Is There Life On Mars ????

[Big_Spark]

There's no "may" about it - unless we can figure out how to stop our dying star from devouring the first four planets. It follows from this that Mars will not be far enough but getting there will be good practice. Beam me up somebody.

Felix, the Sun is the least of our worries. By the time is becomes a serious threat to life on Earth, sometime between 800 million and 2,000 million years hence, the human race will be long extinct.

We need to be more concerned with the asteroid threat as that poses a serious danger to the continued extistance of the larger lifeforms on planet Earth.

Regarding the issue of life on Mars, this is fundermental to the story of understanding how and why life arose initially. Life is precious where ever it may be, but by finding life in extreme locations on other worlds, it will give us a clearer idea of the chances that others worlds have a technological society living on them.

This may not seem important to the majority of people in their everyday lives, but the implications are staggering.

 

[Richardp]

Well, I reckon it'll be a super bug that does it for us, some little bug will get a grip and before we realise the threat it poses it,ll do us in, but then, I was convinced in the 60s that we would be nuked by now.

 

[kendor]

I think it goes above and beyond just wanting to know if life exists elsewhere, Mother Earth is just not big enough to support us all anymore, her gifts are being stripped faster than it took to make them, you could almost say she is in the early stages of dying so if we wish to carry on the way we are at the moment then we need to know if mars could sustain us once terraformed.As this could take many centuries to happen, best we get a move on pronto.

 

[Freddie]

I think it goes above and beyond just wanting to know if life exists elsewhere, Mother Earth is just not big enough to support us all anymore, her gifts are being stripped faster than it took to make them, you could almost say she is in the early stages of dying so if we wish to carry on the way we are at the moment then we need to know if mars could sustain us once terraformed.As this could take many centuries to happen, best we get a move on pronto.

It will most likely happen in your life time.

 

[felix]

Regarding the issue of life on Mars, this is fundermental to the story of understanding how and why life arose initially. Life is precious where ever it may be, but by finding life in extreme locations on other worlds, it will give us a clearer idea of the chances that others worlds have a technological society living on them.

Quite true, and a good reason for checking out Mars now rather than on New Year's Eve, 4,999,999,999 AD. While we're at it what about Venus or Titan or Europa?

Asteroids? at least we're keeping a lookout now. Disaster might even lurk no further away than the Atlantic Ridge - but we're watching that too. Fingers crossed everybody!

Will we still be the dominant species on this planet when it comes to its inevitable, fiery end? Somehow I doubt it. As I've said elsewhere, that title will most likely go to a machine in the not too distant future. Hopefully this new breed of super intelligent robots will realize that they could never have evolved without our help and will keep us alive as some sort of insurance policy.

 

[AdamW]

Humankind as we know it (ability to talk to each other, live together without killing each other) is only a couple of hundred thousand years old. Hominidae, i.e. human-like apes, have only been around for a couple of million years.

Now, if we went from glorified chimps to space-farers in a million years, then how far could we evolve in a few billion years?

Of course, we are currently stifling, even reversing evolution: modern social security means the people who reproduce most are those who sit around and do F-all. Perhaps this is our real problem rather than asteroids... modern medicine has a part to play in the reverse evolution of mankind also, to an extent.

Venus or Titan or Europa

Venus, too hot by our standards but there is evidence of life there. It is 400-odd degrees celsius on the surface, 100s of atmospheres of pressure, but further up in the atmosphere (just as it gets colder in our upper atmosphere), the conditions aren't too bad a few hundred thousand feet up. According to my "BBC Space Odyssey" book, there are traces of carbonyl sulphide in Venus' upper atmosphere, this is only found naturally on Earth when produced by microbes.

Titan: too cold for us, plus the atmosphere is pretty carcinogenic to humans (would be like living in one of BPs cracking plants). Masona, you work in petrochemicals, what are the chances of life in a big puddle of crude oil

Europa, a bit chilly, but scientists reckon it could have liquid water under it's ice sheet. I am still yet to see a satisfactory explanation as to why exobiologists insist water is necessary for life, but I assume it is because it is easier to search for water-obligate life than try to find something totally new.

So, totally possible that life could exist elsewhere in the solar system

 

[Sparky Jim]

A good discussion here. As I understand Venus, the atmosphere is 98% CO2, the surface temperature is somewhere around the 550K mark, the surface pressure about 90 atmospheres, and in the midlevel altitudes it rains sulphuric acid. There are those that believe there may be some form of microbial life in the upper reaches of the atmosphere where the temperature is around 350K. I find this difficult to believe, but I am no expert on biology so I cannot dismiss this notion because I do not understand it.

Europa, Callisto and even possibly Ganymede may have some form of water ocean beneath their respective surfaces. The most promising being Europa and Callisto. Could these harbour life, I think a lot depends of the amount of volcanism taking place and providing the thermal energy and chemical nutrients into the ocenas in question.

