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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

#201

Post by Qem »

tivert wrote: post #24
baja_blast wrote: post #18

One thing that has annoyed me is in the 1970s the Viking landers did experiments to check for the presence of life on Mars known as the Labeled Release experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_exper... which dropped a nutrient solution with radioactive Carbon-14 to detect if there was any off gassing to detect if anything metabolized the soil. And both experiments showed positive results but…

> But what puzzles me is why we have never followed up with any further experiments to try and detect life? After the Viking missions we never conducted any further experiments that could rule out any other possible chemical reactions to get closer to confirming the presence of microbial life. According to Wikipedia, the radiation levels are too high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars#Cosmic_radiation > Even…

So we just need to find a recently excavated impact crater, a few thousand years old, and send a probe there, to inspect freshly exposed layers.

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

#202

Post by olddustytrail »

olddustytrail wrote: post #116
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the Sun cooled Huh? The Sun has consistently gotten hotter with age.

Indeed. Something we have in common.

Normally I wouldn't complain about downvotes, but telling me I've got uglier is a bit cruel. I'll get over it...

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

#203

Post by api »

polishdude20 wrote: post #197

Why can't we bring a scanning electron microscope onto one of these rovers? There are companies making desktop ones now.

The lack of a microscope on these missions has always been puzzling to me. Seems like an absolute no brainer especially since they can now be very small.

If there was past life microfossils could be quite visible in ancient sediment.

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

#205

Post by joshmarinacci »

When you read unrealistic sci-fi about Mars as planet with vibrant, if aging, life (and Venus as a jungle planet); remember that the conditions on Mars surface were still largely unknown until the tail end of the Space Race. It was still believable that Mars had life up until the 1960s.

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

#206

Post by joshmarinacci »

polishdude20 wrote: post #197

Why can't we bring a scanning electron microscope onto one of these rovers? There are companies making desktop ones now.

There have been microscopes but without a human to mount a sample they are more like macro lenses

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

#207

Post by jiggawatts »

dylan604 wrote: post #180
throw4847285 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah fair point. It's not as if Ray Bradbury was the most subtle writer. You have to try to miss the point. Then again, I get it. If somebody offered to build me a Gundam I wouldn't think "Oh no, a symbol for the dehumanization of soldiers on the modern battlefield" I'd think "Is the beam saber included?"

But at the same time, there's so much real science that has thoroughly been inspired by scifi. Sometimes, you just need to get the imagination juices flowing. "That thingymabob from sciFiTvShow would be really cool to have IRL. What would it take to do that...hold my beer" type thinking has probably given us more than we think. Or maybe I'm just romanticizing the concept too much?

The voice feature of ChatGPT on my phone is basically the Star Trek ship computer.

The weather radar app replicates a feature of the Star Trek tricorder that I saw in an episode of TNG.

Household robots like in The Jetsons are coming soon, a couple decades at most from today.

Etc…

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

#208

Post by soperj »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #72
walterbell wrote: post #65

Kurd Lasswitz wrote "Two Planets" in 1897, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39598983 > Lasswitz's Martians differ little from man physically, but ethically, intellectually, scientifically, and socially they are the prototype of the ideal human being. They seek to educate man, asking in return only air and energy to supplement the diminished supplies in their own, older world. The story revolves around a group of…

Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

They did that with all the Japanese to get info on biological weapons. Or check out the Monster of the Shōwa era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi), who was originally held for war crimes, and then became prime minister.

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

#209

Post by mewpmewp2 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #207
dylan604 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at the same time, there's so much real science that has thoroughly been inspired by scifi. Sometimes, you just need to get the imagination juices flowing. "That thingymabob from sciFiTvShow would be really cool to have IRL. What would it take to do that...hold my beer" type thinking has probably given us more than we think. Or maybe I'm just romanticizing the concept too much?

The voice feature of ChatGPT on my phone is basically the Star Trek ship computer. The weather radar app replicates a feature of the Star Trek tricorder that I saw in an episode of TNG. Household robots like in The Jetsons are coming soon, a couple decades at most from today. Etc…

Do you really need sci fi in either direction to come up with those ideas? I don't read or consume sci fi, but considering the tech available, these just seem like natural things you would try to do.

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

#210

Post by mewpmewp2 »

elorant wrote: post #175

This is scary on two fronts. One, whatever happened to Mars could happen to Earth, and two, it puts the Great Filter probably in our future. If our solar system had two hospitable planets then there should be plenty of Earth like planets around in our galaxy. In which case we end up with the Fermi Paradox. If life is so abundant in the Universe how come we haven’t been in contact with aliens?

I don't understand Fermi Paradox. Why couldn't the chance of life be extremely miniscule, e.g. given all billions of stars and planets, why couldn't there have been even 10% or 0.0001% odds of it happening at all one any given stars or planets? E.g. maybe even it happening on one was such a lucky occurrence?

Maybe given even 1,000,000 of observable universes the odds were just 1 out of 1,000,000.

How can people confidently claim that there must be some other civilizations, we wouldn't know the odds in the first place unless we know the exact mechanisms involved.

To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. It could have required any amount of certain chemical reactions to happen in certain order where the probability can vary wildly depending on the amount and likelihood of those reactions. E.g. it could be 0.01 to the power of 1,000,000 or as well as to the power of 10e64 and so on.

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