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Imminent Discovery of Life On Mars?

universetoday.com — Do you think there is life on Mars? Do you think Phoenix will find evidence of it? Now there's a blog that's trying to collect a snapshot of the opinions of scientists, amateurs, and everyday people. "Imminent Discovery" thinks Phoenix may find simple life. Finding this evidence will definitely become headlines… If it happens.

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  • xtrasen, on 05/14/2008, -11/+4Historically, Mars had life. http://marslife.us/proof/
    Would Phoenix be able to detect life in a Earth, if it landed at the desert or on top of mountain- I doubt.it.
    • Darph.Bobo, on 05/14/2008, -2/+6I'm sure there was at one time some type of life on Mars and there almost certainly is now. There is water and if there's water there will be some type of life.
      That said, if Phoenix landed on the Earth on a desert or mountain it would easily detect life. First the desert, have you ever spent time in the desert? There is all kinds of life in the desert; bushes, plants, ants, spiders, snakes, lizards, birds and all kinds of insects. Now the mountain pretty much the same thing unless it landed on a very, very high mountain covered in snow but even in the snow you could detect microbial life.


      • planksconstant, on 05/14/2008, -2/+2you seem awful certain that water=life. don't forget the fact that mars is still an extremely harsh environment.
        also, just because i speculate that there is life on mars, doesn't mean that there actually is. I also speculate that dinosaurs were bright pink with green racing stripes.
      • Kyrgizion, on 05/14/2008, -2/+5While your comment has merit, it must be pointed out that the conditions on Mars are several times harsher still than those in the most arid desert on Earth. There might still be life there, but defnitely not a full-fledged ecosystem (which would be necessary to support fairly complex lifeforms like the ones you described), which we also would've detected a lot earlier if there was one.
      • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2As pointed out, water doesn't automatically equate to life. We only have one data sample, our own planet, to compare against the rest of the universe at this point, so we really don't know the exact correlation between water and life. We still haven't even been able to create the first single cell organisms based on atmospheric gasses and water present on Earth a few billion years ago. The furthest we've gone is amino acids, which may be all that has developed on other water-bearing planets.
    • rockandrollmark, on 05/14/2008, -1/+6I don't think I'm going to trust that geocities-quality conspiracy theory site that requires 3D Glasses. No sir
      • rpgmaker, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2Most of the NASA websites are designed as if we where still in the early 90s, you don't believe the NASA then?
    • Anonchrist, on 05/14/2008, -1/+3Yes, our deserts and mountains are not devoid of bacteria. Life can exist in even the most extreme of Earth's environments; thus the argument that it can exist on Mars.
      • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Yes, but can and does are not the same thing. Just because I can walk on all fours doesn't mean I do.
        While life exists in our harshest environments, we have no proof that it originated there. Much more likely it originated in much more moderate areas and evolved to a point where it can survive in those harsh climates.
        Regardless of whether or not it can survive anywhere, it has to be there first.
        • VinceNoir, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2This is EXACTLY the sort of elitist posturing that happens on Digg that makes me sick to my stomach. You sir, have an arrogance that makes me just want to puke up every last item of food I've ingested since birth. The audacity to proclaim such baseless assertions under the guise of rational thinking is just unbelievable! Just because you're one of those uppity primates who decided to take on the new fangled approach of walking upright on two legs doesn't mean all of us have. It offends me greatly that one of my fellow mammals makes such an offensive and bigoted statement. I walk on all fours and I'm proud to be ***** sapien, thank you VERY much! I just don't know how people like you can sleep with yourselves at night!
  • rlray216, on 05/14/2008, -3/+45In a universe as large as ours, to think that ours is the only planet capable of supporting life is the height of egomania.
    • Darph.Bobo, on 05/14/2008, -3/+9And yet some people still think the universe is all about us.
      • VinceNoir, on 05/14/2008, -10/+2And some people go so far as to have the arrogance to think that it is not about us. What's that? Oh yeah... I think the word your looking for is tush-ay.
        • VinceNoir, on 05/14/2008, -2/+6God... you Diggers are idiots aren't you? The word is "touchĂ©". It's French. I don't know what kind of idiot would think it's "tush-ay". And as far as the universe being about us or not, I don't think that's for you to say. It's up to the FSM. Praise be the FSM!
          • VinceNoir, on 05/14/2008, -6/+1Up yours you elitist prick. Figures you'd know it's French. France is full of a bunch of pussies. I'll bet you love them all.
          • Andrwmorph, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1I'm confuzzled.
          • Pissoff, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Put down the crack pipe.
    • dogsop, on 05/14/2008, -5/+13Don't be silly, the entire universe was created 6000 years ago just so humans would have something to look at in the night sky.
      • rockandrollmark, on 05/14/2008, -1/+13And Adam and Eve rode to church on dinosaurs.
      • JQP123, on 05/14/2008, -1/+9I know it (the Bible) is true because the Bible tells me so.
      • BudgingMidget, on 05/14/2008, -5/+1Wow I have never seen that joke before...
      • VinceNoir, on 05/14/2008, -10/+3I can tell you with some authority on the subject that phase III humans who attained consciousness about 3500 years ago (previous to that they were sort of like schizos who heard voices in their heads) are really the second step in psychoevolution. But I've seen what the next step is. The concept of what we perceive as the reality around is is going to crumble within then next 1000 years or so.

