Life on Mars....New Evidence

[renormalised (Carl)]

Life on Mars...New Evidence

Another look at ALH84001...still some detractors.

[Robh (Rob)]

Interesting!

Apart from the contamination issue, I have some other questions. (Carl, please note: I'm not expecting you to answer them) ...

They say that the meteorites are Martian because the gases inside them match the Martian atmosphere. How do they know what the Martian atmosphere was like billions of years ago? They don't have core samples.

Presumably, a large body (asteroid) hit Mars and sent these smaller bodies into space, eventually landing on Earth as meteorites. How do we know that the meteorites did not originate from the impact body?

Regards, Rob.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

As I understand the science, the fossils may be billions of year old, but the rocks were blasted of Mars much more recently, about 15 million years ago. The answer to the first question is thus covering the second. If they had come from the impact body then Martian gases would not be present.
I could be wrong but they can date meteorites in terms of how long they have been in space using cosmic ray analysis. While in space they are bombarded by cosmic rays which leave a signature that can be measured.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Robh

Interesting!

Apart from the contamination issue, I have some other questions. (Carl, please note: I'm not expecting you to answer them) ...

They say that the meteorites are Martian because the gases inside them match the Martian atmosphere. How do they know what the Martian atmosphere was like billions of years ago? They don't have core samples.

Presumably, a large body (asteroid) hit Mars and sent these smaller bodies into space, eventually landing on Earth as meteorites. How do we know that the meteorites did not originate from the impact body?

Regards, Rob.

I will answer them, though

They look for trapped gases in mineral grains within the rocks. You can tell from running a gas chromatograph analysis of the air trapped in inclusions within the mineral grains what the surrounding gases were when the rocks were either being formed, or with sediments, when the rocks were last exposed to atmospheric gases at or near the surface. In some cases where liquids are trapped in the inclusions, using an ion microprobe on the inclusions can determine what the composition of that liquid is. They can tell from composition and isotopic analysis what gases are in the inclusions, how old the inclusions were when they formed, where they come from and what differences there are between the present and what the previous conditions under which they formed were like.

In answer to your second question....the petrology and geochemistry of the rocks. They're different for Mars and any possible impacting bodies, so the differences can be determined. Not only that, but the impacting body was most likely completely destroyed, whereas some Martian material would've survived, to be blasted into space. Any impactor would've been completely melted and its rocks recrystallised, however the bulk composition would remain basically the same. Any impactor bits that may have come here, they would be able to distinguish them from true Martian materials.

[DavidU (Dave)]

That's an interesting read Carl. I would love to see a positive ID come about.

[Robh (Rob)]

Another question.

If life originated on two planets in our Solar System then it must be a lot easier for life to originate than we thought. Why are we not seeing this in the Universe at large (the Fermi Paradox)? Advanced civilizations should have conquered the problems of large distances and be leaving evidence everywhere. There's been plenty of time for communication signals to reach us from billions of light years out.

Regards, Rob

[MikeyB (Michael)]

If life originated on two planets in our Solar System then it must be a lot easier for life to originate than we thought. Why are we not seeing this in the Universe at large (the Fermi Paradox)?

The so-called Fermi paradox and similar conjectures are based on erroneous and obsolete suppositions. We now know to a high degree of confidence that ALL forms of life on Earth have a common origin. Plants, animals and the rest in all their wondrous variety (the vast bulk of which are completely invisible to us), are in fact only the evolutionary products of a single instance of life.

We do not know whether our own planet was the source of this single instance of life and given the rapidity of life's occurrence here after the Earth was formed, there is a chance that it wasn't. Discoveries of organic molecules - sometimes called "building blocks" - elsewhere in the solar system and the wider universe, suggest other possibilities. Exchanges of inorganic material within our solar system via meteoritic and possibly cometary impacts, provide a mechanism whereby life or proto-life compounds could be transferred between planets and/or their moons.

Consequently, it is possible that life elsewhere in the solar system and the wider universe, may be widespread, given semi-reasonable conditions for its existence (and endless aeons of time for it to slowly evolve and propagate). Even so, all this may only be the evolutionary products of the same single instance of life.

Advanced civilizations should have conquered the problems of large distances and be leaving evidence everywhere. There's been plenty of time for communication signals to reach us from billions of light years out.

The life-forms that we see around us are complex special cases that have adapted to relatively benign environments. The vast bulk of life on Earth is microbial and exists in places and conditions that seem barren and hostile to our own delicate sensibilities. eg. crustal rocks, antarctic ice, the upper atmosphere. If we were to remove just one single species from the c. 5-10 million presently in existence (and the countless numbers of extinct species), then no other advanced life-form would be left on our planet. And no doubt the whole place would keep happily ticking away without us, just as it did before we evolved.

Personally, I fully expect that we will eventually discover life on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system - the conditions are harsh but not unliveable for simple cellular organisms. And when we do discover such life, I expect we'll find that its chemistry matches our own, just as all life on Earth does. Where it actually originated, we may never know.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Robh

Another question.

If life originated on two planets in our Solar System then it must be a lot easier for life to originate than we thought. Why are we not seeing this in the Universe at large (the Fermi Paradox)? Advanced civilizations should have conquered the problems of large distances and be leaving evidence everywhere. There's been plenty of time for communication signals to reach us from billions of light years out.

