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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

#61

Post by kamaal »

fixedd wrote: post #55
kamaal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>And what would that probe look like? And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere? I never understand the argument people make about probes spreading across galaxies. If we assume they are at least as intelligent as we are, then purposelessly wandering in the universe would be least of their goals. I can understand if probes have military goals. Like for example to evaluate threats to them. But l…

> And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere? You're assuming everyone is rational. For instance, if I were a future billionaire I'd totally do it... knowing I'd never see even a glimmer of return on the investment... just cause.

Yet how many billionaires on earth do that?

I guess once you have the money you also develop a sense of responsibility about how you wish to spend it. Every thing in the universe, even if we imagine unlimited resources at one's disposal- Every project has its costs. It might be time, energy, or other manual resources. You have to continually trade one for the other based on the goals you have currently.

We are assuming that life forms will just build probes and let them wander for some remote chance of another life form to see it.

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

#62

Post by lumpypua »

maaku wrote: post #59
Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it: 'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees…

I'm not sure what aspect of my post you are arguing against? I guess there could be different definitions at play here, but I was talking about a hypothetical developmental stage where most civilizations destroy themselves. E.g. nuclear war, climate change, etc. Regarding how common life is in the universe, I wasn't talking about non-intelligent life. I fully expect that we will find signs of such life elsewhere in t…

I agree with your overall statistical/singularity argument, but that's not reason enough to call a great filter nonsense. The biology of a great filter is at play along with the overall cosmological context.

"Power, Sex, and Suicide" argues that eukaryotic (and thus multicellular) life is basically a fluke—it is the great filter. The tumblr link Lost_BiomedE gave takes a while to get to that punchline but it's worth a read.

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

#63

Post by comex »

civilian wrote: post #9
harel wrote: post #4

It could also be a case of severe alien flatulence. Sorry, I could not resist...

I think you were looking for this: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2phv82/nasa_rover_f...

A similar comment on the other /r/science thread about this was also downvoted into oblivion; don't make cheap criticism based on stereotypes.

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

#64

Post by WalterBright »

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…

Let's face it, like the canals, there is no life on Mars. 40 years of probes have come up empty. It's a sterile rock. We should be thinking in terms of terraforming it by seeding it with terrestrial life.

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

#65

Post by rybosome »

lumpypua wrote: post #29
rybosome wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Can't speak to likelihood of discovering life on Europa but it would be fucking awesome. To be clear, microbial life in no way entails higher life. It's only by the insanely chance event of the eurkaryotic cell emerging that sophisticated multicellular life became possible on earth. Even if life is common in the universe, sophisticated multicellular life is extremely rare. The selective pressures on bacterial life fa…

> Can't speak to likelihood of discovering life on Europa

Honestly, me neither. I'm just a software engineer who is excited about space and hopes for the best. =)

> but it would be fucking awesome.

Wouldn't it? Holy hell, that would be wonderful. I hope it happens soon. Discovering life on Europa would be our generation's moon landing.

Thanks for the clarification. My knowledge of biology is limited, so I imagined each step (crude self-replicating molecules -> sophisticated DNA -> the cell -> etc.) being roughly as unlikely as the next. I had no idea eukaryotic cells were such a massive jump.

Earlier today I was watching a documentary about the Kepler telescope's search for exoplanets[0] that estimated the number of planets in our galaxy at 10^19. So many of those planets are unsuitable for any life, microbial or otherwise, but such a large number fills me with hope that the unlikely miracle of eukaryotic evolution could happen more than once. Then again, there are very plausible interpretations of the Drake equation[1] that pin the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy to less than 5...maybe even 1...so who knows?

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD6QHP9ouuU [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

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

#66

Post by rybosome »

exratione wrote: post #34
madaxe_again wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened

How do you know that it has not? I'm not seriously asserting that it has, mind you. Just noting that there could be a swarm of radio-silent probes in the Kuiper Belt, in which case we would have no clue whatsoever.

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

#67

Post by fixedd »

kamaal wrote: post #61
fixedd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere? You're assuming everyone is rational. For instance, if I were a future billionaire I'd totally do it... knowing I'd never see even a glimmer of return on the investment... just cause.

Yet how many billionaires on earth do that? I guess once you have the money you also develop a sense of responsibility about how you wish to spend it. Every thing in the universe, even if we imagine unlimited resources at one's disposal- Every project has its costs. It might be time, energy, or other manual resources. You have to continually trade one for the other based on the goals you have currently. We are assumi…

It's impossible to judge what one might find valuable. Preserving life as "a thing" might be just as important to future-wealthyperson as fighting Malaria is to a current one.

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

#68

Post by lumpypua »

rybosome wrote: post #65
lumpypua wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak to likelihood of discovering life on Europa but it would be fucking awesome. To be clear, microbial life in no way entails higher life. It's only by the insanely chance event of the eurkaryotic cell emerging that sophisticated multicellular life became possible on earth. Even if life is common in the universe, sophisticated multicellular life is extremely rare. The selective pressures on bacterial life fa…

> Can't speak to likelihood of discovering life on Europa Honestly, me neither. I'm just a software engineer who is excited about space and hopes for the best. =) > but it would be fucking awesome. Wouldn't it? Holy hell, that would be wonderful. I hope it happens soon. Discovering life on Europa would be our generation's moon landing. Thanks for the clarification. My knowledge of biology is limited, so I imagined ea…

Yah there's really good explanation of why eukaryotes are jump posted up above!

http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevi...

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

#69

Post by cLeEOGPw »

Thieum22 wrote: post #16
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.

One of the so called "Great Filters" is our Moon. It is providing Earth's metal core with constant moving force and refreshing the dynamo and keeping our atmosphere and water not blown away by solar winds. Since the size of Earths satellite is far from ordinary, this instantly reduces chance of advanced life appearing elsewhere. And if the theory of the source of Moon is right, it formed after collision with object of a size of Earth, the filter is restricted by star systems with the planets within a certain range that had a collision with other planet in a way that left long lasting big object rotating around that planet and generating magnetic field preventing water and atmosphere from escaping. So just by applying only this "Moon filter", reduces the chances of advanced life in our own Milky Way to probably just few cases in whole galaxy. And add the probability of intelligent beings appearing on random planet that has life, it starts to seem pretty realistic that we are only ones not only in Milky Way, but also surrounding galaxies.

The conclusion is we better start working on colonization techniques, because chances are that the future of life in our galaxy is in our hands.

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

#70

Post by raverbashing »

gojomo wrote: post #44
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)

There's a respectable contingent of scientists that believe Martian microorganisms were already confirmed 38 years ago by the Viking Lander experiments: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120413-nasa-... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experi... A future mission should definitely include a biologically-useful microscope, as suggested by USC neurobiologist Joseph Miller in the Nation…

However, the discovery of perchlorates severely weaken the results of that experiment
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