Mars discovery called "one for history books"

[FlakeyFool]

I think they found the crystal skull

[debo]

Complex organics would be ****ing amazing and strong evidence pointing toward life.


If I were a betting man, I'd put money on that.

[aNYer]

Nice. So glad this got moved to the science forum. I went looking for it on the forums list and didn't see it. (maybe I just over looked it)

As for my water theory. I believe they found evidence that points towards it but not actual proof. Maybe I am just way behind or just plain forgot, which wouldn't be a stretch for someone with such a poor memory.

[debo]

No, there's proof of water on Mars, man. There isn't proof of flowing, liquid water existing currently, but the instrument used wouldn't prove that, either.

[chicagocubsfan]

Nice. So glad this got moved to the science forum. I went looking for it on the forums list and didn't see it. (maybe I just over looked it)

As for my water theory. I believe they found evidence that points towards it but not actual proof. Maybe I am just way behind or just plain forgot, which wouldn't be a stretch for someone with such a poor memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars

[natepro]

I believe within my heart of hearts that one day the realization will be made that life existed on Mars before it existed on Earth and we are all originally from the Red Planet.

It's already been speculated that Mars used to have oceans and rivers and could have supported life until a massive asteroid struck the planet. Our species may have migrated from there to here when this happened and started existence over again.

At the very least I do believe we will come to the realization intelligent life did exist there before and was wiped out.

Panspermia, while really interesting and cool to think about, is also really, really unlikely.

[giventofly]

I believe within my heart of hearts that one day the realization will be made that life existed on Mars before it existed on Earth and we are all originally from the Red Planet.

It's already been speculated that Mars used to have oceans and rivers and could have supported life until a massive asteroid struck the planet. Our species may have migrated from there to here when this happened and started existence over again.

At the very least I do believe we will come to the realization intelligent life did exist there before and was wiped out.

It just isn't very likely. But that would be so awesome.

[Patman]

It just isn't very likely. But that would be so awesome.

Yeah because when our species fled the mars, they lost all knowledge about the solar system, electricity (or any other form of power) and space flight. We also lost our memories of it. Or if we didn't we made up a huge fake history and didn't keep records of space flight, to ensure that our species will be in deep **** if they would sometime need to leave earth.

Those theories just don't make any sense at all.


Maybe they have found fossils or some chemical residues that point to life on mars at one point in time.

[debo]

Yeah because when our species fled the mars, they lost all knowledge about the solar system, electricity (or any other form of power) and space flight. We also lost our memories of it. Or if we didn't we made up a huge fake history and didn't keep records of space flight, to ensure that our species will be in deep **** if they would sometime need to leave earth.

Those theories just don't make any sense at all.


Maybe they have found fossils or some chemical residues that point to life on mars at one point in time.

It'd be microbial life leaving Mars, not intelligent beings...


It's still ridiculously unlikely, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. It just isn't required to model how life could have started on Earth.

[natepro]

Yeah because when our species fled the mars, they lost all knowledge about the solar system, electricity (or any other form of power) and space flight. We also lost our memories of it. Or if we didn't we made up a huge fake history and didn't keep records of space flight, to ensure that our species will be in deep **** if they would sometime need to leave earth.

Those theories just don't make any sense at all.


Maybe they have found fossils or some chemical residues that point to life on mars at one point in time.

What the what?

[flips333]

Finding has been down graded to interesting, and not insignificant.

http://io9.com/5964244/in-partial-de...isappointments

[debo]

With rumors of the announcement pertaining to organics being found, I think this is a mild downgrade.

We'd be getting ahead of ourselves to say "this means life is on Mars," but this finding may help to validate findings of Pathfinder and Viking. Three separate missions finding clues of organics (or actually finding organics in Curiosity's case) would bode well for future missions seeking evidence or proof of life.

[debo]

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, well into its fourth month on Mars, will work for the next several weeks or months at a site with some of the mission's most intriguing geological findings yet.

The site, called "Matijevic Hill," overlooks 42 mile-wide Endeavour Crater. Curiosity has begun investigating the site's concentration of small spherical objects reminiscent of, but different from, the iron-rich spheres nicknamed "blueberries" at the rover's landing site nearly 22 driving miles ago (35 kilometers).

The small spheres at Matijevic Hill have different composition and internal structure made completely of plastic. Curiosity's science team is evaluating a range of possibilities for how they formed. The spheres are up to about an eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter.

Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars.

Wow!

[Freakazoid]

Wow!

Pretty sure that was a hoax.

[debo]

Pretty sure that was a hoax.

Super sad if true. Really disappointed in physicist friend who shared it, too, if false.