        The original move from humans with no internal motivation who had to be driven by "the gods" which were simply hallucinations in pre-conscious humans is somewhat tracked in the early writing from that period of time in human history. The stories of various pre-conscious cultures are all full of gods, voices and visions. People really saw these things back then. Not that they were real, but it was the most efficient way for both halves of the brain to communicate before written language.

        When written language appeared, the need for the internal voices and visions stopped. So the gods disappeared. There is a lot of mention of this in the early writings of humans. It didn't happen overnight either. This is something that took about 1000 to 1500 years. Essentially the "software of the mind" changed because of written language.

        In the past 60 years or so, we've added what is called multimedia today in bits and pieces to the methods of storing human experience. Most of that media is culminating in virtual experiences, whether you're talking about films or fully immersive 3D environments. If you look at a lot of the literature (just as looking at early writing), films and even games, there is a common thread that is repeated. It is the concept of reality not actually being what we think it is. The film, "The Matrix" is the most obvious of these, but there are short stories dating back to the early 20th century. All of these stories (in any form of media) pose the question, "What if reality really doesn't exist"?

        That is the next step in human psychoevolution. Mastery of reality itself. What we term "reality" is mere personal perception that is controlled from the outside. Having worked with various forms of virtual systems (not just games, but machine virtualization, storage virtualization, and so on) it's obvious to me that humans are being prepared for a gigantic shift in the future. Children growing up today will have a much stronger grasp on the abstractions offered by the bridges between our reality and the virtual venues presented by machinery of the future.

        Humans are going to augment these machines. Thus the natural progression from our current perception of reality to something else. In the process, I suggest that humans will discover that subjective reality is another hallucination, much like the gods, voices and visions of the pre-conscious humans. This shift is coming and it will probably happen faster for some than others.
        • jggr, on 05/15/2008, -0/+1Digging you up, just to share the crazy. :)
    • planksconstant, on 05/14/2008, -4/+5and to think that the barren, hellish rock thats right next to us has life seems rather presumptive. sure there's bound to be life out there somewhere, but that doesn't mean its going to be everywhere we want it to be.
    • Axim, on 05/14/2008, -5/+5and to assume it does just because the planet has had water on it at some point in history is the height of presumption. given the infinitely small chance of life developing independently on a planet, what do you think the chances are that out of the potentially infinite amount of planets out there that there is another one with life on it within our same solar system?

      i am all for exploration but seriously this is the wet dream of sci-fi fanboys everywhere which is why we see these token articles crop up every couple months.

      the conditions on earth are so rare and incredible that the chances of this happening in solar system that we would be able to reach is ridiculously low. even then to presume that there would ever be a type of life that could evolve in a manner that it would be able to interact, or even reach us (remember as a species ***** sapiens are what, 200,000 years old -- and as we evolve we are constantly faced with the threat of extinction at the hands of our own technological advancement).

      even then let's say that despite mind-bogglingly low odds we could encounter a race that could interact with us on some meaning ful level.. if it has taken thousands of years for us to get over the differences in incredibly trivial things such as skin color and gender then where is this faith that we would be able to exist in the same sphere with beings which might not see death, or killing as intrinsically wrong?

      i am all for finding other habitable planets for humans to expand to, as unlikely as this is, but this desperate search for alien life compared with the relative ignorance expressed here on earth between the same species has never made sense to me.

