NASA chief scientist says 'we're close' to making announcements about life on Mars

a reply to: neoholographic

"A lot of intelligent life". What exactly do you base this off? We only have Earth to use as an example of how likely intelligence life will evolve. Earth, which is the perfect host for high intelligence to arise. So in this perfect enviroment for high intelligence, how many intelligent species exist on Earth today? 1 in a current estimation of 8.7 million species. By example, that alone shows high intelligence will not be likely to exist on an Earth-like planet. You also have to factor in over the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth, high intelligence happened once.

The foundation and goal for the success of a species is dependent on several things. Procreation to continue on the species, ability to capture process and turn food and water into energy,  ability to defend itself from predators, means of movement, and so on. High intelligence is not one of these required traits for the success of a species. It's a fluke of Earth evolution.

I believe the universe is filled with life in basic forms. High intelligence of course is possible, but I don't believe is the norm and couldn't be considered happening "a lot".

It would be pretty awesome if they said all those Mars rover pics with the bones, plants, pottery, etc are often exactly what some people see in them. Mars is littered with the remenants of previous life and civilizations.

The "discovery" should be credited to the Antarctic scientists that discovered fossilized bacteria in the "Allen Hills" meteorite found on the ice sheet.

In 1996, a group of scientists claimed to have found evidence for microscopic fossils of bacteria in the meteorite, suggesting that these organisms also originated on Mars. The claims immediately made headlines worldwide, culminating in then-U.S. president Bill Clinton giving a speech about the potential discovery.[

Not considered "vested" enough to be able to be credited with the first discovery of life in a piece of Mars, the mainstream astrophysicists wrestled the discovery away from them by downplaying the find, even though they knew very well that they were correct. It's all about money and power.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: schuyler
But we ARE here, and that proves it. It's the Anthropic Principle.

Well, I certainly can't prove that the universe will still be here without me in it, and after I'm dead you sure won't be able to prove it to me. Was the universe here before I was born? Dinosaur fossils? Cosmic Background Radiation? Bah. Without me here, they wouldn't exist, either.

I think you need to look up the Anthropic Principle and study the issue a little more carefully. It's not really about you, personally, or whether or not you are alive. Here: en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: schuyler

I think you need to look up the Anthropic Principle and study the issue a little more carefully. It's not really about you, personally, or whether or not you are alive. Here: en.wikipedia.org...

Of course it's about me, personally. Who else? There is no hypothetical person or people the universe might have been made for. Hypothetical people don't exist. I do.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Hello Blue Shift.

I love you, Shinji.

-triggers instrumentality-

-rolls eyes-

Is this just another bug hunt?

originally posted by: Raggedyman
a reply to: neoholographic

The universe is not fine tuned to create life
We seem to be the only life in existence, doesn’t seem very fine tuned at all

In fact everything seems very hostile even on this little planet, just in case you didn’t notice

Life seems fine tuned to create life, not the universe

You are not going to believe this but there was a time when people actually thought the Earth was flat. Maybe there are life forms that have a different liquid for blood and breath a different gas but still function like we do. Maybe the range of life is more than just the infamous Goldilocks zone of the Drake equation.

Since everything in nature turns out to be so much stranger than anything we could have ever imagined I'm going with an ancient astronaut "yes".

a reply to: neoholographic

They must have found a spec of dust with a pair of eyeballs...I wonder what shows up first in the next few hundred billion years, the lungs or air...

a reply to: dfnj2015

Yes the earth is flat, I agree with you but
If the universe is kajillions of years old and no other civilisations have popped up to say hello, no contacts, flares, radio signals or anything
Doesn’t seem the universe is all that conducive to allowing life to spring up

It just looks pretty inhospitable from my little couch on my little concrete pad from my little island

Maybe you think it’s a universe conducive to life but not me as much

a reply to: schuyler

Yes we are here, on a very unique rock, going really fast around a bigger hotter rock, seemingly all alone from what we can see

All we have proof of is we are alone and unique in a universally hostile environment, that’s the evidence I see

a reply to: Raggedyman

Evidence that we're alone?

