Was That Water On Mars?

[dgridley]

If you saw the original claims that water had been found in puddles on Mars, well.. here's what they're saying now:

It was an astonishing claim: Mars may have puddles of liquid water on its surface today. That was the conclusion Ron Levin and Daniel Lyddy of Lockheed Martin in Arizona, US, recently came to after analysing an image taken by NASA's Opportunity rover (see image at left).

In our story about the research, we acknowledge that the claim is highly controversial, citing an outside expert who says it would be "virtually impossible" for liquid water to exist without subliming in the planet's thin atmosphere.

But it turns out the claim is impossible for an entirely different – and much more basic – reason: the terrain in question is on the side of a crater, and is therefore sloped too greatly for water to pool into puddles.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/06/no-puddles-on-mars.html

I'm still waiting to see pics of Martian spiders or the like.. you'd think if there were any life at all, it'd exist as insect life or I'd even settle for fungi or lichens..

 

[bizwiz]

It would really be earth shattering if they have discovered there actually is life on mars even if its in the form of bacteria.

 

[Zinc]

Personally, I really do believe that there either is life, or once was on Mars. If you rewind several hundred million years when our Sun was much bigger, hotter and Earth was uninhabitable, Mars would have been at the correct distance from the Sun temperature-wise for life to start evolving.

There are also some NASA shots available which show a large area covered with a greeny-blue substance which grows in the martian summer and shrinks in the wintertime. We have to be realistic about life evolving elsewhere in the Universe, especially after scientists found a completely isolated underground cave in South America, which had an ecosystem of bacteria and animals which had evolved without the need for sunlight.

You have only got to take a look to the bottom of the worlds Oceans to see life evolving without sunlight. The martian surface is far more hospitable than life at the bottom of our deepest ocean.

Food for thought.

 

[Barrucadu]

There may or may not be life on mars, but it would be folly to assume that earth if the only planet supporting life in the universe. The odds against it are... increcibly high.

 

[dgridley]

I agree.. they even go so far as to say it is mathematically impossible NOT to have life somewhere else in the Universe, If I recall correctly.

There may or may not be life on mars, but it would be folly to assume that earth if the only planet supporting life in the universe. The odds against it are... increcibly high.

 

[DylanButler]

We have to be realistic about life evolving elsewhere in the Universe, especially after scientists found a completely isolated underground cave in South America, which had an ecosystem of bacteria and animals which had evolved without the need for sunlight.

The martian surface is far more hospitable than life at the bottom of our deepest ocean.

Food for thought.

I like this post
:cy:

 

[Zinc]

The probability is: 1% of 10 to the 9th power for other "intelligent" life forms in existence in our own galaxy.

When you consider that there are hundreds of billions of galaxys, that becomes a huge number.