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..."
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:5, Interesting)
Fossils? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why isn't the data coming from more close up? (Score:5, Interesting)
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: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 document (and it does not intend to be one) does hold some VERY accurate, simple scientific truths. While his contemporaries believed the world to be flat (along with science at the time), the prophet Isaiah spoke of "the circle of the earth". Another scripture speaks of the Earth hanging by nothing, which is accurate.
Does the Bible have any real thoughts on whether or not there COULD be life anywhere else other than Earth? Well, it does speak of spirit creatures that exist in another realm, with God himself being one of these creatures.
I hope this helps answer your question.
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:Provocative Pictures from MOC (Score:5, Interesting)
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 how many species of bacteria form spores, and that these spores were known to tolerate high temperatures, low temperatures, radiation (!), and exposure to a vacuum for an extended period of time.
In essence, bacteria can make the trip to Mars. The only question is whether or not Earth bacteria can survive there.ESA probe (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Terraforming (Score:1, Interesting)
Other than the colonization issue, mining operations might also become a big problem. Disturbing aboriginal environments could make it nearly impossible to study anything, let alone avoid contamination by Terran microbes.
Like someone else who replied here, I would recommend the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson if you're interested in all the political, social, and ethical issues of terraforming the red planet.
It is my personal opinion that if there is life on Mars, the best we can do is build large domes over craters, valleys, and even calderas that could act as large city-sized habitats. If there is not, then we should terraform to a point where it's livable to twenty kilometers above the datum so that the intense vertical scale of Mars would keep most of the Tharsis Bulge and other areas in thier aboriginal state.
Re:There it is..No, there it is! (Score:3, Interesting)
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 that man was limitary and finite, while God was not, and I asked myself why I believed that Jesus was God.
If one could point in answer to the scriptures, I found that modern textual studies of the New Testament had raised large question marks as to that book's authenticity. In a course in theology, I read a work by Joachim Jeremias, one of the foremost exegetes of the New Testament in this century, who after a lifetime of study of the original, finally agreed with the German theologian Rudolph Bultmann that "without a doubt it is true to say that the dream of ever writing a biography of Jesus is over" (The Problem of the Historical Jesus, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972, 12), meaning that even the chronology of the life of Jesus could not be established from the New Testament. So how then, I wondered, with the question of whether or not he was God?
Indeed, although ordinary Christians seem quite unaware of the revolution that has taken place in New Testament scholarship by Christians over the past thirty years, if we look at the literature, we find such paragraphs as the following, from a textbook by James D.G. Dunn for university students in their third year of New Testament studies. The italics are his: Similarly the thought of Jesus' deity seems to be a relatively late arrival on the first-century stage. Paul does not yet understand the risen Christ as the object of worship: he is the theme of worship, the one for whom praise is given, the one whose risen presence in and through the Spirit constitutes the worshipping community, the one through whom the prayer prays to God (Romans 1.8; 7.25; II Corinthians 1.20; Colossians 3.17) but not the object of worship or prayer. So too his reticence about calling Jesus "God". Even the title "Lord" becomes a way of distinguishing Jesus from God rather than identifying him with # God (Romans 15.6; I Corinthians 8.6; 15.24-28; II Corinthians 1.3; 11.31; Ephesians 1.3, 17; Philippians 2.11; Colossians 1.3). Paul was and remained a monotheist. That reticence in calling Jesus "God" is only really overcome towards the end of the first century with the Pastorals (Titus 2.13) and again with Fourth Gospel (John 1.1, 18; 20.28). (Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity. London and Philadelphia: SCM Press and Trinity Press International, 1990, 226).
If the "thought of Jesus" deity"-which I had been taught was the chief teaching of Christianity about Jesus-was "a relatively late arrival on the first-century stage," meaning not taught by Jesus himself, then we might legitimately wonder where it came from. The answer seems to lie in the "Imperial cult" proclaimed throughout the Roman Empire shortly before the era of Jesus, a cult which enjoined the worship of Rome and the emperor. In the words of Hugh Schonfield, a translator of the New Testament, The cult had developed in the reign of Augustus [Ceasar], who for reasons of State policy accepted deification, and authorised the building of temples in which he was worshipped. He was formally decreed Son of God (Divi Filius) by the Senate. . .
