The Debate Over Whether We’ve Already Found Life on Mars

a reply to: Blue Shift

Again I agree with you.

It really doesn't matter how many care about it. Not many care about whatever it is they are doing at CERN. Most great discoveries are not made because everyone cared about it.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

What kind of life do you suppose they found?

Just because we the plebes arent told about experiements looking for life there doesn't mesn they haven't been. Our institutions aren't exactly the poster children of transparency.

a reply to: LookingAtMars
What does it matter? If they found some amino acids in the soil or not? Or even if they found undisputed prove that there was once life on mars much like on Earth?

Only a few would get a kick out of it, there rest its no news because it does not involve Donald Trump. And I think that maybe NASA and its other arm, Tesla, knows that.

And then you know send a drone up there have it dig a few feet under, and find that fossilized microscopic amoeba.

Either way, nobody is going there anytime soon, and by the time they can and do have any technology to go there. Well chances are also good that we will bigger issues to deal with then finding microbes on Mars those few inches they scraped from under the surface.

Or hell! We might not even be around to discover the microbes.

a reply to: schuyler

I think this OP is not so much about proof, rather about the fact that the results of the life detection experiments of the Viking Mission were ambiguous (at least to most scientists).

Parts of the experiments showed exactly the results you would get when detecting metabolism of microbes when doing these same experiments on Earth. And over decades we used the same experiment to detect microbial contamination in potable water on Earth.

So if your results are ambiguous and there's a good chance that it could be positive upon further testing, why would you never go back to repeat the experiment or at least have some sort of other life detection setup on board? This, in my opinion, is a legitimate question.

a reply to: KansasGirl

What kind of life do you suppose they found?

I have no proof of any of this, so pure speculation below.

As far as finding current life, nothing more than bacteria and virus extremophiles. That can still survive on the harsh surface. Just under the surface there could be some fungus and lichen still alive (blueberries?).

As far as past life I would say microbial mats, fungus and lichen that has been fossilized.

Now deeper under the surface is a complete unknown. If there are large deposits of liquid water, which it is looking like there are, there could be actual complex plants and animals thriving in unique ecosystems.