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I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#41

Post by sheeshkebab »

dwoozle wrote: post #28
hirundo wrote: post #11

"Our aspirational goal is to send our first cargo mission to Mars in 2022. The objectives for the first mission will be to confirm water resources, identify hazards, and put in place initial power, mining, and life support infrastructure. A second mission, with both cargo and crew, is targeted for 2024" -- spacex.com/mars Maybe NASA should book space for a biologist on that flight. A botanist would do.

Do you really need a botanist on board? I would think you need space travel / survival / engineering hands on deck who then gather samples and bring them back. A botanist isn’t going to be able to do much on Mars that she can’t do on Earth.

I disagree. I watched a movie.

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#42

Post by misterdoubt »

newdayrising wrote: post #10
api wrote: post #4

I get the feeling that contrary to rhetoric the search for life on Mars or anywhere else is almost an anti-priority. Not much designed to look for life has been sent since Viking in spite of direct observation of water ice, brine, and other features suggesting ideal landing sites for such experiments. If perclorates were the cause of the Viking positive as many suggest, why not send a new experiment designed to rule…

I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing…

What?

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#43

Post by evil-olive »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #15
psaux wrote: post #7

I often wonder why these are always auxiliary conversations. Ever since I was young, like most kids (I have 4), I also had this deep yearning for knowledge on life external to earth. Wonder why this never has gone mainstream.

Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thri…

> no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved

If you don't consider "does life exist on other planets?" to be a fundamental, existential question, can you share an example of what you do think is such a fundamental question?

Finding life on Mars wouldn't necessarily resolve any fundamental questions, but it would open up a whole new realm of questions. Is it similar to life on Earth? How similar? Is there evidence for or against some form of panspermia? (at its most extreme, life arriving on Earth from outside the solar system, but this could also be life arising on Earth and being transported to Mars via impact ejecta, or vice versa)

Also, lots of worthwhile science is done even though it doesn't have an immediate and obvious impact on everyday life. I can't think of any particular way in which the discovery of gravitational waves has changed my life, for example - but I recognize that the work that's gone into it has advanced human knowledge, and probably will indirectly benefit my life (or my descendants' lives) in ways I can't predict.

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#44

Post by AndrewKemendo »

joshmarlow wrote: post #35
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thri…

If the life evolved independently of life on earth (ie, no panspermia or anything like that), then it would have philosophical/existential implications because of the Great Filter Hypothesis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter . Edit for a TL;DR - The basic idea is that, if we don't see evidence of intelligent life in the universe, it must be because star traveling species must be rare. If we find life evolv…

If it were organic, we would not know if that life evolved independently from life on earth though. So, again finding non-intelligent organic life elsewhere doesn't answer the question of where did we come from.

Simply verifying distance between two similar things isn't a sufficient variable to answer questions about distinctiveness of origin.

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#46

Post by AndrewKemendo »

cabalamat wrote: post #34
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thri…

> What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. It depends on how different it is chemically form earth life. If it is similar enough that it shares a common origin, it's no big deal. If it isn't, then that's a massive deal because it means life originated twice in one solar system, therefore is probably widespread.

Whats the common origin of organic life again?

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#47

Post by alister »

What, no mention of ALH84001? I was mesmerized by the live TV press conference by a large group of NASA scientists back in 1996 of evidence of life on Mars from the analysis of a meteorite:

"Scientists headed by David McKay of the JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston found that the rock, called ALH84001, had a peculiar chemical makeup. It contained a combination of minerals and carbon compounds that on Earth are created by microbes. It also had crystals of magnetic iron oxide, called magnetite, which some bacteria produce. Moreover, McKay presented to the crowd an electron microscope view of the rock showing chains of globules that bore a striking resemblance to chains that some bacteria form on Earth. “We believe that these are indeed microfossils from Mars”"[1]

I was disappointed that the story fizzled out. One microbiologist concluded that bacteria from Earth had "contaminated the Mars meteorite. Other scientists pointed out that nonliving processes on Mars also could have created the globules and magnetite clumps." But I don't think life is ruled out. This meteorite is hanging in as a "just maybe" like the Viking mission discovery.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life-on-mars-7...

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#48

Post by nullc »

newdayrising wrote: post #10
api wrote: post #4

I get the feeling that contrary to rhetoric the search for life on Mars or anywhere else is almost an anti-priority. Not much designed to look for life has been sent since Viking in spite of direct observation of water ice, brine, and other features suggesting ideal landing sites for such experiments. If perclorates were the cause of the Viking positive as many suggest, why not send a new experiment designed to rule…

I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing…

How would microbial life on mars be a confirmation of atheists beliefs?

The nature of general religious beliefs is that they're essentially non-falsifiable.

And particularly in this case, life on mars wouldn't be shocking due to the fact that there is life on earth and there is a small amount of mass transfer. If there isn't some amount of microbial life on mars it would only because of the dumb luck that there hasn't happened to be anything on earth that could get transferred, survive the transfer, and survive on mars.

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#49

Post by rgross1 »

defterGoose wrote: post #25
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume for a moment that we did find something resembling simple organic life on Mars and confirmed that earth isn't the only life bearing planet. What functionally changes for our existential understanding of the universe? I'd argue little to nothing. We'd learn a bit more about organic life, but no fundamental philosophical or existential questions would be resolved. Life has been confirmed to be able to thri…

I'd argue that the jump from 0 to 1 of "knowledge of life on other planets" would be huge. Currently, we have an almost pseudo-religious understanding of what place life holds in the universe, but that's based on the fact that when we've looked up at the cosmos for all of history, it seemed impossibly devoid of anything familiar. The discovery of life on another planet (even if that life somehow originated on Earth),…

Disagree- folks outside of the sci-fi bubble won't appreciate microbes on other planets. 0 to 1 happens when we find multicellular organisms with cognitive capabilities IMO

Re: I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

#50

Post by mbfg »

newdayrising wrote: post #10
api wrote: post #4

I get the feeling that contrary to rhetoric the search for life on Mars or anywhere else is almost an anti-priority. Not much designed to look for life has been sent since Viking in spite of direct observation of water ice, brine, and other features suggesting ideal landing sites for such experiments. If perclorates were the cause of the Viking positive as many suggest, why not send a new experiment designed to rule…

I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing…

Why would a position on athiesm have any negative bearing on whether the universe is teaming with life? Atheism would likely posit that finding life all over the place hints that it's a common natural process.
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