Organic Molecules Discovered By Curiosity Rover Consistent With Early Life On Mars, Study Finds (phys.org) 25
Organic compounds called thiophenes were recently discovered on Mars, and a new study published in the journal Astrobiology thinks their presence would be consistent with the presence of early life on Mars. Phys.Org reports: "We identified several biological pathways for thiophenes that seem more likely than chemical ones, but we still need proof," Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch said. "If you find thiophenes on Earth, then you would think they are biological, but on Mars, of course, the bar to prove that has to be quite a bit higher." Thiophene molecules have four carbon atoms and a sulfur atom arranged in a ring, and both carbon and sulfur, are bio-essential elements. Yet Schulze-Makuch and Heinz could not exclude non-biological processes leading to the existence of these compounds on Mars.
Meteor impacts provide one possible abiotic explanation. Thiophenes can also be created through thermochemical sulfate reduction, a process that involves a set of compounds being heated to 248 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) or more. In the biological scenario, bacteria, which may have existed more than three billion years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter, could have facilitated a sulfate reduction process that results in thiophenes. There are also other pathways where the thiophenes themselves are broken down by bacteria.
Meteor impacts provide one possible abiotic explanation. Thiophenes can also be created through thermochemical sulfate reduction, a process that involves a set of compounds being heated to 248 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) or more. In the biological scenario, bacteria, which may have existed more than three billion years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter, could have facilitated a sulfate reduction process that results in thiophenes. There are also other pathways where the thiophenes themselves are broken down by bacteria.
The orange teaser, & I don't mean Donald (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's Fucking Alie.... chemicals.
Re: The orange teaser, & I don't mean Donald (Score:2)
What's the difference?
(This four-layered joken is proudly presented by ...)
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What's the difference?
(This four-layered joken is proudly presented by ...)
One is just Aliens the other is Aliens having sex with ... chemicals??
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There's a difference between being an alien and wearing an alien.
The thing people never seem to get. (Score:5, Interesting)
Life is not a yes/no question.
It is a "how much?" question. A gradient.
For every spot on that gradient, there exists something.
On Earth, you can go from definitely full alive bacteria over viruses to cristals and tensides and such, to definitely dead rocks.
So asking "Are these thiophenes of biological origin?" is a bit silly. How biological do you mean?
And that is also why people struggle with a definition for life. And why there are so many different ones.
(My favorite is that life is just something [a process] that locally lowers entropy. Which is obviously one for very small values of being alive.)
It also is the root problem of the entire abortion discussion, if you take away the religious nutters first.
There simply isn't a point where things jump from not alive to alive.
What is life? (Score:3)
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I agree you are free to hold this position for yourself.
So let's timeshifted abort you now.
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I'm not sure if you intended to reply to my post or another one, but I am anti-abortion. My post was in response to an argument saying it's okay because we're all degrees of living like atoms and dirt and rocks and such... or something equally bizarre. However, applying his principles to himself, there's then no reason not to end his life just as easily. Presumably, he doesn't actually want to want the implications of his own argument.
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Yeah, the problem is that the question itself is broken, as if living matter were somehow fundamentally different from non-living.
It's a natural mistake. Anyone who has been present when someone else has died has seen that subtle but shocking change from person to corpse, as if something has just *evaporated*. But if you go looking for that thing that has just fled, it's impossible to find, although one early 20th Century doctor attempted to weigh the thing [wikipedia.org].
Research on the emergence of biochemical building
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Pretty much, yes. If you visited Earth at a random time when life was possible, it would be circa 80% likely you would see no much but stromatolites and interesting slimes. Things that could be seen by humans without a microscope started 650 million years, soon after Snowball Earth melted.
What is auspicious is that the life gave Earth an oxygen atmosphere quite early. So it may well be that life is inevitable under reasonable conditions.
thiophenes? (Score:2)
The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline say that it was detected one half second before the rover took the probe.
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The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline say that it was detected one half second before the rover took the probe.
Thiotimoline, Thiophene, Asimov, Spazenoff. Hats off to the Foundation, you Mule!
But what about the gophers? (Score:1)
We know gophers have been spotted by the curiosity: what ever happened to them?? Did they breed and encompass the rover with a colony gophers?
We demand answers!
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Probably all eaten by the lynx, who then died out for lack of food.
Profound (Score:2)
Not biological (Score:2)
This is just selling papers, folks. Move along.
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Is the journal Astrobiology even available in dead tree form?