New Studies Doubt Mars Water Theory 29
An anonymous reader writes "Two groups of scientists have doubted the Mars rover scientists' theory that Mars was drenched with water for a significant time. If their dry Mars theories are supported, it is unlikely that life ever existed on Mars. The first group say that rock features that indicate water are actually caused by meteorite impacts. The second group argue that these features are caused by volcanic activity. Steve Squyres, the Mars rover lead scientist, is sticking by his original findings."
Time Warp... (Score:1)
What's with articles showing up from earlier times?
Remember that 14 some hour stretch without a post? The same thing happened.. the void got filled.
settle the debate? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the robot can hold out long enough, it may gather enough data to settle the debate.
More likely just enough to exacerbate it.
And the third group... (Score:4, Funny)
Life on Mars (Score:1, Interesting)
See, the chances of life spontaneously being created on a planet is so astronomically small as to be almost impossible. The universe is vast, and finding a handful of other planets in different galaxies that also bore life at one point in their histories would corroborate this. In fact, finding no planets with any signs of life corroborates it even better.
However,
Re:Life on Mars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Life on Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
However, if we find life on our next door neighbor, we have some explaining to do. How did life get there? Was it transplanted from earth? Or was earth life transplanted from Mars? If life can propogate across the void of space between earth and Mars, what's to stop it from propogating across solar systems and perhaps even galaxies in astronomical time scales? How old is life anyway, and where did it really come from?
Well, the chances of Mars life reaching Earth, or of Earth life reaching Mars, are pretty good. The two planets are close together; chances are that sooner or later a rock is going to get knocked from one to the other with some spores on board. I would not be at all surprised to find that Mars life (if it exists) and Earth life share a common ancestry.
However, the interstellar spread of life seems less likely to me. While it's quite likely that a rock from Earth might by chance find its way to Mars, it's very unlikely that it would ever escape the solar system entirely. The energy needed to leave the Sun behind is enormous, and the odds of a loose rock ever actually getting somewhere of interest are minute. If life spreads from star to star, it'll do so because it's evolved a form capable of building starships.
Now, if we found HUMAN life on Mars, that would really destroy all of the ongoing theories of the origins of life on earth. Either we are a spacefaring species and thus earth is not our home, or somehow, despite all odds, humanity has evolved on two separate planets that just happen to be right next to each other.
I don't think anyone sane is suggesting that that's likely to happen.
Re:Life on Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
The nearest galaxy to ours is 25,000 ly away. Even assuming a speed of 1% of the speed of light, which is very fast, it would take 2.5 million years to get there. Considering 0.01c is over 1000 times faster than the escape velocity of the galaxy at the position of the sun, it's not a very realistic speed, so the actual time will be much larger. If random bits of life go off in random directions they're unlikely to meet anything any time soon, so it will probably take billions of years before something goes in the right direction and then billions of years for it to get there - astronomical time scales would be at most 10 billions years or so(the universe is less than 15 billion years old by the last estimate I read, and it takes some time for galaxies, stars, planets and finally life to form), so the chances are very very slim, although prehaps not impossible.
Life transporting between stars is easy enough though. A meteor hits earth, a bit of rock flies off and ends up in either earth or solar orbit (probably wouldn't fly off fast enough to leave the solar system), the bit of rock then gets hit by a comet on a parabolic course from the oort cloud going in towards the sun and then out towards another star, the rock sticks to the comet, is carried to the other star where it crashes into a planet. Over the 4 billions years or so that life has existed on earth, that could easilly have happened.
Re:Life on Mars (Score:2)
How about this, a few billion years ago, there is a planet that has large, vast oceans. This planet is where life begins. It's nothing more than bacteria. The life spreads throughout the ocean. Some floats on the surface, some in the mid-water, and some lives on the rocks at the bottom of the ocean. One day, an asteroid hits this planet. The asteroid completely destroys the planet sending debris in every direction. Since most of the planet was water, the water that didn't vaporize instantly is froze
cold of space??? (Score:2, Insightful)
p.s. this is an actual question, not a troll
Re:cold of space??? (Score:2)
Re:cold of space??? (Score:1)
Re:cold of space??? (Score:1)
heat can be lost through radiation and convection. in space, you will not lose heat to convection but you will still lose heat through radiation. note how a Thermos (TM) has shiny sides in addition to the vacuum.
strike
Re:cold of space??? (Score:1)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles's_Law [wikipedia.org] for more info.
Roughly, when you take a liquid from a environment that is under pressure, and transfer it to a vacuum, it gets really really cold, and kerblamo, instant solid form.
Lack of observations colors the estimation (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't confuse cause and effect, or observation and theory. They're not independent. Almost everything we say about the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe is tainted by our lack of any indications of other life so far.
An allegedly objective estimative equation like Drake's would look very different if we actually found evidence for life, anywhere. Currently it is strongly influe
You are nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
See, the chances of life spontaneously being created on a planet is so astronomically small as to be almost impossible.
That's nuts. The chances of life arising spontaneously (note: not "being created") are quite high. The individual steps are reproducible in the lab, and the overall process is quite simple. Given a heterogeneous goop capable of forming complex molecules (e.g. water with a normal assortment of space stuff), a flow of energy (source and sink) and enough time, life is pretty much inevitable.
-- MarkusQ
ooh interesting (Score:2)
Could you post links for studies or whatnot that lends credence to your statements? I haven't seen anything like it yet.
Re:ooh interesting (Score:3, Informative)
It's kind of old (and oft duplicated) news that you can make the basic building blocks by just stewing goo; likewise, the fact that once you have "life" of some form it will evolve quite rapidly (if it breeds rapidly) is a pretty standard classroom demonstration.
The only part that is really recent is that replication itself starts easily from the goo. The only "trick" seems to be cycling the reagents in & out (think a tidal pool) and using lots of little samples (again, think a tidal pool) rather th
danke (Score:1)
Re:Life on Mars (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to rain on everyone's parades here, but to find any signs of life on Mars would really damage the current theory of how life got to be here.
Why? The "current theory" is that life arose from complex molecules eventually forming reproducing organisms, evolving over time to the level of complexity we see today on Earth. How would the discovery that something similar happened on Mars damage that theory in the least? Besides, the invalidation of theories is a big part of scientific progress, so if anyth
Re:Life on Mars (Score:2)
While there is nothing to positively discount any of the possibilities you mentioned, you cannot say that all of those theories have equal merit simply because none have been either proven or disproven. Occam's Razor is a good principle; we shouldn't waste time exploring anything more complicated than your first theory until we have evidence that necessitates making other assumptions (such as finding life forms similar to Earth's on Mars).
This is not an indication of a closed mind, but rather a solid scien
Re:Life on Mars (Score:2)
I didn't use Occam's Razor incorrectly. My logic would not have you throw out quantum mechanics and relativity in favor of Newtonian physics or something even more primitive, because there is extant factual evidence that requires you to formulate something more complex. I didn't say to always use the simplest explanation, I said to always use the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts, or in other words, formulate the simplest and most elegant theory that could produce the entire corpus of observat
Mars debate oddly constrained (Score:3, Interesting)
Nasa Mars articles are subtly and covertly constrained by NASA media censors because of the political and funding sensitivites ?
If so, thats really bad, and should be stopped.If they are not constrained, then the scientists themselves give the perception of ignoring ESA data or references, which I find impossible to believe.
Are my observations at fault? Is there a pragmatic and reasonable explanation why this debate seems so oddly limited in scope and reference to ESA etc?
Only one way to find out for sure... (Score:1)