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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

#31

Post by givan »

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)

If we will find them then this is an intersection on our technology advancements and proximity of such lifeforms, considering how little effort is currently put on space exploration it will take extremely long, things will probably accelerate when we find alternatives to the primitive combustion engine that makes fuel tanks bigger than rockets and makes the process very expensive.

If they will find us and this only means more advanced intelligent life then this obviously can happen any time or might already happened and can be delayed by us not being considered ready/worthy for contact or according to many conspiracy theories our governments considers we are not ready.

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

#33

Post by gloriousduke »

snowwrestler wrote: post #23
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 will confirm life within 50 years by reading the spectra of distant planets and finding free oxygen in the atmosphere. As far as we know, that can only happen if living creatures are replenishing it. I think it's unlikely that we will find life anywhere else in our solar system. It's possible that we'll evidence of past life on Mars, but not current. Basically, it's just way too cold or way too hot everywh…

> way too cold or way too hot

This isn't as big of a concern as it once might have been. See extremophiles.

> It's possible that we'll evidence of past life on Mars, but not current.

If life takes hold anywhere and has any amount of (geologic) time to spread, I'm guessing only an extremely powerful gamma ray burst or other high energy event could completely exterminate it. It might be impossible to sterilize the earth at this point without completely destroying it, and even then there'd probably be microbes in the resulting meteors, etc (until our sun dies at least).

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

#34

Post by exratione »

madaxe_again wrote: post #30
Thieum22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities - Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us. Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion. Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside. Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise. Intelligent life is actually ver…

The important thing to realize about the Fermi Paradox is that all generalizations about behavior fail automatically as explanatory theories.

It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe, at which point all of the galaxy is visited in a few million years.

A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened despite the fact that some element of our species will do exactly this at some point in the next thousand years. The laws of physics allow it, and our psychology is clearly up for it.

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

#35

Post by roywiggins »

madaxe_again wrote: post #30
Thieum22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities - Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us. Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion. Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside. Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise. Intelligent life is actually ver…

Three of your possibilities are "locations" for the Great Filter, as I read them:

> Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise.

The filter is between "smart mammal" -> "human-level smarts." So there's lots of planets with lions, tigers and bears, but not talking dinos (or whatever).

> Intelligent life is actually very dumb on a macro scale, and falls prey to Malthusian collapse, either by falling into a significant energy gap or by destroying their biosphere.

The filter is between "21st century humanity" and "interplanetary/interstellar civilization." The universe is full of ruined planets, noticable because they've got transuranic elements floating around they shouldn't have.

> Intelligent life tends to succumb to dysgenic fertility, and ceases to be intelligent.

The filter is somewhere between "human-level smarts" and "interplanetary civilization." The universe is full of Morlocks.

We want the filter to be behind us. If it's actually "life is nearly impossible" then we're golden. Life on Mars 'pushes' the possible 'locations' of filter further forward (so life is probably common). If it's multicellular life, that pushes the filter further again, etc.

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

#36

Post by roywiggins »

givan wrote: post #28
Thieum22 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject. Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or ef…

Von Neumann probes could reach every star in the galaxy pretty quickly. A civilization with a few million years start on us should have their robotic friends here already, basking in our sun.

And there only has to be one civilization that 1) can and 2) does create such probes. If spacefaring civilization is common, it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.

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

#37

Post by givan »

roywiggins wrote: post #36
givan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject. Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or ef…

Von Neumann probes could reach every star in the galaxy pretty quickly. A civilization with a few million years start on us should have their robotic friends here already, basking in our sun. And there only has to be one civilization that 1) can and 2) does create such probes. If spacefaring civilization is common, it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.

> it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.

We don't know that, there is no way to detect that with our current technology unless one of the probes land on earth and the government/military agrees to disclose and confirm the information, maybe this already happened but nobody wants to see it because they are afraid of the implications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave

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

#38

Post by pavelrub »

roywiggins wrote: post #36
givan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject. Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or ef…

Von Neumann probes could reach every star in the galaxy pretty quickly. A civilization with a few million years start on us should have their robotic friends here already, basking in our sun. And there only has to be one civilization that 1) can and 2) does create such probes. If spacefaring civilization is common, it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.

> it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.

Based on what? How did you estimate the probability of a random intelligent civilization sending detectable (from Earth) Von Nuemann probes into the universe? For a probability of 1/1000 there could be hundreds of intelligent civilizations within our galaxy without any such probes, and the probability can be much lower than that.

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

#39

Post by codeshaman »

Totally unscientific impulse based speculation, but here it is, I want to be the first.

A long time ago (billions of years), our ancestors lived on Mars. The climate was changing due to human activity and shrinking of the Sun. Shit was getting serious and humanity needed a way to escape. The third planet from the Sun was chosen for seeding life into, due to it's proximity to the star and life-supporting characteristics.

A ball of DNA was sent here to seed the planet. It contained the code for all living things, including humans with the source code for a consciousness able to evolve until it finds out the truth of creation. And here we are, close to finding that out and able to continue what our ancestors left behind billions of years ago, before going extinct. But that is only Step 1. Step 2 is finding out who seeded Mars and the Sun and the Universe. Might just be that it was us all along forever. Good night world ;)

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

#40

Post by Florin_Andrei »

aaroninsf wrote: post #7
manachar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shame Poor word choice. There's no shame in being careful about the science and trying to represent it carefully in your press releases. Many non-science types do not know that organic molecules can exist without life and will already be jumping to conclusions.

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.

Isn't 'pity' fairly similar, or is it more commonly used in British English?
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