Gaius Caligula (A.D. 37-41) [also] became obsessed with the notion of his deity, and his sycophantic officials played up to him. . .
A later emperor, Domitian (A.D. 81-96), insisted that his governors commence their letters to him, "Our Lord and our God commands." It became the rule, says [the Roman historian] Suetonius, "that no one should sty
Re:Just Curious (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, Copernicus had a relatively good relationship with the church, before Galileo. The main difference between the two was that Galileo was more of a whistleblower; Copernicus did his research quietly and presented it in more of a theoretical light.
Very rapid decay? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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 can also safely say that if he did dream or hallucinate this vision then either he had seen or heard about something like this before or he was seeing the future through prescience or divine inspiration.
Taking this a bit further, if we assume that flying saucers (let's just call them UFOs) and non-human intelligences are works of 20th century science fiction, then we are ready to draw conclusions about this dude.
Either
(A) Ezekiel was, through prescience or divine inspiration, having dreams, hallucinations (visions) of phenomena that does not exist, that exactly matches the UFO phenomena from 20th century science fiction and ascribing this as god
or
(B) Ezekiel was having dreams, hallucinations (visions) of some phenomena that was known at the time that, through pure coincidence, exactly matches the UFO phenomena from 20th century science fiction and ascribing this as god.
or, if we assume that UFOs are real (not just science fiction)
(C) Ezekiel was truly seeing (or having dreams or hallucinations based on his or other's experiences), real UFOs and non-human pilots and he believed them to be of god.
or, lastly,
(D) Ezekiel really did have a dream or hallucination of god and it is just coincidence that his view of god matches our modern view of UFOs and aliens. Which scenario makes more sense? Use Occom's razor.
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.
Oil and natural gas on Mars (Score:2, Interesting)
John F. McGowan III, "Oil and natural gas on Mars," in Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology III, Richard B. Hoover, Editor, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4137, pp. 63-74 (2000).
Oil and Natural Gas on Mars [jmcgowan.com]
ABSTRACT
On Earth, according to conventional theory, the largest, by mass and volume, identifiable trace of past life is subsurface oil and natural gas deposits. Nearly all coal and oil on Earth and most sedimentary source rocks associated with coal, oil, and natural gas contain molecules of biological origin and is proof of past life. If Mars possessed an Earth-like biosphere in the past, Mars may contain subsurface deposits of oil and natural gas indicating past life. Life might still exist in these deposits. Subsurface oil and natural gas on Mars would probably cause seepage of hydrocarbon gases such as methane at favorable locations on the Martian surface. Further, if Mars contains substantial subsurface life, the most detectable signature of this life on the Martian surface would be gases generated by the life percolating up to the surface and venting into the Martian atmosphere. In this paper, systems that can detect evidence of subsurface oil and gas, including ground penetrating radar and infrared gas sensors are explored. The limitations and future prospects of infrared gas detection and imaging technologies are explored. The power, mass, and volume requirements for infrared instruments able to detect venting gases, especially methane, from an aerobot is estimated. The maximum range from the infrared sensor to the gas vent and the minimum detectable gas density or fraction of the Martian atmosphere - as appropriate for the instrument type - is estimated. The bit rate and bit error rate requirements for transmitting the data back to Earth are also estimated.
Biblical pi (Score:2, Interesting)
Got that? Ok.
The inner-edge diameter is circumference/pi = 30/3.14... = 9.55... cubits
The difference between the ring's inner edge diameter and its outer edge diameter is thus about .45 cubits; to get the thickness of the ring we divide
by two (because the ring crosses the diameter twice), so .225 cubits, or about 4.05 inches, given an eighteen-inch cubit.
Note that a handbreadth is usually defined as about four inches, so we know the numbers add up; you can take it apart and get pi from it by working backwards:
The inner-edge diameter is equal to the outer-edge diameter minus (thickness * 2), thus 10cubits - .45 cubits(i.e., 2 handbreadths) = 9.55 cubits.
Their value of pi would be the inner-edge circumference (30 cubits) divided by the inner-edge diameter (9.55 cubits), thus about 3.14....
[The reading "pi is exactly three" is based on the weird idea of measuring the tub as a circle rather than a ring.] [and of course your mileage will vary based on the proportion of the cubit you use to your handbreadth, but let's gloss over that for now...]
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?