Water on Mars?

[More Boosters]

Any life on Mars or Venus would be very, very likely to have a common origin with the life on Earth. It says nothing about how common life is in the solar system. I think if we find life that we know doesn't share a common origin with Terran life, it'll be on Titan. Any water-based life in the solar system is probably related to us, and if it wasn't I doubt we'd be able to tell. In another star system, if there's life, then we can say with near certainty that it arose independently.

Water is a great solvent and a life can have a lot different while having water as a common dependency. Also the conditions on Mars and Venus are drastically different from here on Earth, how are you so sure it would be similar? Not that I think life exists on either planet anyway. Maybe if some bacteria survived on rovers and suddenly started eating dirt and getting by with it, heh.

[RainDreamer]

Maybe if some bacteria survived on rovers and suddenly started eating dirt and getting by with it, heh.

This is the reason why NASA suddenly face a serious obstacle in investigating the area now - they are afraid that whatever they send there might still have life forms on Earth left on it, and that might contaminate the result they find there, along with possibly survive in the water somehow, further contaminating the planet.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/29/nasa-crossroads-mars-water-without-contamination-curiosity-rover

[PB666]

http://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2015/10/1/water-discovery-could-change-the-nature-of-future-mars-exploration

[NuclearNut]

The reason it is not freezing is perchlorates, which tend to be quite chemically reactive, they also create an acid on contact with water, thus it is likely that the water itself is quite acidic and poisonous, now that is not insurmountable for life, but certainly living in what amounts to cleaning fluid is quite the feat if anything is indeed there. So I would not get my hopes up.

[LordFerret]

... further contaminating the planet.

...

A very key comment and fact.

[baggers]

I would like to look at what Curiosity could see on the next closest wet slopes:

Some lichen, maybe? ^^ (Yes, I'm the optimistic guy)

And, he! Why not a martan flower, that flower only one time every 2 years at martian spring, sending his spores in the martan Wind and hurricanes, colonizing every wet slope and going back to sleep until the next year?

Yeah, yeah, I know, poetry, all of that.

[vger]

And, he! Why not a martan flower, that flower only one time every 2 years at martian spring, sending his spores in the martan Wind and hurricanes, colonizing every wet slope and going back to sleep until the next year?

Bradbury, that's Venus, not Mars.

[cypher_00]

Are you sure? The image info says it is the Horowitz Crater and that is located on Mars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_%28Martian_crater%29

"In 2011 it was announced that images captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have suggested the presence of possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars, as shown in images taken of Newton Crater and Horowitz Crater among others."

[baggers]

http://www.btboces.org/Downloads/6_All%20Summer%20in%20a%20Day%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

(I must say, I didn't know before reading vger that little story Bradbury write. Thanks ^^)

[PB666]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/350/6257/aac7575.abstract

[PB666]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34490337

These are images from the beeb

[fredinno]

 

God damn it.

[fredinno]

On October 2, 2015 at 9:11 PM, baggers said:

I would like to look at what Curiosity could see on the next closest wet slopes:

Some lichen, maybe? ^^ (Yes, I'm the optimistic guy)

And, he! Why not a martan flower, that flower only one time every 2 years at martian spring, sending his spores in the martan Wind and hurricanes, colonizing every wet slope and going back to sleep until the next year?

Yeah, yeah, I know, poetry, all of that.

That looks more like a problem with the photo itself, tbh.

[fredinno]

On 9/30/2015 at 8:51 AM, Findthepin1 said:

Any life on Mars or Venus would be very, very likely to have a common origin with the life on Earth. It says nothing about how common life is in the universe. I think if we find life that we know doesn't share a common origin with Terran life, it'll be on Titan. Any water-based life in the solar system is probably related to us, and if it wasn't I doubt we'd be able to tell. In another star system, if there's life, then we can say with near certainty that it arose independently.

Actually, Europa or Enceledus life would be good enough due to the lack of dust sharing between Earth and Jupiter.

[fredinno]

On 9/28/2015 at 9:57 AM, Nibb31 said:

Perchlorate removal is a very involved process.

Maybe they will repurpose the Mars 2020 mission? But it is more likely that "brown patch" exploration will be the focus of the mission after that one, which would postpone the sample return mission. In any case, there is going to be some reshuffling of exploration cards in the near future.

Why, you can't send a smaller Pheonix-derived lander there instead?

[Findthepin1]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Actually, Europa or Enceledus life would be good enough due to the lack of dust sharing between Earth and Jupiter.

Billions of years ago, when life first appeared, there was a lot more dust in total. We know things were crashing into each other back then, the evidence is all over the place. It's conceivable that water-based life inside Europa or Enceladus could have got there from Earth. My point was more that Titan's life would be so different from Earth's life that it is impossible for them to share a common origin, and that the only way you can pretty much guarantee the independent origin of life somewhere else would be in another star system. By natural processes, those are pretty much unreachable.

[KerikBalm]

it would be easy to tell if the life was related to life on Earth or not.

The specific amino acid and nucleotide sequences of stuff on earth are not going to be duplicated independently, even if water based life tends to give rise to RNA, DNA, lipid, and amino acid based chemistry.

The specifics of the cell structure are also not likely to be replicated.

Do they even have have ribosomes, if so, does the ribosomal RNA sequence have any resemblance to known life?