Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

brown.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 128 posts

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#31

Post by danlugo92 »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #16
bpodgursky wrote: post #5

I 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…

The great filter is that tech is to easy, but self-awareness and self-discipline is hard. So life presses onwards, demanding exponential energy density from tech, to not be forced to limit itself and self-discipline itself. Thus ever more potent tools are handed out to avoid confrontation with the "overcome" animal nature - and once that equation reaches the end of the line (easy energy and resources exhausted), a ne…

There could be civilizations out there that never developed aggression.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#32

Post by OmicronCeti »

Daniel_sk wrote: post #11

There are even mysterious (with hypothetical biological origin) geysers on Mars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geysers_on_Mars

To be perfectly honest they're not that mysterious. In the Martian science community they're called araneiforms, and the biological origin hypothesis is fairly fringe. Lots of good reading in these papers:

- "The formation of araneiforms by carbon dioxide venting and vigorous sublimation dynamics under martian atmospheric pressure": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82763-7

- "HiRISE observations of gas sublimation-driven activity in Mars’ southern polar regions: III. Models of processes involving translucent ice": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910350...

- "How martian araneiforms get their shapes: morphological analysis and diffusion-limited aggregation model for polar surface erosion": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351...

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#33

Post by daveguy »

levosmetalo wrote: post #14
NanoWar wrote: post #4

What happens when we'd put some microbes there now?

I’m more concerned what happens when we bring some microbes from Mars.

Andromeda Strain makes a good story, but viruses and bacteria tend to evolve with their hosts and environment. It is unlikely that any virus or bacteria brought from mars would have a serious impact on humans or our environment. We probably aren't good hosts to something that's been evolving in martian conditions.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#34

Post by OmicronCeti »

f430 wrote: post #19

is anybody going to talk about the numerous and very obvious artificial structures on Mars and Moon? Just shut up and chalk it up to conspiracy right like a good American.

I'm a PhD candidate studying Mars, happy to debunk any structures you can supply.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#35

Post by torstenvl »

x86ARMsRace wrote: post #17
NanoWar wrote: post #4

What happens when we'd put some microbes there now?

I've been curious about this recently actually. What are the downsides of "seeding" a plant with life to study how it evolves?

Maybe after initial terraforming you could also seed it with a specially engineered retrovirus to help evolution along by tweaking genes associated with prosociality.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#36

Post by harshalizee »

bpodgursky wrote: post #5

I 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…

Personally, I don't believe in the great filter hypothesis. The universe is incredibly vast enough entire civilizations can likely go through millions of years of births and deaths without ever having contact with another alien life form. Humans have a huge bias to feel "special".

We've only been broadcasting radio waves for a few decades now, and even that would just be lost in the background noise at large distances.

It would be extremely surprising if we even find any life outside the solar system for at least a few centuries.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#37

Post by adt2bt »

paulpauper wrote: post #25

For almost half a century, scientists have been speculating about sub-surface life on mars. Why with existing technological progress can we not just get a yes or no answer about this.

If I had to guess: planets are big, rocks are hard, and if there is life, it’s vanishingly rare or hard to find.

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#39

Post by ssijak »

adt2bt wrote: post #37
paulpauper wrote: post #25

For almost half a century, scientists have been speculating about sub-surface life on mars. Why with existing technological progress can we not just get a yes or no answer about this.

If I had to guess: planets are big, rocks are hard, and if there is life, it’s vanishingly rare or hard to find.

Google something like “mars viking life experiments”

Re: Mars has right ingredients for present-day microbial life: study

#40

Post by mrfusion »

paulpauper wrote: post #25

For almost half a century, scientists have been speculating about sub-surface life on mars. Why with existing technological progress can we not just get a yes or no answer about this.

I’ll answer your question with a question. Would space exploration get more or less funding if we settled a fundamental question about the existence of life outside earth?
Post reply on HN