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Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

nasa.gov

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Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#51

Post by credit_guy »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
credit_guy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Earth bacteria will go out and contaminate Mars. sooner or later it would happen. We could still study the original Martian biome, if that exists.

The problem is, with Earth life present on Mars you can no longer be sure that the life you find there wasn't brought in by colonists.

That's such a simplistic view of life.

We would be able to identify an extraterrestrial cell as surely as if it was carrying flashing lights and screaming "I'm an alien". While all life is based on information, and information needs to be somehow encoded in a, let's call it, genetic code, would that code be DNA and RNA based? would in encode proteins, and if so, would the building blocks be the same 20 amino acids that we have an Earth. Would the genes be encoded using the same nucleotites, and would "letter" in the genetic code be encoded by 3 nucleotides? If so, would always the same 3 nucleotides encode the same aminoacid as on Earth? etc, etc.

There are so many places that life could be different, that the chance of mistaking Martian life for terrestrial life is vanishingly small.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#52

Post by bovermyer »

djsumdog wrote: post #31
gabrielgoh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this a real concern? it should be relatively easy to distinguish life on earth from life on mars, should it exist. Especially considering it comes from a completely new path of evolution. Furthermore, a mars station would allow science to be done directly on mars, rather than having payloads of material sent to and from earth.

You should read The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's fiction, but it's one of the most well researched series of novels and is feels incredibly realistic, believable and it has really amazing characters/story to boot. But this concern is expressed in that series, and it is a real one. The first people we send to Mars will not be visitors. They'll most likely be colonists. They will die there. Once they star…

We still haven't interacted with all of the life on our own planet. There are things living in the dark places of the world that are difficult for us to reach.

Is it really necessary to preserve potential (but not confirmed) Martian life before establishing a beachhead?

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#53

Post by vbuwivbiu »

justinjlynn wrote: post #8
ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

In general this is pretty awesome. What we now know are: 1) Earth microbes and soil organisms (worms) can live in hydrated martian soil. ( https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthw... ) 2) Food plants can grow in martian soil that has had said organisms added to it.( https://www.nasa.gov/feature/farming-in-martian-gardens ) 3) The water to hydrate the soil is already on Mars.(this article) 4) We ca…

That is indeed awesome but I would argue that it also means we would need to undertake a much more thorough search to find out of mars is indeed a dead planet. Once we land a large concentration of biological matter there -- we won't have an opportunity to look again without dealing with massive potential for cross-planetary contamination. Of course, it's a trade off and it's great news if we ever had to undertake a…

The evidence so far predicts that Mars is now sadly dead. The ratios of gases in its thin atmosphere are not consistent with a living planet (no oxygen, and the seasonal methane is probably geological). Ancient Martian life was probably identical to Earth's, due to similar conditions, chemistry and exchange of genetic information between the two planets (and Venus, in addition to life from other solar systems via comets). In the rocks we should find fossils eventually with our current rovers.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

Ntrails wrote: post #49
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be worth studying - if they were much alike, the first obvious questions to answer would be "why" and "which came first".

Worth studying is an interesting term. I've got a bunch of things which are worth fixing, but none of them get prioritised. Would you say that it would be preferable to block the creation of a colony on the basis that it interferes research that might happen one day? Personally I'd say no.

Didn't mean to imply it; I'm probably the last person on this site to argue against a colony on Mars. But it would be worth it if, during initial construction of the colony and preferably before sending men, we could send over some studies.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#55

Post by TeMPOraL »

credit_guy wrote: post #51
TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, with Earth life present on Mars you can no longer be sure that the life you find there wasn't brought in by colonists.

That's such a simplistic view of life. We would be able to identify an extraterrestrial cell as surely as if it was carrying flashing lights and screaming "I'm an alien". While all life is based on information, and information needs to be somehow encoded in a, let's call it, genetic code, would that code be DNA and RNA based? would in encode proteins, and if so, would the building blocks be the same 20 amino acids th…

What if it turns out that Earth's life and Martian life share the same origin?

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#56

Post by rev_bird »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
rev_bird wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>could likely launch a cubesat with some sort of bacterial payload that would eventually get to Mars Curious how this might work, given the energy required not only to escape Earth's orbit, but to get into another one around Mars and crash into it. It's my understanding that cubesats don't have anything that could do any of that stuff, and a larger craft doing the heavy lifting would be way more complicated.

A solar sail and a bit of patience? It would take some serious engineering chops to pull it off, but it's not totally implausible.

Sorry, I realize now that I may have sounded sarcastic. I really was curious, this makes sense. Thanks for responding.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#57

Post by credit_guy »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55
credit_guy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a simplistic view of life. We would be able to identify an extraterrestrial cell as surely as if it was carrying flashing lights and screaming "I'm an alien". While all life is based on information, and information needs to be somehow encoded in a, let's call it, genetic code, would that code be DNA and RNA based? would in encode proteins, and if so, would the building blocks be the same 20 amino acids th…

What if it turns out that Earth's life and Martian life share the same origin?

Even if it turns out to be the case, there would be two forms of life separated by billions of years of evolution. Mistaking them would be much less likely than mistaking a cell from the wing of fruit fly from an onion peel cell: while on the outside they may look similar, the DNA of the fruit fly has about 170 million base pairs, while the DNA of the onion has 16 billion of them.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#58

Post by azernik »

zipwitch wrote: post #34
justinjlynn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed awesome but I would argue that it also means we would need to undertake a much more thorough search to find out of mars is indeed a dead planet. Once we land a large concentration of biological matter there -- we won't have an opportunity to look again without dealing with massive potential for cross-planetary contamination. Of course, it's a trade off and it's great news if we ever had to undertake a…

If we want to search Mars for life before we contaminate it then we need to launch a crash program to do so now , because our window is swiftly expiring. Right now a small group with minimal resources (on the to build and launch stuff into space scale) could likely launch a cubesat with some sort of bacterial payload that would eventually get to Mars. Such a stunt is only going to get easier in the next few decades.…

They would have to get permission from the launching country, and that launch country would be obligated by the Outer Space Treaty to impose limits on contamination.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#59

Post by azernik »

djsumdog wrote: post #32
gilgoomesh wrote: post #3

I hope so but this type of finding has been wrong before. See the recent discrediting of liquid "brines" on Mars: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351... Until a rover or other probe tests it directly, I'll remain skeptical.

Also, if this is accurate, how do we know it's water? I mean most likely it is, but is there a potential for it to be some other type of frozen liquid? Potentially a non-drinking one?

Spectroscopy.

Re: Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

#60

Post by webXL »

bovermyer wrote: post #52
djsumdog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's fiction, but it's one of the most well researched series of novels and is feels incredibly realistic, believable and it has really amazing characters/story to boot. But this concern is expressed in that series, and it is a real one. The first people we send to Mars will not be visitors. They'll most likely be colonists. They will die there. Once they star…

We still haven't interacted with all of the life on our own planet. There are things living in the dark places of the world that are difficult for us to reach. Is it really necessary to preserve potential (but not confirmed) Martian life before establishing a beachhead?

That's my question as well. Judging by this thread, it appears we're not thinking hard enough about the unknowns, like what if Martian life is hostile to the microbes we depend on?

Are we welcome there? Will we have to engineer some kind of virus that's friendly to our life support that wipes out these unfriendly lifeforms?

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