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New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

discover.lanl.gov

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Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#31

Post by alex_young »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #28
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

But then how did life get on mars?

Blew in from Europa

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#32

Post by [deleted] »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #28
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

But then how did life get on mars?

[deleted]

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#33

Post by bena »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #28
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

But then how did life get on mars?

Exactly, panspermia isn't an answer, it's kicking the can down the road.

The only thing panspermia can tell us is that it's ok if we can't find evidence for the genesis of life on Earth.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#35

Post by NegativeLatency »

gilbetron wrote: post #13
neverokay wrote: post #4

Why don’t we just drill into mars and look for fossils? Easy peasy.

If you took at fairly smart person, give them a set of Earth maps, and had them pick one spot where they could fake landing a rover, and let them travel within a few hundred meters of that spot and drill, like, 100 spots, I wonder what the odds of them finding a fossil?

land on a travertine deposit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travertine

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#36

Post by Insanity »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #28
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

But then how did life get on mars?

I get your point, but the idea that life originates on Asteroids and populates planets on impact is, imo, likely. It does shift the question to “how did it start there” :)

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#37

Post by adastra22 »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #28
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

But then how did life get on mars?

Mars had 3/4 billion more years to develop, compared with the Earth. Mars formed first, and cooled first due to its smaller size.

One of the outstanding problems in astrobiology I mention is that the Earth was inhospitable until 3.8Gya, and the oldest fossils of presumably DNA based life (since it matches existing life we can study) was 3.7Gya. Mars was hospitable ~4.5Gya. So either life emerged IMMEDIATELY on Earth and did a complexity speed run before slowing down and remaining stagnant for the next billion years or so, or it emerged on Mars first and Earth was seeded once it was cool enough.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#38

Post by baja_blast »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #8
bsima wrote: post #2

yay, likelihood that we are martians just went up a few basis points

Or, why aren't Martians from Earth. As much as I like the idea conceptually for movies. That life on Earth came from Mars still doesn't explain how life started on Mars. It just moves the location, the mechanism is still tbd.

Yeah I never liked the panspermia as a solution to how life started so quickly on Earth because it just kicks the can down the road. But hey it has been speculated that DNA may be almost 10 billion years old https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html. But this is just a thought experiment, I am unsure if we know how long it takes for DNA to double, nor do we know if the rate would be constant over time. For example if proof reading mechanisms evolved later thus slowing down the rate of change. But it's fun to think about. Too bad Google search is so useless I used to be able to go down these Rabbit holes finding all sorts of information but now it's almost impossible, Google just gives superficial AI answers these days

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#40

Post by wddkcs »

bena wrote: post #33
NegativeLatency wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then how did life get on mars?

Exactly, panspermia isn't an answer, it's kicking the can down the road. The only thing panspermia can tell us is that it's ok if we can't find evidence for the genesis of life on Earth.

All science is the process of kicking the can further down the road.
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