Life on Mars???

[superyob]

Nasa Mars announcement: is there liquid water on the Red Planet? - live

Has Nasa has found liquid water on Mars? Follow the build-up ahead of the announcement from 4pm UK time

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scie...ater-live.html

Is this like asking if there are rocks on the moon??? I'm sure that hydrogen and oxygen are bound to mix somewhere else other than Earth???

[Express]

Oh! I thought this was a link to the Bowie song.

[CoupeKing]

I've been trying to follow this for the last few days, exciting stuff. I'm sure it should be something substantial.

[Madaya]

My guess is evidence of flowing water. Though on Mars it would be a concentrated brine solution. We shall see.

[mik]

It appears water it much more common than than first thought, which is good stuff , it makes it easier to find another place to live before we blow ourselves up ...... or the sun expends its fuel source and grows to a size that envelopes our little rock before it shrinks again to buggerall, but not before it turns us into crispy critters , ...............i always look on the bright side .

[2011G6E]

It's sandworms...right? Gotta be.

Shai Halud be praised!

[Yellow_Festiva]

The Mrs gave me a book saying that's where men came from. I'll lend NASA the book if they want and save them a ton of money.

[EgoFG]

Saying there was life on mars because there is evidence of water, is a little like saying there were holdens on mars because they found iron oxide.

[jpblue1000]

One commonality of all know life is the presence of liquid water. Both In the creature, used by the creature and near it. This illustrates a special condition present where all know life could live. So empowering the imaginations that fund, research and build these missions its a close as we have come.
Exciting stuff
JP

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by EgoFG

Saying there was life on mars because there is evidence of water, is a little like saying there were holdens on mars because they found iron oxide.

Or a wife beater and a empty bundy can?

[superyob]

The mind boggles though. If life is found on Mars, no matter how microbial, the automatic assumption would be that God or evolution has been very active all over the universe...

[chamb0]

https://www.newscientist.com/article...riosity-rover/

Salty water seen flowing on Mars, not far from Curiosity rover

The dark streaks in this picture may be signs of salty water (Image: JPL/NASA)

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured the strongest evidence yet that salty liquid water flows on the planet’s surface during warm seasons.

Whether or not these salty flows could sustain life depends on how salty they are, says Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who has reported the findings, along with his colleagues. “If the water is completely saturated with perchlorates [hydrated salts], then life as we know it on Earth wouldn’t be able to survive in that sort of concentrated water,” he says. “But if the water only has a tiny percentage of perchlorates in it, then I think we should be fine.

Recurring slope lineae – dark streaks that appear, get longer, and fade in each Martian year – have long been thought to represent signs of flowing water. Now that idea has been backed up by data from the Orbiter’s onboard spectrometer, named CRISM, which analyses reflected sunlight to detect patterns that indicate what minerals are present on the surface.

Salts can absorb water from the atmosphere and lower the freezing point of water, making it possible for liquid water to exist even in the cold Martian climate. Spectral data from four locations with recurrent slope lineae reveal the presence of hydrated salts, which are most likely to be magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate.


The streaks changes in size with the seasons (Image: JPL/NASA)

Although not examined in the current study, features resembling recurrent slope lineae were observed this year in Gale crater, raising the possibility that the Curiosity rover could look for more clues up close.

The most promising location is about 50 kilometres from the Curiosity landing site. Curiosity has already found evidence of perchlorates at Gale crater, as well as organic compounds.

Confirmation of flowing water on the surface would add substantial weight to calls for NASA to commit more strongly to searching for life on Mars. In the Atacama desert, one of the most hostile environments on Earth, communities of microbes are able to survive on moisture in the ground created by salts absorbing water from the atmosphere. Some think, similar microbes could live on Mars.


More signs of water? (Image: JPL/NASA)

A number of astrobiologists criticised NASA when plans for its next rover, Mars 2020, left out DNA sequencers and other devices designed to look for living organisms.

But many scientists would not be convinced by evidence from a rover. Definitive proof of life on Mars would require samples to be brought back to Earth. Mars 2020 will store samples to be brought home in a later mission.

“The only thing we can really assert is that the places we’re finding are probably more habitable than the rest of the planet, which is bone dry,” says Ojha.

Journal reference: Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2546

[Trevor 57]

seriously, there is fair more important things right here on earth they should be spending money on

[damo76]

Cool we can have a new place to live once we ***** this planet completely.

[Iggle Piggle]

[raised by monkeys]

The best headline today. Water on Mars: Australia to search for illegal boats.

[wodahs]

Hmmm they recon space travellers visited us in our ancient past !!!!

