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More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

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Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#71

Post by marcus_holmes »

lelanthran wrote: post #30
timmg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential to your tangential: The era of AI makes me realize that if we ever get visited by aliens: it will probably not be actual aliens -- just an AI probe. And the idea of it really intrigues me. Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. And it would likely be better at figuring out how to communicate with us (than the human-equival…

> Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. Why? Why would you expect it to be any more benevolent or any less murderous than the actual aliens visiting? Presumably it would be trained on their values, not ours.

I spent ages trying to find it, but couldn't. Unless I dreamed it.

I read a sci-fi story where the probe lands on Earth, and then teaches us enough science to get our own ships together, and tells us where to go to meet the probe makers. So they don't have to go anywhere and can sit comfortable at home and wait for the aliens to come to them.

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#73

Post by mbil »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #71
lelanthran wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine some LLM that is many generations ahead of Fable -- but from a different world -- visiting us. It would be amazing. Why? Why would you expect it to be any more benevolent or any less murderous than the actual aliens visiting? Presumably it would be trained on their values, not ours.

I spent ages trying to find it, but couldn't. Unless I dreamed it. I read a sci-fi story where the probe lands on Earth, and then teaches us enough science to get our own ships together, and tells us where to go to meet the probe makers. So they don't have to go anywhere and can sit comfortable at home and wait for the aliens to come to them.

Contact?

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#74

Post by marcus_holmes »

mbil wrote: post #73
marcus_holmes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent ages trying to find it, but couldn't. Unless I dreamed it. I read a sci-fi story where the probe lands on Earth, and then teaches us enough science to get our own ships together, and tells us where to go to meet the probe makers. So they don't have to go anywhere and can sit comfortable at home and wait for the aliens to come to them.

Contact?

yeah, similar. Might be it, I guess? meh, apologies for being vague and old.

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#75

Post by somedude89897 »

nephihaha wrote: post #42
nkrisc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weak evidence for life, at best. Which is why exploration continues, to search for stronger evidence. If irrefutable evidence of life were found it would open up many new avenues of exploration and research that would need funding, with strong justification - much stronger justification than currently exists.

I don't think it was weak at all. We got two positive results from the Viking landers and then tried to explain them away. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, which combined builds up a case. The public believe we should be looking for cities and skeletons, when in fact we should be looking for extremophiles. It is possible that some of these are due to cross-contamination within the solar system (before human…

The two Viking landers, 6500km apart, had positive results. That would suggest that life is widespread and close to the surface. But the atmosphere of Mars is in chemical equilibrium, which means life can't be widespread and close to the surface because it is not affecting the atmosphere. If life is present on Mars it would have to be deep underground, perhaps in a geothermally heated brine lake, which would be very hard to detect with current technology. The Viking data was probably non-biological, it really isn't strong evidence for life today.

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#76

Post by fragmede »

dang wrote: post #49
raychis wrote: post #2

The article is good but the title is a bit too slippery a statement in my opinion. The article is saying more evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars. In astrobiology the massive problem is that geology can imitate biology. The presences of minerals formed by microbes on Earth does not prove microbes are involved in their production on Mars, it is a big jump to make.

Let's use your sentence in place of the title above. Thanks!

Classic dang.

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#77

Post by dizhn »

Larrikin wrote: post #14
dvh wrote: post #3

Mineral that can be only formed by life, or under special conditions when water flows over rock, has been found on Mars, where water had been known to flow over rock. NASA doesn't want to find life on Mars. They want to find evidence, so that the next probe can be more complex and more expensive than the previous one. NASA will never send wet microscope to Mars, you know, the kind you used in school to show bacteria…

Do you really think that all the scientists view NASA as a make work program? That so many people spent years in schools getting advanced degrees and there is no one there who wants to make the most significant discovery in the history of humanity? That nobody wants the instant Nobel prize? It also doesn't make sense from any kind of financial perspective. The budget for NASA would explode for all kinds of missions.…

At least one scientist close to retirement right? That would surely earn them more money: )

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#78

Post by messe »

weemonger wrote: post #55
gojomo wrote: post #45

I see this author has "12 honorary degrees and is an Officer of the Order of Canada". And CBC is Canada's government-funded national public broadcaster. But it's hard to take them seriously on any particular details given that their article, up for 8+ months (!), mis-describes H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds as a story of the Earth "invaded by benevolent Martians". [emphasis mine] It's a seminal work of scifi, which po…

Maybe the author mixed it up, with another Martin invasion story called "Two Planets" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Planets ), which was released a bit earlier than War of the Worlds and according to Wikipedia, it "is the earliest known example of the theme of a Beneficial alien invasion". If someone is interested in "historical" science fiction, I can recommend it. But nonetheless, if the author is interested…

I can confidently say that nobody has ever confused The War of the Worlds with The Two Planets.

Re: More evidence is consistent with possible ancient life on Mars (2025)

#79

Post by skirmish »

el_io wrote: post #5
dvh wrote: post #3

Mineral that can be only formed by life, or under special conditions when water flows over rock, has been found on Mars, where water had been known to flow over rock. NASA doesn't want to find life on Mars. They want to find evidence, so that the next probe can be more complex and more expensive than the previous one. NASA will never send wet microscope to Mars, you know, the kind you used in school to show bacteria…

What mineral can only be formed by life?

Coprolites.
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