Yeah, if you ignore the discovery of exoplanets.

If you ignore the evidence of water found on other planets.

If you ignore the building blocks of life found in comets, meteorites and space dust.

If you ignore that we're primitive when it comes to space exploration. The last time we visited the Moon was over 45 years ago.

The only way you can conclude that we're alone in the universe is if you bury your head in the sand and ignore these things or you show that life on earth has some special ingredient that can't be duplicated anywhere else in the universe. You will also have to show that the fantasy of Abiogenesis and not panspermiais how life originates. You will also have to show that life on earth is the only pathway to life throughout the entire galaxy. We know from extremophiles that life adapts to harsh environments.

I also believe there will be environments that's better suited for life than earth is and might even provide a quicker pathway to intelligent life.

Look at Europa

Ingredients for Life? Europa could have the essential ingredients needed for life:

Water is at the top of the list of ingredients that make life possible. It dissolves nutrients for organisms to eat, transports important chemicals within living cells, and allows those cells to get rid of waste. Data indicates Europa may have plenty of water – a salty ocean beneath its crust that contains more water than Earth's ocean. Scientists also think there's a rocky seafloor at the bottom of the ocean. The interaction between the ocean and the rocks could possibly supply chemical nutrients for living organisms.

The best evidence that there's an ocean on Europa was gathered by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. The spacecraft made 12 close flybys of Europa and one of its instruments, a magnetometer, detected that a magnetic field was being created within Europa as Jupiter's powerful magnetic field swept past the moon. Scientists think the most likely thing that could create this magnetic signature is a global ocean of salty water.

Europa's surface also shows signs it could have an ocean beneath it. Images from Galileo and other spacecraft show that the surface doesn't have many craters from meteorite impacts like other moons in the solar system. Scientists think geologic activity, like warmer ice rising from below, could be erasing the craters over time.

europa.nasa.gov...

We could have known this years ago but like I said, we're primitive when it comes to space exploration. I would bet my bank account that we find life under the icy surface. Look at this new article on Enceledus:

Scientists Uncover New Organic Molecules Coming Off Saturn's Moon Enceladus

Scientists have discovered nitrogen- and oxygen- containing organic molecules in ice grains blown out by Saturn’s moon Enceladus, according to a new study.

Gas giants Saturn and Jupiter are orbited by some moons that almost seem more like planets themselves. One such moon is Saturn’s Enceladus, an icy orb thought to contain a very deep subsurface water ocean beneath a thick icy crust. Finding organic molecules on Enceladus is exciting, since water plus energy plus organic molecules might be the ingredients for life.

Enceladus blasted the material out in plumes from cracks in its south polar crust. The plumes carry a mixture of material from the moon’s rocky core and subsurface ocean. The Cassini mission flew through these plumes in 2004 and 2008, gathering data on the material with two of its instruments, the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) and the Cosmic Dust Analyser (CDA). For the new study, researchers based in Germany and the United States took a deeper look at the CDA’s data and found new organic compounds, according to the paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The molecules included amines, which are nitrogen- and oxygen-containing organic molecules similar to those on Earth that turn into amino acids. As a reminder, “organic” in this case simply means “containing carbon,” though these are the kind of compounds that can produce the complex molecules found in life on Earth.

gizmodo.com...

Personally, I agree with Dr. Kaku. I think the evidence is overwhelming that life exists on other planets.

“Some scientists say that perhaps we are the only life forms in the universe. Give me a break! I mean, how many stars are there out there in the universe, anyway? The Hubble Space Telescope can see about a hundred billion galaxies — that’s the visible universe,” Kaku says on the alien TV special.

“Each galaxy consists of a hundred billion stars. Do the math. A hundred billion times a hundred billion is 10 sextillion. That’s one with 22 zeros after it. There definitely are aliens in outer space — they’re out there!”

www.huffpost.com...

The sad part is, NASA isn't moving fast enough because of Politics. We should have been sent missions to Europa, Titan and Enceladus to look for life.

