Life on Mars?

A press conference is currently being conducted by NASA scientists. Here's a story from Voice of America announcing the press conference. Strong evidence has been discovered that there was once enough water on Mars to support life.Do you think the rovers will eventually uncover even more compelling evidence that life may have once existed there? I do, but regardless this is a fascinating story. I think the mars rover program has been a huge success. I hope Americans will continue to support NASA.

It is possiable but without knowing exactly what life needs to occur its hard to make predictions about where it existed..... Heck for all we know life could be extremely common in the universe..... There is no reason to think life is all that special yet(notice the yet) as we know so little about it.....Now if we do find fossils on mars.... I wonder what the life would be like... We Can already conclude it should be very different then earth's life... if its not that must mean they both shared a common past...?Another question.... who said all life needs water? Just picturing how life might have evolved in other places is just mind boggling

Was the Martian bacteria fossils debunked?

Debunked is not the proper term, more like put into perspective. They were not actually supposed to be fossilized bacteria, but fossils of things that bacteria leave behind... fossil traces.But even that is put into perspective that those kinds of traces can have other causes.So at this point it is inconclusive, though suggestive. More testing has to be done.And I guess this leads back to the question of the thread, which is what will we find on Mars itself. The fact that it may have had lots of water (at least in the area of that lander), means only that ONE material factor in life existing there has been found to have existed there.I don't think this shows for how long and what other conditions existed at the time.Given our abundant lack of knowledge regarding mechanisms of abiogenesis, the evidence of lots of water at some distant time in the past, does not really give me intellectual confidence in predicting if more evidence of life will be found.There were some fibrous objects seen in some photographs, that have not been ruled one way or the other as debris from the lander's balloons. If they turn out not to be debris, then maybe we already have found evidence of life.I'm going to have to wait for that kind of evidence/confirmation, before I let my emotional side regarding the possibility of life on Mars overcome my sceptical intellectual side.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This morning, in an interview for radio Heather Cooper (astronomer) suggested that good evidence for life on Mars had been found in the late seventies, but NASA sat on it (the evidence, not the life )because it wasn't discovered by one of their boffins. She said she'd seen the chap's original data and she was convinced. Anyone know anything about this?

Hi Trixie, your last post was news to me, the only "confirmed" sightings of Extraterestrial life that I know of was Area 51 . But of course "they" are keeping a lid on that one. LOL>

I think the idea is that at some point Mars had a much richer atmosphere not to unlike earth. I remember watching a documentary were they sugested that at some point in mars's history, it lost it's atmospheric pressure. It was said that perhapse a near miss comet 'sucked' it away as it sped by.Also, I have read of seemingly eroded geological structures that some scientists hypothisise were caused by oceans and rivers at some point. I belive that them finding some water, makes them wonder if there was more water.Personaly, I hope they find conclusive evidence of life . I just think that would be fantastic!Mars seems a good candidate.

Here's a link for you to peruse at your leisure.Page not found | Mars Society AustraliaMust admit makes pretty interesting reading. I haven't had time to read it in great detail cos its time for me to get a bit of shut-eye, but I'd be grateful for feedback on this. I've done a bit of work which used radio-labelling of bacterial cellular components, but not the detection of evolved radioactive gas. Any experts out there with any ideas?

I doubt the Biblical angels need water. There's likely cajillions of them out there in the universe doing the bidding of God. They certainly don't need air. Are some secularists beginning to consider the possibility of the spiritual dimension as the Bible tells us?

Interesting article Trixie,
I think it is great that Mars is being investigated.

Water has a number of relatively unique properties that make it great for life. For instance it dissolves a wide variety of organic and inorganic substances. It's a liquid at wide range of temperatures. Because it's a polar molecule it takes a lot of heat to turn it into steam. A chemist could probably point out a few others.

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I think the idea is that at some point Mars had a much richer atmosphere not to unlike earth. I remember watching a documentary were they sugested that at some point in mars's history, it lost it's atmospheric pressure.

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To be honest this does not change anything. When you say atmosphere not "unlike earth", what does that mean? Like it is now, or like it was in earth's past when it is believed life arose?As it is atmosphere, including atmospheric pressure, may be meaningless to life, as long as water can exist in liquid form. In addition to recent ideas that anoxic environments were necessary for abiogenesis, other recent concepts have life originating at deep sea vents. That means if the martian atmosphere contained oxygen, or if the seas were shallow (even if numerous), or if there was little tectonic activity, there may never have been life of any kind.This is why I think knowing there is water doesn't do much for me. Yeah, it makes it more possible, but only by a teeny bit. We just don't know enough of what ELSE we need to be looking for, and if THOSE OTHER factors existed.That said, I would be excited if solid evidence of life was found... even microbial. That would be cool.Personally, I feel the most likely location for finding any life is on Europa, or perhaps moons of Jupiter or Saturn we haven't discovered yet, but have deep liquid oceans and tectonic activity.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

All I can say is that it would be nice to have some company.

Yaro writes:

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I remember watching a documentary were they sugested that at some point in mars's history, it lost it's atmospheric pressure. It was said that perhapse a near miss comet 'sucked' it away as it sped by.

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I probably missed that documentary, but I remember reading something about this years ago. If I remember correctly, some scientists speculated that Mars once might have had a reducing atmosphere, but that something unexplained had happened to destroy it.Question: isn't a reducing atmosphere rich in ammonia? At one time, earth had such an atmosphere, right?

Martian You can all thank me later!!!