      if you want to see exotic creatures that look as 'alien' as anything you could imagine google deep sea life.
      http://time-blog.com/tuned_in/PEsquid.jpg

      why disregard the incredible variety of life on earth, especially in the space-like conditions at the bottom of the ocean, in favor of the modern myth of extraterrestrial life within our solar system.
      • Axim, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2haha just wait i didn't read your post below until now, government conspiracies, et's and flying saucers oh my

        i wash my hands of you, this is like trying to explain why drawing cartoons of foxes with breasts is retarded to people on deviantart

        or like special relativity to an 8 year old with FAS
    • MxM111, on 05/14/2008, -2/+3It has all started... In the beginning God created heaven and Earth. The EARTH! Not the moon, not Mars, but Earth! Thus it proves that the earth is unique.
      [/sarcasm]
    • donkeySays, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Egomania? If often stems out of ignorance. Even as a young kid, I used to find books stating "Mars is too hot for life, Jupiter too cold, Venus is full of dangerous gases" etc very strange and contradicting to my common sense. In 4th standard I wrote a short science fiction for our school magazine about accidental discovery of subterranean life on Mars. The story didn't have a happy ending.
      Leave the Martians alone!
  • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+5the punditry on a blog (or anywhere else for that matter) won't make life all of a sudden appear on mars, no matter how much people argue about it.
  • tehjarvis, on 05/14/2008, -1/+4I certainly hope they find something that's alive, and I hope it's different enough that we can say for certain it evolved while segregated from any influence Earth's life could have had (say, something silicone based or something).
    • mlavergn, on 05/14/2008, -4/+3Someone has been watching X-Files reruns! :D
      • tehjarvis, on 05/14/2008, -1/+4I've never watched X-Files. I have taken biology and chemistry classes though.
    • gummih, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1wasn't the first x-files episode about a silicone based lifeform?
    • Murdats, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1don't we have sulphur based life at the bottom of the ocean?
      or is it just carbon based life that lives almost soley off sulphur? that seems a bit odd because where would it get the carbon needed to create new cells?
  • drlha, on 05/14/2008, -3/+5Will they discover Gene Hunt kicking in a nonce?
  • Selenica, on 05/14/2008, -1/+27I think the real question is: If we find life, will it be edible?
    • dogsop, on 05/14/2008, -1/+6Popplers
    • one1plus1one, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5The scientist and SF author Charles Sheffield pointed out that alien life will likely not be eatable.

      Even if the alien life is based upon a highly similar organic chemistry and DNA as our life, there are hundreds of ways that the protein-patterns can emerge. On Earth we basically follow 1 type of protein pattern arrangement, so all life can essentially eat each other.

      But alien life might follow one of the hundred or so other options by which protein can be arranged at the molecular level, and thus their protein-pattern would be toxic and poison to us.

      We would die if we ate them, and they would die if they ate us.
      • hendrixiloveyou, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2Would plants from the earth attempted to be grown on another world say similar to the earth mutate/get diseased or just fail to grow
        and if they did somehow manage to grow in an alien world would they still be safe to consume.
      • Murdats, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1so its a 1 in hundreds chance that the life we find will be edible
        considering we are looking at 1 in millions-billions odds of finding life, that not too much more of a stretch.
    • SmellyGeekBoy, on 05/14/2008, -4/+2But will they blend?
    • MxM111, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2Or will that life ask the same question about us?
    • JergoR, on 05/15/2008, -0/+1Vegan Rage!
  • happytedium, on 05/14/2008, -3/+8Sailors
    Fighting in the dance hall.
    Oh man!
    Look at those cavemen go.
    It's the freakiest show.
  • Anonchrist, on 05/14/2008, -2/+7Pseudoscience...
    • one1plus1one, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2I agree the article approached more "pseudoscience", then a serious scientific discussion about possible alien life.

      But even so called "pseudoscience" discussions have their value. Such discussions can be entertaining (it's fun to ponder and consider the possibility that Phoenix might discover life).

      These kinds of discussions stimulate the imagination.

      And sometimes pseudoscience and science-fiction have a way of becoming science-fact.
  • taradisiac, on 05/14/2008, -2/+1The fact that we don't know for sure yet should ashame us.
    • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Why?
      It took billions of years for life to form, and you expect us to decode all of it's mysteries in the few thousand that human civilization has existed? Not only that, but be able to apply that knowledge to other planets with different ecosystems and geological histories?
  • amightywind, on 05/14/2008, -3/+2If Phoenix is going to look for life, it couldn't be landing in worse place. The best place to find fossil microbes is near a hot spring. They will not be found in permafrost. I will be surprised if the lander will be able to digg far enough to reach it. After the phenomenally successful Mars Rovers, why did NASA waste a launch attempt sending a stationary lander.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discu ...
    • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2Because Phoenix can carry out experiments that rovers cannot, and exist in environments (the Martian poles) that solar-powered rovers cannot.
      I'm pretty sure these guys know what they're doing.
      • amightywind, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1"Because Phoenix can carry out experiments that rovers cannot"
        Really? And what would those be?
        "exist in environments (the Martian poles) that solar-powered rovers cannot"
        The Phoenix lander is solar powered just like the rovers.
        "I'm pretty sure these guys know what they're doing."
        These are the same people who crashed the Mars Polar Lander.
        • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -0/+0First off, let's deal with your polar lander comments.
          That mistake was actually made by contractors who were hired, not by NASA itself. So no, these aren't the same people who crashed the polar lander. Stop talking out of your ass.