I wonder with this finding was that the planet we screwed and left behind them many many many years ago , and now some bright spark after realising we going that way (again) may be we could go there

or even more still mars had water , so mars had life like earth , so what screwed mars and will it happen to earth before we can screw it

[EgoFG]

Hairdressers and accountants according to Douglas

[superyob]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

seriously, there is fair more important things right here on earth they should be spending money on

Totally agree Trevor 57, but I still wonder if ET will be found in my lifetime. That will have serious impacts on society I think...

[jpblue1000]

you could argue we are, at least our solar systems, E.T. off visiting foreign worlds with out robots and spy craft and even our peoples.
What is more important than understanding and knowledge?

JP

[superyob]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

you could argue we are, at least our solar systems, E.T. off visiting foreign worlds with out robots and spy craft and even our peoples.
What is more important than understanding and knowledge?

JP

Spiritual well being? Cold hard 'fact' scares me sometimes...

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

seriously, there is fair more important things right here on earth they should be spending money on

Ah, that old pile of rubbish...
No, there aren't...for the money spent it's staggeringly cheap when you compare it to other "worthwhile" things we spend money on here on Earth, and the rewards could be staggering.

But that doesn't matter...the human race doesn't advance by sitting in our houses and feeling sorry for ourselves as some people would prefer we do...we have to go further and expand and strive to discover everything there is to discover.

Here's just one figure to put things in perspective...


Oh, and we haven't "wrecked the Earth", it's not "dying", or any of this other green based rubbish we hear. The planet is fine...it's faced a hell of a lot worse than mankind burning a little coal. It was here for billions of years before us, it will be here billions of years after we're gone...stop worrying and crying into your beer, and revel in human achievement for a damn change!

Originally Posted by superyob

Spiritual well being? Cold hard 'fact' scares me sometimes...

Really...?
Spiritual well being doesn't get you to the stars...cold hard facts are how the world works...how the universe works. Spiritual stuff is all inside your head...it doesn't exist beyond what you think exists, and has literally no place in the world of science and human advancement.

I remember back in the seventies we looked forward to a 21st century full of unlimited expansion and plentiful atomic power, but somewhere along the way cowards got put in charge of things...and we're just bumbling around now advancing slowly and steadily. Where are the big thinking projects? Where are the plans that the public jumps behind feet first like they did with the moon landings and earlier space exploration?
A couple of setbacks and they chicken out...backed by navel-gazing green idiots who think we should be ashamed of being able to flicjk a switch and have easy access to energy.

You really wonder if that bright future is ever going to happen if we keep limited thinking like that...

[Russ]

[marty351]

Where's George Orwell when you need him?
Or someone like him.

Do we have better things to spend money on? Yes, we do. But how productive is it to mankind? More money for wars, protecting ourselves from religious zealots or solving world famine only to increase the already overpopulated planet?

Think future, think now and invest in science.
The world is wasting time on petty, trivial matters when there is an infinite universe beyond our atmosphere.

[CoupeKing]

You only have to look at the advancements in technology over the decades, it's enough to justify any budget.

[Falcman0o7]

Mars was just like earth.

[marty351]

The power of hindsight is too late. The power of foresight involves intelligent thinking.
Blaming ourselves for advancement and evolution is pointless, acceptance that all things change for better or worse is the human way. Always has been until recently.
It doesn't matter if we find life out there, it matters that we're there.

[marty351]

Originally Posted by Falcman0o7

Mars was just like earth.

Perhaps in the early days. Probably not enough gravity for much else.
Venus too.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Falcman0o7

Mars was just like earth.

Kind of...not enough gravity (only a third of Earths) to retain a thick atmosphere so it bled away into space.

I remember my kids watching the old "Captain Planet" TV cartoon show and hearing him give Venus as an example of what Earth was going to end up like.
Disregarding the fact that Venus is 40 million kilometers closer to the sun than the Earth...think of the difference on Earth between summer and winter, and that's only because of a small orbital change closer or further away...so it's no surprise that Venus is a hellish oven even though it's almost a twin of Earth in size.

Mars is much smaller so doesn't have the mass to retain a thick atmosphere.
Yet. If we get off our backsides and plan on a large scale, terraforming could be undertaken, but it's a long term project involving seeding the planet with engineered lichens and mosses to create oxygen and thicken things up a bit.

[Falcman0o7]

Originally Posted by marty351

Perhaps in the early days. Probably not enough gravity for much else.
Venus too.

I've always believed it and wonder what happend there. Could of been millions of years ago, Or even recently. Maybe we once lived there? Maybe we destroyed the place LOL! Earth is like a grain of sand from the sahara desert.
Theres life somewhere. Intelligent life. Theres none here though :P