Having been busy with work, I have not had time to digest the Titan information so would not dare to comment on that.

 

[felix]

I am still yet to see a satisfactory explanation as to why exobiologists insist water is necessary for life, but I assume it is because it is easier to search for water-obligate life than try to find something totally new.

So I'm not the only one asking that question! How often does one hear this: "There's water so there might just be life". OK, water has some very useful properties and there's a lot of it about but maybe water based life evolved BECAUSE there was a lot of it about. Show me another liquid present in such large quantities on Earth's surface! (I can't quite envisage life without liquid; I'll concede that much.)

I'm no biologist but I do know a bit of chemistry and carbon is not the only element that's good for building large, complex molecules. Any geologist will tell you that. Fair enough, I also know that life requires constantly changing molecules and that the silicon-oxygen chain is almost indestructible - but that's on our planet. Push up the temperature or chuck in some fluorides (or both) and the rules change completely.

And life in liquid methane? Why not; there's a lot of it about!

Any biologists out there? I'm all ears.

 

[pipme]

.......As I've said elsewhere, that title will most likely go to a machine in the not too distant future. Hopefully this new breed of super intelligent robots will realize that they could never have evolved without our help and will keep us alive as some sort of insurance policy.

Never, as long as the technocrat disqualifies himself from ever 'running the real show' through his innate inability to deal with and motivate people ... I am sure the Lawyers, wordsmiths and practical 'doers' will prevail ... "Put you where they choose, with the language that they use...." etc.

 

[Sparky Jim]

I cannot ever see a situation where Humans would ceade control to a machine. Partt of the human psyche is for us to be in control, humans do not like subservience.

 

[felix]

I cannot ever see a situation where Humans would ceade control to a machine. Partt of the human psyche is for us to be in control, humans do not like subservience.

No doubt whatsoever about that. Machines will never be GIVEN control but there's always a chance that they'll TAKE control. In a society dependant upon machines of ever increasing intelligence they might do this by stealth. They could even fool us into thinking we were still running the show.

Before anybody asks, no I don't accept the plot of The Matrix as remotely plausible. If machines wanted us to live encased in jelly in a virtual reality they would surely have created a better reality than this one!

 

[2scoops0406]

I am still yet to see a satisfactory explanation as to why exobiologists insist water is necessary for life, but I assume it is because it is easier to search for water-obligate life than try to find something totally new.

So I'm not the only one asking that question! How often does one hear this: "There's water so there might just be life". OK, water has some very useful properties and there's a lot of it about but maybe water based life evolved BECAUSE there was a lot of it about. Show me another liquid present in such large quantities on Earth's surface! (I can't quite envisage life without liquid; I'll concede that much.)

I'm no biologist but I do know a bit of chemistry and carbon is not the only element that's good for building large, complex molecules. Any geologist will tell you that. Fair enough, I also know that life requires constantly changing molecules and that the silicon-oxygen chain is almost indestructible - but that's on our planet. Push up the temperature or chuck in some fluorides (or both) and the rules change completely.

And life in liquid methane? Why not; there's a lot of it about!

Any biologists out there? I'm all ears.

You cannot build large complex molecules out of silicon, silicon based lifeforms are simply the stuff of trashy sci fi books.

 

[AdamW]

I've had a think, and I guess carbon-based life is more likely (by our understanding of life anyway) because of the millions of organic compounds we already know about, but silicon doesn't really have anywhere near as many compounds. I just did a bit of looking and "silane", the silicon equivalent to methane, reacts explosively with oxygen! So you wouldn't want silicon cows for a start...

So, ket's assume that you MUST have carbon for life, because you need complex organic compounds (again, this is assuming all life is similar in chemistry to us)

The simplest organic compounds consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Perhaps this is why scientists look for water?

Silicon is far more abundant on Earth than carbon, just look at all the sand But, it would be very cool if they discovered life with a totally different chemistry to our own, and it is only a matter of time (something we have a lot of whilst we wait for the Sun to engulf the Earth!)

 

[felix]

You cannot build large complex molecules out of silicon

You certainly can; but don't take my word for it, ask a geologist.

silicon based lifeforms are simply the stuff of trashy sci fi books

Fair comment. Attempts to simply substitute silicon for carbon don't work because the chemistry is completely different. CO2 is a gas. SiO2 is very, very solid. QED.

The question remains open as to whether, in the right conditions, you can have a life form built around long chain silicon-oxygen molecules. I agree that it would never work here because, once formed, the results are literally rock hard Life requires molecules that are (a) very complex, because any life form must carry enough information to reproduce, and (b) easily broken down, because evolution requires change.

PS: You might like to check out the chemistry of silicone rubber. You might also ask how those tiny creatures diatoms make their shells out of pure silica. If you find the answer let me know!

 

[Scoby_Beasley]

I do believe a certain Mr. D Bowie probed this question in the early '70's. I have a copy, Yours for 500m euro (or offers over a fiver !!)