Regards, Rob

What do I think of the Fermi Paradox??...nothing but pure speculation based on no evidence at all. We are not seeing the presence of life in the universe at large for quite a few reasons. The main one being our level of development. It's not that there aren't intelligent civilisations out there, just a simple matter of statistics would tell you that we would one of the most primitive. Why??. Because most of the stars which are and could be bearers of intelligent civilisations are older than our own star. All things being equal, that would mean they have had longer to evolve on their home planets than we have here and their technology would subsequently be further advanced. However, given how complex and varied things could and can be, it's really a moot point even trying to come to terms with advanced intelligence and technology in terms of the way we conceptualise it. Except for those civilisations that are fairly close to our own level of development...within 10000 years or so, we would have no idea if they were even here, even if they, themselves, took the time to be bothered with us!!!. Even those species close to our own developmental curve would, except for those few at our stage of technical development, probably have ways and means of communicating we haven't even thought of yet. It's most likely that we're sitting right in the middle of a great cacophony of babbling civilisations, but we have no way of even hearing them. They would know we're here...we send out our "smoke signals" and have been doing so for nearly 100 years. But someone that only has a blanket and fire, or a set of drums to communicate with would be totally unaware of the "radio signals" that completely surround them. They'd have no concept of a radio...it just wouldn't have occurred to them.

Now, regarding their presence here on Earth....and this is where the big bogey of the "UFO" comes into it. It is the sheer height of intellectual and academic hubris and arrogance for any scientist to just dismiss out of hand that what so many people have seen and experienced as being what many try to explain them away as being. Just because we have no way of getting from, say, Earth to 18 Scorpii, at present, doesn't mean that someone else can't. The arrogance of thinking that out present science is some sort of paragon of reality....that what we know is going to be the basis of all further truth or theory, is something many scientist are too fond to foster upon the general public. Even amongst themselves. We know full well ourselves that there are possibilities which may allow for us to be able to travel the stars, but just because we still labour under our present theoretical and empirical constraints doesn't mean that we are not going to be able to do it ourselves at some point. It just means that we can't see the answers at present and don't want to entertain that maybe someone else is smarter than we are and does know the answers. Or that our grandchildren or their grandchildren will know them also. Heck, we may even be able to do it ourselves now, if we really put the effort and money into doing the research and maybe entertain some of the more wild and radical ideas people come up with. There, it all boils down to the society we live in and how we operate, because it will only be done if there is an imperative (usually sociopolitical and military-industrial-financial given present societal paradigm) to do so. Our scientific paradigm is an integral part of this and cannot be dismissed from this. One influences the other.

So, given all this, what is the probability that we're being visited right at this very moment by people from other worlds??...100%. Would we know they're here??. Yes, and would we react to them in exactly the way we have....yes. I would expect most scientists (publicly, and many privately) to react the way they have. I would also expect the governments and all the other institutions to react the way they have. They have everything they stand for to protect, secrets to keep and whatever else to uphold and keep going.

So far as the aliens are concerned, what would we know of their motives or intentions. Given the wide variety of reports of what our experiences with them have been, I would suspect and expect their behaviours to be just as varied and infinite as our own. There are most likely civilisations out there we'd think of as angels and paragons of virtue and civilised manner. Then there are others that even we would most likely cringe at...and there would be every colour of the spectrum in between the extremes. I find no contradiction in a species coming here and abducting people from this planet, for whatever reasons those aliens see fit. Even if that reason was to try and fix some genetic disorder or manufactured stuff up within their own species. It would be their desperate attempt to prolong their own kind. They may have even tampered with our own genetics...how would we even know it hasn't already happened. We've only just scratched the surface of genetics, barely even figured out our own genome. They may even be coming here just to observe us like we observe animals in the wild....the possibilities of reasons is endless. You only have to look at our own reasons for doing things to see just how diverse and varied those reasons could be.

No, they're here and they're out there as well. It's about time we face that reality and deal with it in a civilised and reasonable manner because the day's late and it's only a matter of time before the truth of the matter is literally forced upon us. Whether that be intentional or not. Better we acknowledge their presence and deal with it than hide behind self imposed walls of denial and/or intellectual/cultural hubris, hoping the "problem" just goes away or is just a figment of our imaginations.

[JD2439975 (Justin)]

Both Michael & Carl, well said, total agreement here.

[Robh (Rob)]

Michael and Carl,

Thanks for giving such detailed assessments.
Interesting viewpoints!

Regards, Rob.

[Jarvamundo (Alex)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QKW6Gt3KKs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8662822.stm
http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20100503...earth-for.html

I also think Stephen Hawkings needs to settle down and stop pedaling his fear / catastrophism filth. Any advanced civilization capable of interstellar travel, would not NEED earth, they would've mastered resources too. I tend to think any aliens would be horrified by what they see us doing to each other on our own news channel. We would be cordoned off in a primitive 'enter at your own risk' sanctuary.

They would know exactly how the yanks or religious bodies would react. They are probably waiting for us to stop being so trigger happy.

[Robh (Rob)]

Seems somewhat relevant. Cosmic dandruff.
How some of the carbon may have got here and, I assume, on Mars.
There was a similar argument not long ago for all the water on Earth. Maybe there is a connection.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ef=online-news

Rob

[renormalised (Carl)]

Cosmic dandruff.

Needs "Head and Shoulders"

In any case it's an interesting proposition.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

I think the funny part of this is, whenthey first started talking about the micro fossil's. Many people said life can not be that small, but around the same time they were finding living organisms on earthe the same size.