Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
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Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#2Curious, will the samples collected via mars return mission provide proof beyond doubt on this assertion?
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#3Curious, will the samples collected via mars return mission provide proof beyond doubt on this assertion?
That’s the hope! Though the rover should have most of the scientific equipment that it needs to run the relevant experiments right there on the surface of Mars.
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#4What happens when we'd put some microbes there now?
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#5I don't understand the excitement for finding life on Mars. I personally really, really hope we do not find life on Mars.
If we find even the most basic microbial life, NASA is going to shut down all future exploration in the interest of Martian planetary protection. China and Russia probably won't, but the US will cripple itself (again) out of caution.
On a more existential level, finding life elsewhere in the solar system (assuming it's not diaspora from earth or vice versa) says really dark things about our own potential. If life is truly common in the universe, the fact that we haven't seen it anywhere means that the great filter is still in front of us -- and nobody has slipped through.
OTOH, if the great filter is behind is, there's no data about our likelihood of killing ourselves before we do manage to explore the rest of the known universe. This is such a better outcome.
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#6We don't have "full" understanding of human body and working of mind. I suspect in future humans who take birth and grow in different scenarios like earth natural / earth urban / mars urban and so on to have different life spans and body capacities.
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#7What happens when we'd put some microbes there now?
We probably have done this already, with the man made machines that we had sent. Although the NASA tries to sterilize the robots/rovers, I doubt that they can kill every bacteria and some of the bacteria are known to somehow survive when exposed to space as well.
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#8What happens when we'd put some microbes there now?
What's more important: knowing if Mars had/has life on it or having life on it?
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#9I don't understand the excitement for finding life on Mars. I personally really, really hope we do not find life on Mars. If we find even the most basic microbial life, NASA is going to shut down all future exploration in the interest of Martian planetary protection. China and Russia probably won't, but the US will cripple itself (again) out of caution. On a more existential level, finding life elsewhere in the solar…
Alternatively both instances of life could be linked. https://www.space.com/22577-earth-life-from-mars-theory.html
That said my gut says hypothetically talking about the danger of a universal great filter is silly when we clearly face near term filters of our own design right now (climate change, environmental collapse, a nuclear arms race)
Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study
#10I don't understand the excitement for finding life on Mars. I personally really, really hope we do not find life on Mars. If we find even the most basic microbial life, NASA is going to shut down all future exploration in the interest of Martian planetary protection. China and Russia probably won't, but the US will cripple itself (again) out of caution. On a more existential level, finding life elsewhere in the solar…
did you read Bostrom's article with the same opinion?