          As for the experiments. Rovers that are currently economical to send are not large enough to carry the TEGA or MET hardware on Phoenix. And seeing as the soil and climate experiments are pretty much the mission's purpose, a rover would be pretty useless without that hardware.

          I worded my statement about the pole poorly, but it is true. Spirit and Opportunity would not be functional at the Martian poles. They would not draw enough energy from the sun to function year round. They already have to shut down during the Martian winters as is.
          Phoenix's mission is only 90 sols, and isn't designed to last through the whole winter. It is just designed to survive through the beginning of it to be able to see frozen carbon dioxide form.

          And why the hell would we want a rover in the tundra anyway? It's more of less constant in that environment. Developing a new rover for that purpose would be a waste of money, as mobility grants almost no advantages.
    • MxM111, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1I think the chances are higher to find DEAD life, then alive life. So, they are doing fine. Permafrost will preserve whatever life Mars had.
  • faskill, on 05/14/2008, -0/+6Aren't there Transformers on Mars?
  • blast_flame, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2I hope not...
    http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20569/
  • JohnnyHotballs, on 05/14/2008, -2/+2there's life on mars, alright. human life.
    • one1plus1one, on 05/14/2008, -2/+3Well, humans haven't quite landed on Mars just yet.

      Only our robots have landed.

      But it is 100 percent certain that there is bacterial life on Mars at present: we put it there.

      Our robots and probes are contaminated with bacterial life from the JPL laboratory in California, where the robots are builts.

      That bacteria is thus on the surface of Mars at this very moment (where it will likely just die, and not evolve into anything new -- or so we think!)

      Similarly, we put the same bacteria on the surface of the moon, Venus, and Saturn's moon Titan.
      • matschig, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2wrong.
      • JohnnyHotballs, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2the military has manned bases on mars right now. the space technology you see is already 50 years old.
        • Murdats, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1I suspect you are kidding but I find it sad that I dont disbelieve that people would believe that.
  • smartass007, on 05/14/2008, -0/+2life will be found throughout the solar system someday.

    then the question becomes, "what now?"

    religions will make excuses and accommodations for this, because, you know...they don't want to lose all their power, wealth and influence in the world.

    the media will make a big deal out of it for a little while, and then it will fade behind the latest news of britney spears 14th marriage or who won the world series.

    what will really change when it's proven that bacteria, at least, is common throughout the cosmos?
    • Screwy1138, on 05/14/2008, -3/+1You're contradicting science. Science supposes that the odds of life forming in any given instance is extremely rare, albiet probable to happen in several places in the universe at any given time. However, the odds of it happening twice in the same star system are unthinkably small, even if you consider the same building blocks are available uniformly throughout the system (which they are not). If we were to find life elsewhere in our solar system, by far the best scientific conclusion would be that life formed once in our system and spread elsewhere.
    • haydentech, on 05/14/2008, -4/+2As a Christian, I'm not sure what you mean by your third paragraph. Finding life elsewhere is not contradicted by the Bible, and would only affect people with an incomplete, too-small view of God. God created the universe, not just Earth.
      • Murdats, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1so what did god call their first superior creatures who were given dominion over all others, ours were adam and eve, so did god go to every planet he created and create a super species to look after all others (crappy job we did by the way, we are in a human caused extinction period atm) or were humans given dominion over the whole universe, obviously god would have seen interstellar travel happening so why didnt he offer instructions like he does everything else, or is planning to kill all his loved children before that happens and thats why he didnt bother laying down the ground rules?
      • the6thReplicant, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1So you mean most republican voters then :)
  • Wabem, on 05/14/2008, -1/+4I hope if there is life, we don't find it. We'll probably just ***** it up.
  • FLUX, on 05/14/2008, -6/+3No life will not be found on Mars or any where else in this solar system !
    Mars has no magnetic field which on earth protects life from DEADLY cosmic radiation it has to low a gravity to hold an atmosphere which is needed for all life , it had no large moon in orbit that constantly moves any ocean it might have had thus continually mixing the upper and lower layers preventing oxygen or any other gas from either building up or being depleted.