The Enceladus Life Finder mission was first proposed in 2015 for Discovery Mission 13 funding,[2] and then it was proposed in May 2017 to NASA's New Frontiers program Mission 4,[4][5][6] but it was not selected.[7]

It wasn't selected?? It's one of the most promising places in our solar system where we might find life. But again, Politics. It might take private space missions to get there.

A billionaire’s plan to search for life on Enceladus

earthsky.org...

So, like I said, for years pseudoskeptics tried to make life this tiny dot that had to unfold everywhere in the universe the exact way it occurred on earth.

We know today, that it's possible for life to adapt to the harshest environments you can imagine so there's most likely many pathways to life and some of those pathways might be more efficient than the way life evolved on earth.

Y'all acting like announcing life on Mars is a big deal.
Finding life on Mars ain't gonna be big news, like finding new species on Earth.
If you don't appreciate new species here. You ain't gonna appreciate new species on another planet. Duh

You'll expecting like finding species on another planet is gonna be intelligent like humans, more so even advanced than humans. Wake up. Expectations vs Reality bruh.

As long as they dont tell me the nazis have a base on mars.. ooops it wasnt the moon.. Im fine with whatever. Unless its a parasite. I dont think we need another parasite hitchhiking to earth on a space rock. Im hearing octopus ( like 33 scientists claim this and now they say they are superiorly super smarties), arachnids of all kinds, cuttlefish, some virus, are not native to earth. I dont need a super smart Martian terrestrial octopus thats smarter than me hanging around. I say we nuke Mars from space now. Its the only way to be sure.

a reply to: neoholographic

So what was your evidence again, all those words and missed it

Water, nutrients and magic dust, poof enter life

What evidence, assumption, belief, you mean?

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Raggedyman
You will also have to show that the fantasy of Abiogenesis and not panspermiais how life originates.

That's just silly isn't it?

Life cannot originate through panspermia by definition.

And Raggedyman is correct, there is no evidence for life elsewhere, it sure seems a mathematical certainty however that's just an educated guess.

Saying there is definitely life is just as silly as saying there definitely isn't. We haven't looked enough to be sure either way.

But if we're relying only on evidence then you have to take the stand of "no life" elsewhere or at the very least "inconclusive" .

a reply to: Krahzeef_Ukhar

I will accept inconclusive as a valid alternative, but I do believe in a spiritual dimension so, crazy I am

originally posted by: Advantage
As long as they dont tell me the nazis have a base on mars.. ooops it wasnt the moon.. Im fine with whatever. Unless its a parasite. I dont think we need another parasite hitchhiking to earth on a space rock. Im hearing octopus ( like 33 scientists claim this and now they say they are superiorly super smarties), arachnids of all kinds, cuttlefish, some virus, are not native to earth. I dont need a super smart Martian terrestrial octopus thats smarter than me hanging around. I say we nuke Mars from space now. Its the only way to be sure.

Nazi women you mean?
Sorry, that’s a very poor joke, no offence meant

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: JON666
a reply to: neoholographic

Microbial life? BFD what does that prove? Has Mars someway devolved to microbial life from fully formed city building entities? Most people would have no problem with this concept of microbial life.

If microbial life is found on Mars, and (importantly) if that life is found to be different enough from Earth life to have had a totally independent beginning than life on Earth, that would strongly suggest that life is extremely common in the universe.

That is to say, if life arose separately and independently on (at least) two planets in the same solar system, that would probably mean that the ability for life to arise is not a rare thing.

Right now, we have no idea how rare or common life is, since we are the only known example of it.


Having said that, I don't think the common person would have a problem or feel the need to reevaluate their life if microbes were found on Mars. 100+ years ago when Percival Lowell said that he thinks Mars had a civilization, the masses/average person believed it, but it didn't change their lives.

Very well said. This is the big issue here. Interesting times.

I have a sneaking suspicion that when we get to Europas ocean(s) we'll find a lot more than microbes.