different or difficult level that talks about life on other planets.
I would think it would be a bit arrogant for us, believers or not, to assume that the universe was created ( whoever, whatever ) just for us.
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Insightful)
Wasnt *quite* what I was trying to get across. My thinking, not well gotten across, what that it would be arrogant for us to think that God might not very well have created ot
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
Re:Just Curious (Score:2)
The infinite possible interpretations of the bible mixed with proof of live on other planets could generate many new Christian religions.
Re:Infinite God Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what Mary said too.
By the way, your belief system is a fairy tale based on a book of lies.
Have a nice day.
This has been found on other planets too (Score:5, Funny)
Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:3, Informative)
The first image on this site is actually a dune field just starting to emerge from sublimating carbon dioxide as the southern Mars hemisphere emerges from winter (Ls ~= 187 degrees). No way is there liquid water on Mars at 60 south latitude in the early spring, especially at pressures of .01 atmosphere.
I didn't look at everything he had, but after a couple samples, it was hard to take very seriously. Yeah, it's "wow" but not "it's alive wow".
Re:Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:3, Informative)
Okay, first recognize that I'm not an expert at interpreting these images. Like most folks on /., I'm just a regular bit-basher who happens to be lucky enough to bash bits for people who study Mars. Doing that for three and a half years one can't help but learn a few things, but I am far from an authority. So, there's my caveat.
First, here's the main page [msss.com] for this image. The picture was taken mid-spring. Solar Longitude, or Ls tells us this. 0 degrees corresponds with vernal equinox (spring) in the
Activity (Score:3, Funny)
Fossils? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why isn't the data coming from more close up? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why isn't the data coming from more close up? (Score:2)
ESA probe (Score:5, Interesting)
Dang... (Score:3, Funny)
wouldnt a 'half life' be a better definition (Score:3, Insightful)
Half Life??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wouldnt a 'half life' be a better definition (Score:3, Informative)
--
Evan "This is a simple explaination - no need to pick nits"
Methane in the equatorial zone? (Score:3, Funny)
I believe I may have the solution! If you'll kindly lower your nose to my personal equatorial zone, and pull my finger gently, I'll show you what I mean...
Thar be Dragons on Mars! (Score:2, Insightful)
Tis like I were tellin ya, bout them strange underwater dragons wot lived beneath the waves in Davy Jones locker, feastin on the heat of the volcanoes that go down straight ta Hades
.
.
Seriously, just because life exists in biological and temperature extremes, as was recently discovered by researchers here at the University of Washington - Huskies represent! - doesn't necessarily mean that there has yet been proven to be life on Mars. That requires something t
let me be the first to say (Score:2, Funny)
First draft of "Frankenstein" (Score:3, Funny)
DR. FRANKENSTEIN stands over the lifeless form of THE MONSTER. THE MONSTER is strapped to a gurney, with electrical apparatus attached to various points on his body.
[Lightning Crashes]
Medium shot: DR. FRANKENSTEIN looks skyward, raises hands, imploring.
DR. FRANKENSTEIN: "Give
timothy
all the proof of life I need (Score:3, Funny)
There is more than just Methane (Score:5, Interesting)
From reading the spectrometer, he believed it was evident that methane, ammonia, and formaldehyde can all be found in the martain atmosphere. Where as methane will last a few hundred years in the atmosphere, formaldehyde will only -eight- hours.
I'm not a scientist, but from what I've read, all 3 gases are strong indicators of life. While I know that the methane could be produced by volcanic activity on Mars (as mentioned elsewhere in the thread), Mars is a geologically dead planet. There is no sign of any such activity.
The presence of all 3 gases on a geologically dead planet would seem to be consistent with planet having some microbial life. As Mars entered its Spring, the levels of all 3 gases were found to rise as well. Of course, more life, more gas in the atmosphere.
It was also noted that the gas levels rose sharply over Mars' frozen oceans as spring approached. Perhaps some simples forms of life were frozen in the oceans? It could also be that the frozen oceans sit over some geological vents, trapping some methane.
But again, as far as anyone knows Mars is still a geologically dead planet.
Sorry if this doesn't make much sense... but gas indicating life in the martian atmosphere is OLD news, and there are far more compelling gases (like formaldehyde) that exist in the atmosphere. If it only lasts for 8 hours, something there is reproducing it.
Apparently, the only way to know definitively what is producing it, is to go dig up the soil. So... good luck on that ever happening. Apparently we have to build a base on the moon first.
Cows (Score:5, Interesting)
Their results? Three cows. Seriously.
I have no idea how accurate those calculations were, but he's a smart guy with more degrees than I have.
Re:Cows (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Maybe... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:To stupid scientists (Score:2, Funny)