Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior

Fungus among us!
I looked into it and found a few news sources going off on this. Either way, it wouldn't surprise me if they do or did find something like fungus on mars. It's good to find out stuff like this before sending travelers out there, isn't it. I remember a B movie called Apollo 18 where they landed on the moon and were welcomed by "moon spiders" that infested and killed the astronauts. It was a silly movie, but they had a good point--you just don't know what's really on the surface of a foreign world, especially one nearby such as mars that very likely has some form of life on it that may or may not be hostile. Probe first, visit later
Think about it, even some molds on earth are enough to cause bad reactions in living creatures. And supposedly, NASA found out black mold probably wouldn't have much trouble surviving on the red planet. It's hardy stuff.

To be fair, samples of microbes were only sent up to Earth’s stratosphere. Not the real deal located 225 million kilometres away. NASA finds black mold fungus can survive on Mars — and it poses a threat to astronauts MARSBOx payload in the Earth's middle stratosphere (38 km altitude). The shutter is open exposing the top layer samples to UV radiation.NASA Many key characteristics of the environment at the Martian surface cannot be found or easily replicated at the surface of our planet. But, scientists believe that — above the Earth’s ozone layer — the middle stratosphere provides conditions that are remarkably similar.

www.businessinsider.in...

Haha.
Memory returned!

"I'm half convinced that Mars is inhabited by a race of demented landscape gardeners! "

That's how we know it was merely a jest. It was Arthur C. Clarke!



I don't recall where he said it but I'm sure it was in relation to the same early orbiter photos .

a reply to: billxam

There is also seasonal changes of the atmosphere gases...similar to Earth's CO2.

Very exciting news! Is there a Mars Lab rover? I wonder if samples can be sent to the lab, but I'd imagine the two rovers would be very far apart from eachother.

Here's another article:

Link

isn't this just the slow roll out of......."there is life out there"

conditioning us to accept our new alien overlords..........

a reply to: dug88

The problem is that life doesn't start off as fungi. It would need to evolve into fungi. Even if some extremophile fungi could survive Mars, you would need all the earlier life forms that came before it to be able to survive. I am pretty sure explanations have been given for the phenomenon.

I've sometimes said that after having looked at Mars images for literally years now, while there are things that look like artifacts or fossils, it's fairly difficult if not impossible to prove that they once were part of something alive. Here's an example. Look at that wormy thing in the upper right corner.

The closest I think I came to actually finding something that could be or once have been alive was this extremely unimpressive image:

Yeah. That's what I figure it would look like. Thrilling, huh?

I have been saying this for years!

The original 70s scientists found signs of organic life.

Their careers were ruined.

Now we are given a “leak” of what was proven all those years ago??

Uh, ok!

Interesting thread and replies. Just a passing thought. Planetary contamination (or a myriad of other things) between Earth and Mars could be a cycle that has happened many times between these two planets causing destruction and regrowth between the two. I could go on and on about the possibilities and outcomes but I will leave it up to your individual interpretations and imaginations if you have or care to think about it. I have my own thoughts that are too many to list here.

Being a conspiracy board and all....who's to say it wasn't a fungus (or similar) that was a payload on the lander? An experiment to see if it would survive?

Reply to OccamsRazor04


If it was carried there from another world could it not get a jump start of sorts?[

originally posted by: MerkabaTribeEntity
a reply to: BrokenCircles

They're built in sterile clean rooms, it's impressive the lengths they go to to avoid contamination.

True, many are, satellites especially, but 'clean rooms' are still not 100% sterile in the absolute sense. They may be 99.9999+% sterile, but not absolutely 100%. Plus, fungal microbes are some of the most difficult to kill. In fact, I think I read somewhere that there is debate about whether or not they can ever be killed completely. The other thing to consider is we can only kill the things we know about. There could be other organisms or microbes we don't know about.

That said, I don't really think we brought this fungus to Mars. I do, however, think we need to absolutely and thoroughly understand what it is before we ever send any people to Mars! At least, send any people who may want to return to Earth...to Mars.

Very interesting OP! I have to say, the more I learn about Mars, the more I think humans going there is a really bad idea (that is, IF it's even feasible at all).

originally posted by: Diogeneser
Reply to OccamsRazor04


If it was carried there from another world could it not get a jump start of sorts?[

Mars contaminated by fungus from Earth isn't the same as 'Martian' life.

originally posted by: TXRabbit
Being a conspiracy board and all....who's to say it wasn't a fungus (or similar) that was a payload on the lander? An experiment to see if it would survive?

One thing that I kind of hoped I would see before I died was someone's attempt to seed Venus with a genetically modified bacteria that would essentially eat the toxic atmosphere (starting at the top and working its way down) and poop out water. Kind of like causing the old ozone hole but on purpose and planet-wide. The rotational period of Venus is very slow and there's nothing we can do about that. But maybe we could knock enough of the atmosphere down so it's not at the point of melting lead and more like a cool day at the beach, even with the slow rotation. Tolerable.

Although, thinking about it... planetary exploration is for chumps. Unless we cook up some kind of relatively cost-efficient anti-gravity system one of these days, it doesn't make a lot of sense to drop down onto a planet like Venus and do stuff when you eventually have to use a massive amount of power just to get back into space. Better to just kind of flit about the solar system and get resources that way.

I never heard of that. Do you have some links or something?a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

a reply to: AgentAnderson

Here are a few I ran across such as they are.

The Science Times

Popular Mechanics

Research Gate

cnet

a reply to: servovenford

I think the Moon Spiders movie was inspired by remote viewing of Mars which revealed some sort of scuttling creatures which resided in ancient tunnels. I personally believe Mars was once inhabited by complex sentient life, but that it was largely sterilised when its atmosphere was ripped away during a catastrophic event which also led to the formation of the asteroid belt. Various sources involved in developing those thoughts, I can't recall them any more.

originally posted by: AgentAnderson
I never heard of that. Do you have some links or something?a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

It's part true. There are alternative and more plausible explanations for the readings. There was no secret cover up ruining careers from the shadows to discredit them. There is no cover up of the data. In fact it's the opposite, the data spurred them to create more comprehensive testing capabilities in future rovers.

a reply to: dug88

We are really only just beginning to understand what constitutes life down here on Earth.

Is it any wonder really that we find ourselves hard pushed to unequivocally discover life on other worlds?

Fact of the "matter" is further study is required on our part before we come to any sort of definitive conclusions.

Given that around 95% of our universe is still unobservable for all intent and purpose, life could be everywhere and its us that the anomaly if you think about it.

a reply to: dug88

This is why Mr. Musk needs to do a reality check. We really have NO idea if there are indigenous organisms on Mars, and if so, whether or not they might be harmful to human explorers. We need probably years more extensive and thorough studies via probes and rovers before setting a boot on the Martian surface. Otherwise the first attempt at a colony might simply turn out to be an obscenely expensive mass suicide.