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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

#11

Post by ramraj07 »

mach1ne wrote: post #7

Mars lost all of its (surface) water presumably due to solar wind, and thus never had time to evolve complex life. Earth would have faced the same fate were it not for the fact that the Moon collided with us at some distant point in time, surrendering its iron core to ours. Now, our Rare Earth has an unnaturally large active iron core, resulting in an unnaturally efficient magnetic field which is able to protect our…

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 which case if Mars had flowing water at some point it likely also harbored at least single cell life.

Source: biologist but not specializing in evolution.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#12

Post by benjifri »

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?

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#13

Post by varjag »

ramraj07 wrote: post #11
mach1ne wrote: post #7

Mars lost all of its (surface) water presumably due to solar wind, and thus never had time to evolve complex life. Earth would have faced the same fate were it not for the fact that the Moon collided with us at some distant point in time, surrendering its iron core to ours. Now, our Rare Earth has an unnaturally large active iron core, resulting in an unnaturally efficient magnetic field which is able to protect our…

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…

But you only introduce an unnecessary extra step in the same theory. Life still had to evolve somewhere, just that now it had to embark onto interstellar trip.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#14

Post by parasti »

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.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#15

Post by nigerianbrince »

ramraj07 wrote: post #11
mach1ne wrote: post #7

Mars lost all of its (surface) water presumably due to solar wind, and thus never had time to evolve complex life. Earth would have faced the same fate were it not for the fact that the Moon collided with us at some distant point in time, surrendering its iron core to ours. Now, our Rare Earth has an unnaturally large active iron core, resulting in an unnaturally efficient magnetic field which is able to protect our…

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.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#16

Post by ihatepython »

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?

Kuato

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#17

Post by pocketarc »

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…

I would argue that the main thing holding us back is the lack of funding. NASA's entire budget can't even compete with Meta's R&D department, so they have to take small steps. Investigate Mars, try to get people back on the moon (Artemis), and go from there.

Eventually we'll get to a point where we can explore Europa properly and we can send people to Mars, and all that, but it's going to take time. Without enough funding, things just take a lot of time.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#18

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

varjag wrote: post #13
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…

But you only introduce an unnecessary extra step in the same theory. Life still had to evolve somewhere, just that now it had to embark onto interstellar trip.

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 seeded from somewhere else.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#19

Post by trophycase »

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…

So agree, but the logistical challenges for even landing a probe on somewhere like Europa or Enceladus are far greater than landing somewhere as inert as Mars. Jupiter has an incredible magnetic field, we'd need to somehow land on the moon (which is a challenge in itself due to the potential for 30m spires of ice), drill through the surface ice and possibly through multiple subsurface oceans til we reached a layer that had geothermal vents.

Also while I agree with you that it's very likely that there was microscopic life on Mars at some point in the past, considering that finding evidence of life on other planets would be one of, if not the largest discovery in human history, I think it's important to keep going until we confirm it.

Re: Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars

#20

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

Nitpick: They'd survive in a meteorite.
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