Are Those Spidery Black Things On Mars Dangerous?

Post by JoeCortopassi » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 6:42 PM UTC

gfosco wrote: post #23

tocomment wrote: post #7

> they might be colonies of photosynthetic Martian microorganisms, warmed from the sun, now sunbathing in plain view. That's incredible. Is that really possible? I wonder why the rover doesn't check them out? It seems weird it's digging through soil looking for chemicals possibly related to life when there's potential life out in plain view. NASA has some very strange priorities.

From what I read, there's a big concern about contaminating Mars with Earth-based bacterium. To ensure the drill would be useful after landing, they pre-set one of the drill bits. By doing that, they broke the sanitized enclosure, and there may be contaminants present that survived the trip. They are supposedly avoiding signs of life with Curiosity.

Post by tlb » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 6:51 PM UTC

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #41

gfosco wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read, there's a big concern about contaminating Mars with Earth-based bacterium. To ensure the drill would be useful after landing, they pre-set one of the drill bits. By doing that, they broke the sanitized enclosure, and there may be contaminants present that survived the trip. They are supposedly avoiding signs of life with Curiosity.

I would be very interested in the source for this info

Post by thebigshane » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

creamyhorror wrote: post #26

"Surely I'm not the only one thinking spiceblows..." -- a commenter on that page, Melissa Swanson

Post by Lockyy » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

stephth wrote: post #15

ximeng wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+be... It's been mentioned 19 times already in the last month according to Google.

I didn't. First time I read about it. Either way it doesn't seem very constructive - or gentlemanly - to downvote an informed - and depending on the reader informative - comment.

Post by nollidge » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #40

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a xenobiologist so I couldn't quantify the relative chance of them being 'plants'. But this is the kind of stuff we can speculate on. First, we'll need to be a bit loose with our definitions since 'plant' means a very specific kind of thing. So if we define a 'plant' as a chemical process which creates structure in the presence of certain chemicals such that a transformative chemical reaction is enabled where…

Why not literally a plant? Like leafy, relies on water, comes from a small seed, reproduces via pollen/wind, based on a cell structure. We have plants in the desert here on Earth that blossom once every X years or decades. Is there a reason such a "plant" could not have survived the harsh later years of mars post surface water? Bonus idea: if these are plants relying on ground water, their location would give away th…