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Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

phys.org

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Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#31

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

ramraj07 wrote: post #10

It’s beyond obvious that water flew as rivers in Mars at some point, and looks like there’s some water there even now! Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point? I doubt anyone thinks there’s viable life there even now (though one can’t 100% exclude the possibility). It’s like everyone kind of already knows these are the likely facts but we keep using these as scape…

>Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point?

We have no clue about how likely it is for life to emerge or how it happens, so we can't really tell. Maybe we're on the only planet with life in the universe.

Finding proof of life on Mars would completely change that equation.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#33

Post by bbojan »

benjifri wrote: post #12
borissk wrote: post #4

We live in truly amazing times. In a few years NASA may succeed in sending probes from Mars to Earth and we may get evidence for past or current life on Mars. In 10 or 15 years if Starship works out we may be able to send scientists to Mars. I'm a fan of the hypothesis that life on Earth came from Mars - will be very interesting to see how it develops as we study Mars.

What makes you think life on Earth came from Mars?

Mars is smaller and cooled down before Earth. That means it had liquid water while the Earth was still too hot. Therefore, it's possible that life first appeared on Mars, and was later transferred to Earth on a meteorite.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#34

Post by cheschire »

mach1ne wrote: post #30
ratg13 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a bit of a stretch to say with certainty that Mars never evolved complex life 500+ million years ago.

Fair point, but even with rovers we have zero indication to the fact, and thus it's a very reasonable estimate.

Rovers are not the most effective tool for searching for fossils, especially microscopic fossils that can’t be seen from a distance on camera. They’re just the most effective tool we can send at the time we sent them. But a rover is only slightly more effective than just sending a dude with a buggy and a child’s beach kit.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#35

Post by goodcanadian »

yrgulation wrote: post #32

Commented this and got flagged: “We need boots on the ground to back the good science behind these findings.” Why is wanting to send people to mars to confirm or leverage these findings so offensive?

Perhaps, "boots on the ground" was flagged by an overzealous automatic moderation scheme?

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#36

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

AareyBaba wrote: post #27
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely unnecessary. It's a big question as to why life started on Earth as soon as it did, pretty much as soon as it was even possible. That could be because life is very easy to start if conditions are right. In which case it's quite likely to have started on early Mars too, and we should expect to find at least simple life all over the place. The other possibility is that it didn't start on Earth, and was see…

The big question is how local regions of low entropy that exhibit metabolism and replication (ie. life) came into existance out of inanimate matter. Where it happened is secondary.

Yes, that is the biggest question. Understanding where it happened may give us some clues of course.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#37

Post by yrgulation »

goodcanadian wrote: post #35
yrgulation wrote: post #32

Commented this and got flagged: “We need boots on the ground to back the good science behind these findings.” Why is wanting to send people to mars to confirm or leverage these findings so offensive?

Perhaps, "boots on the ground" was flagged by an overzealous automatic moderation scheme?

Interesting. Indeed the wording is not great but a human would get the idea :-) I did notice that quite a few times when i write that i want space exploration and expansion it gets downvoted. So there may also be a crowd that thinks we should solve all problems on earth before going to space, as if thats possible or achievable.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#38

Post by chiefalchemist »

parasti wrote: post #14
ramraj07 wrote: post #10

It’s beyond obvious that water flew as rivers in Mars at some point, and looks like there’s some water there even now! Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point? I doubt anyone thinks there’s viable life there even now (though one can’t 100% exclude the possibility). It’s like everyone kind of already knows these are the likely facts but we keep using these as scape…

Science is the difference between "everyone kind of already knows" and proven facts. Don't confuse a hundred years of Martian sci-fi with actual scientific discoveries about Mars.

Not being snarky but that is what Science is supposed to be. Unfortunately, it has mutated to the more warm & fuzzy "everyone kind of knows." Case in point, it should be "trust the data" but instead we get "trust the experts." The irony? We all know expertise in humans is fleeting.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#39

Post by api »

I was under the impression that abundant evidence of water on Mars had already been found, though I suppose this adds to the pile.

There's this from 2008:

https://www.space.com/5546-proof-water-ice-mars.html

It seems to show evidence for subsurface ice on Mars now, though I'm not sure if this is H2O ice or CO2 ice.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#40

Post by api »

nigerianbrince wrote: post #15
ramraj07 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have very little reason to believe life evolved in Earth or even in Mars for that matter. The more likely scenario is that there’s rocks floating around everywhere that have spores of life throughout the galaxy ready to seed a suitable planet in geologically instantaneous timelines. That will explain the extremely rapid emergence of life on earth initially while it took a few billion years to evolve any further. In…

If living organisms can survive on a meteorite, they can definitely survive on moon/mars, which contradicts our observations.

They likely would not survive on a meteorite in the sense of active metabolism and replication. We'd be talking about very dormant spores.
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