Martian soil appears able to support life

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Flabbergasted" NASA scientists said on Thursday that Martian soil appeared to contain the requirements to support life, although more work would be needed to prove it.


Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the lander's instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the spacecraft's robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected.

"We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past present or future," Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080626/sc_nm/space_mars_dc

slowhand said:

"We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past present or future"

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Wow, can you imagine if humans were lucky enough to witness new life begin on another planet? :eek:

It's Total Recall all over again!

This and other stories seem to suggest more and more that we will find extraterrestrial life at some time in the future. What this will mean to mankind (or even if we will survive as a species long enough to find it) remains to be seen. Exciting, though for sure.

To me, it is amazing how far the field of space exploration has come in say, the past 60 years. Sure, the boldest of the bunch predicted even more advancements, but many did not even dare to dream what we have accomplished and discovered.

TunnelOfLove said:

It's Total Recall all over again!

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Let's hope it's more this instead of this...

TunnelOfLove said:

It's Total Recall all over again!

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"be honest"

"slutty."

Now if they could just get plants to survive Mars' cold temperatures maybe I could finally have something I could plant in the spring without fear of getting destroyed by on of our unpredictable frost. :1orglaugh

Great news. That means you can grow marijuana on Mars. artysml:

I'm not impressed.

as usual NASA is exaggerating their claims to give them more validity in justifying their budget.

What they REALLY mean is that Martian soil, in Earth-like conditions, could support life.

But in atmospheric conditions with no oxygen, no ozone/ cosmic radiation, no liquid water, extreme temperatures, etc, it could not support life.

Since those happen to be the exact conditions of the planet Mars, the conditions that the soil currently exist in; no, it can't support life.

Ask yourself this question: if it could support life, why wouldn't there be life existing there? there would be. There isn't because it can't.

It's like these guys expect to find one rock that has a little Martian village underneath it.

What are the odds that if 99.9% of the planet was unlivable, that .1% of it would have organisms? Not very good, the chances are overwhelming that at any point conditions would shift to make that location the same as all the rest of the place.

I would assume that for there to be life, it would require abundant conditions for it, and life would be abundant. Look at the planet earth, there is no places that life doesn't exist here, other than deep under the surface in lava.

So what is the basis for the assumption of the opposite scenario, that there would be life in very few locations?

Since Earth is the only known planet to contain life, it's not a very reasonable hypothesis to expect that there would be life in conditions radically different than earth.

dave_rhino said:

Wow, can you imagine if humans were lucky enough to witness new life begin on another planet? :eek:

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Yea, but it took life on earth billions of years to develop on earth. It won't happen anytime soon.

I think it was past life anyway. They have evidence that the red planet once had vast seas on it. As we all know, life at least as we know it, needs water to exist. There is no water there now except for the polar ice caps.

calpoon said:

I'm not impressed.
as usual NASA is exaggerating their claims to give them more validity in justifying their budget.

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Actually, no.

1) NASA's JPL and scientists have actually been skeptics

Despite popular assumption, the polar ice caps are not water, and we've know this via spectral analysis since the early 20th century.

What NASA found was alkalines and other materials they did not expect to find, although hoped for.

2) The media likes to hype this up in general

It's not NASA, but the media.

3) NASA's budget is rather small, and these launches are dirt-cheap

Understand NASA's budget is rather small, and these launches are rather dirt-cheap.
The stuff is COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf), and I personally used the same stuff (previous generations) in the '90s on missile defense.

If anything, NASA's efforts in the first rover revolutionized how we build launch systems now.

calpoon said:

What they REALLY mean is that Martian soil, in Earth-like conditions, could support life.

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Correct, which is what NASA has said, but the media plays games.

calpoon said:

But in atmospheric conditions with no oxygen, no ozone/ cosmic radiation, no liquid water, extreme temperatures, etc, it could not support life.

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The problem with Mars isn't just that, it's the thickness of the atmosphere.
Your blood would boil without a pressure suit, it's not just a breathing issue, or water for that matter.

calpoon said:

Since those happen to be the exact conditions of the planet Mars, the conditions that the soil currently exist in; no, it can't support life.

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Correct.

calpoon said:

Ask yourself this question: if it could support life, why wouldn't there be life existing there? there would be. There isn't because it can't.

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Not all life is easily detected unless we land and actual sample.
I hope they do a mission to some of Jupiter's moons at some point.

Ok, fine, I'll give you that one for the Media.

But I still think that NASA is a waste of money.

I saw a video of a rocket launch, they forgot to carry the one somewhere in their calculations and the damn thing blew to high hell.. So that so was a 100 million dollars right there gone in sixty seconds.

They could have given a million people a hundred dollar bill, and I'd be pretty damn happy about it if I was on the list. Much better investment. You know how much food and medicine you could buy for people for that? shit, I'd even take one dollar for a hundred million people. No complaints there.

so....I won't be buying pot from martians anytime soon?

yeah man, bummer. no Martian red skunk

It has been suggested in certain quarters that human life did originally emanate from Mars.

Bigoldowls said:

It has been suggested in certain quarters that human life did originally emanate from Mars.

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Well there you go YMI at least SOMEONE from Mars has drugs. :rofl: