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NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

jpl.nasa.gov

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Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#11

Post by rybosome »

greggarious wrote: post #6

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life? (Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

I think we're nearly at confirmation of basic alien life. IIRC there are talks of missions to Europa as early as the 2020's, and I would honestly be surprised if no microbial life was found there. Liquid water, chemical processes that could support chemosynthesis, a likely abundance of organic compounds and protection from radiation and cosmic rays are all critical factors. That may even extend to larger fish-like life...there's a chance that the moon's icy shell releases oxygen into its interior liquid ocean in large enough quantities to promote the freakishly-large growth we enjoy. If we don't discover larger multi-cellular life within our solar system (perhaps also on Titan, though that seems less likely), then it'll be many, many years before we discover it. Interstellar travel is a massive hurdle. =)

Intelligent life, though...that's tricky. Given the size of the universe, it is almost certain that there is other intelligent life but who knows whether or not it survives long enough to come into contact? Discovering another civilization would be one of the most incredible experiences I can imagine, so I certainly hope it happens (peacefully) within my lifetime.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#12

Post by zbyte64 »

greggarious wrote: post #6

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life? (Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

I would think the simple life we would see in our solar system would be less sophisticated then bacteria. Confirming plants and animals outside of earth would mean looking beyond our solar system and in 20-30 years we should be able to see the color of the planets Kepler has found. Once we can get a few pixels off a planet we can start to tell if photosynthesis is occurring. So for the first two categories my money is on 15/30. For intelligent life I can't even make a good guess.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#13

Post by pdabbadabba »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #10
aaroninsf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe OP shares your sentiments, and that you mistake the usage here. 'Shame' as used here is shorthand for 'that's a shame,' which used colloquially to express disappointment colored with sympathy and understanding, does not imply that any of the nominal subjects is being criticized. Source: I'm a native English speaker.

I believe this is not the case in the US, at least in my experience. In South Africa people say "shame" to express pity for someone else (or even just when something is adorable) but when I say it hear I get weird looks :)

Native U.S. English speaker here: we do use the word "shame" as GP describes. We use "shame" both to say that someone should be ashamed and also to express general disappointment. (Though we would not use the word to talk about something that's merely adorable.) To my U.S.-English ears, swombat's use of the word "shame" seemed clearly of the "general disappointment" variety.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#14

Post by NARKOZ »

greggarious wrote: post #6

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life? (Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

This will take decades to resolve. Random blasts of methane will be very hard to characterise in any methodical way.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#15

Post by grecy »

danbruc wrote: post #8
greggarious wrote: post #6

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life? (Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

Another question is in which order this would happen - if there is no other life in the solar system it might very well happen that we find (signs of) intelligent life before simple life.

> we find (signs of) intelligent life

Or it finds us.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#16

Post by Thieum22 »

swombat wrote: post #3

For those eager to read ahead, they are very, very careful in this article not to imply in any way that this is definitely from any sort of living sources. > Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life. Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has eve…

It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#17

Post by publicfig »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #10
aaroninsf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe OP shares your sentiments, and that you mistake the usage here. 'Shame' as used here is shorthand for 'that's a shame,' which used colloquially to express disappointment colored with sympathy and understanding, does not imply that any of the nominal subjects is being criticized. Source: I'm a native English speaker.

I believe this is not the case in the US, at least in my experience. In South Africa people say "shame" to express pity for someone else (or even just when something is adorable) but when I say it hear I get weird looks :)

No, it is definitely a case in the US. In his sentence, you could expand it to "That's a shame" or "That's a crying shame", both idioms that can express that something is "unfortunate" or "disappointing", and does not always require a blame.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#18

Post by k-mcgrady »

NARKOZ wrote: post #14
greggarious wrote: post #6

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life? (Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

This will take decades to resolve. Random blasts of methane will be very hard to characterise in any methodical way.

If we put humans on Mars do you think we could find the source quickly/quicker than using robots? Is it a case of the robots finding signs of life and humans confirming them and getting the specifics? I'm asking because I'm not all that informed on this but from what I can tell robots have very specific missions so may not be able to find life even if they detect the signs.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#19

Post by ChristianBundy »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #10
aaroninsf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe OP shares your sentiments, and that you mistake the usage here. 'Shame' as used here is shorthand for 'that's a shame,' which used colloquially to express disappointment colored with sympathy and understanding, does not imply that any of the nominal subjects is being criticized. Source: I'm a native English speaker.

I believe this is not the case in the US, at least in my experience. In South Africa people say "shame" to express pity for someone else (or even just when something is adorable) but when I say it hear I get weird looks :)

I'm a native English speaker and I was born and raised in the US (specifically the Pacific Northwest), and "shame" isn't weird at all.

It's used to express disappointment – with or without blame.

Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

#20

Post by r0muald »

I totally understand being very cautious about their findings, but the wording of this paragraph struck me as odd:

> The ratio that Curiosity found in the Cumberland sample is about one-half the ratio in water vapor in today's Martian atmosphere

> suggesting much of the planet's water loss occurred since that rock formed

> However, the measured ratio is about three times higher than the ratio in the original water supply of Mars, based on the assumption that supply had a ratio similar to that measured in Earth's oceans

> This suggests much of Mars' original water was lost before the rock formed.

So I guess a lot of water was lost both before and after the formation of the rock, and they only have ballpark figures for the hypothetical amounts?

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