    quit watching the sci fi channel so much and do a little study on just how unique our earth is and how many so called coincidences had to occur for life to exist on our world
    • CyclonusRIP, on 05/14/2008, -0/+5Did you know that on earth, in the short time since atomic energy was discovered, bacteria have evolved that can metabolize nuclear waste? I'd say that based on that your assumption that the radiation would prevent life from existing is misguided.
      • FLUX, on 05/14/2008, -1/+2what you seem to be missing is the BIG GIANT fact that they evolved to resist radiation.(meaning it was alive before and evolved to resist radiation not it appeared magically )
        why is that with all the science and knowledge we have now, man in all his might and glory can not make a single living thing not even a virus ,even though all you say this happens spontaneously in an ocean of primordial goo, so why isn't it when man puts all the parts of the "goo" together life never ever ever happens explain why? What nature can do supposedly by chance man cant do on purpose, if it so easy and inevitable every where why can we do it
        isn't it just some random organic molecules forming a chain and whala life
        • gummih, on 05/15/2008, -0/+1Ok, here is a study in probability. We have two experiments.
          Experiment A: An ocean of primordial "goo" covering a whole planet over a period of a billion years.
          Experiment B: A dash of chemicals in test tubes in a laboratory over a period of a few days.
          Which experiment is likelier to produce results? If experiment B fails to produce life, does that prove that experiment A would also have failed?
        • FLUX, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1actually yes it is called sampling.
          also the "primordial goo" would have had to create life not just once but many many times, the odds of just one living cell being created and surviving to create all life on earth are lower than the odds of life forming from the "primordial goo"
    • gummih, on 05/14/2008, -0/+3Dude, you should contact NASA - Seriously, I mean they seem to be just totally wrong when you put it like that.
      • FLUX, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1because NASA wants more money
        look at their stand on global warming ( gimme more money to study it I think it might possibly mabey be happening )
  • FLUX, on 05/14/2008, -2/+2just how big is your tin foil hat
  • kencurran, on 05/14/2008, -0/+0Hopefully they will find some sort of bacteria or microscopic based life. There are types of living creatures we could never imagine. They could be based on other elements, and might feed off of the things that we need to be protected from. Try to be positive about it, and if there's nothing, then that's okay too. At least they tried.
  • CyclonusRIP, on 05/14/2008, -0/+4At the end of the day one has to realize that life on earth is just one example of how life can evolve. Life on other planets could have followed a completely different path and not be subject to any of the conditions that need to be present for earth based lifeforms. The reality of it is that as science progresses, even on our planet, we are finding new forms of metabolism we never imagined would exist, and we are finding them because we finally bothered to look in places that people nearly universally believed it couldn't 50 years ago.
  • rectagon, on 05/14/2008, -5/+1Nope. The math sucks. Chances of life anywhere else? Essentially nil. Get over it people. We are alone. So very alone.
  • rikkizenith, on 05/14/2008, -0/+0I don't understand how some people don't believe there is life on other planets.

    Hell, there is life on earth in trenches so deep that not one bit of sunlight even reaches it!
    The life feeds and gets it energy from underwater methane pools that are so dense not even our deep sea submersibles can go into them, however when they bounce off them the pools ripple.. under the sea. Pretty insane... never say never.
  • TheFuturist, on 05/14/2008, -1/+0If we do find life we'll probably accuse them of having WMD's then bomb them.

    Seriously though, Intelligent life will never be found simply because its too far away. Since there is life in the deep sea volcanic vents where its over 250 degrees with no oxygen then I'm pretty sure there is life elsewhere. NASA should send a rover to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that's where they are more likely to find life in our solar system.
  • stevenhatfield, on 05/14/2008, -1/+0If life were found on Mars, no matter how simple... every religious freak on the planet's head would certainly explode, as they watch their core beliefs (however childish) disintegrate into nothingness...
  • e1ioan, on 05/14/2008, -1/+0Well, I bet there is life on mars now. How many microbes do you think the rovers had on them when they left earth?
    • Mystlyfe, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Seeing as they were assembled and manufactured in clean rooms, and any on the landers likely burned up during atmospheric entry, not too many.
      • e1ioan, on 05/14/2008, -1/+0I agree I suppose, not too many, but are you sure 100% that they are totally clean? Give me a % guess.
  • malkiev, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1as Stephen Hawking said "Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth
  • leerayIG88, on 05/14/2008, -1/+1I wish I can go to Mars and live there. I would build an army and take over Earth. yeah....maybe I can just farm wild cows there.
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