SCI/TECH: Mars Has Always Been Cold - US Researchers

Research undertaken in the US has concluded by a chemical study of meteorites from Mars, that it is unlikely for the planet to have had life supporting temperatures any time in its recent history. By determining the maximum temperature of these rocks and in effect their thermal history, the researchers have concluded that the martian temperature was not high enough in the last four billion years to support any large bodies of water.



If this is true then it seems unlikely that intelligent life has evolved on a recent time scale. Of course this is nothing to say that life did not evolve there in the past then move on, or that life not indiginous to Mars is not residing there currently.

To me it seems the human race will not learn what it really wishes to know until we step foot on Mars, although this new research makes it appear that we will have to go farther afield to make extraterrestrial contact. That or as many people have suggested, they come to us!

[edit on 22-7-2005 by Nova]

[edit on 22-7-2005 by Nova]

The ALH84001 meteorite, in fact, couldn't have been above freezing for more than a million years during the last 3.5 billion years of history.

It is amazing that all the erosion present was created in this timeframe. I still think it is possible for microbial life to have started, but that is probably as far as it evolved.

I wonder if they take into account that those meteorites have spent some time in interplanetary space, where there is no atmosphere. Cosmic and solar radiation (particularly beta particles), just as it produces carbon-14 from nitrogen in the upper atmosphere on earth, can also cause potassium-40 to transmutate to argon-40, perhaps this could give a false impression? On earth, you don't have to consider that when doing such dating.

[edit on 22-7-2005 by Simon666]

So true, also it would depend on what location of the planet the meteor came from. Maybe it was from the polar region and remained frozen, while other parts of the planet were above freezing.

I would imagine that the amount of samples tested would be rather small and would wonder if a conclusion could be drawn from such a small sample.

Good story. It's amazing that they speculate that this has been the norm for 4,000,000,000 years. Let's see what was I doing in 3,999,9997,995 BC.?

[joke]What about eskimos huh? They live in the cold[/joke]

Good article, however "Always" is a very strong term for something that is an hypothesis. Afterall the origin and time in space of those rocks must be calculated in. Its only when a sample is taken from mars surface and returned to earth for analysis that such a statement could be verified...

Question: If venus is too hot to support life, and mars is too cold to support life, then the possibility for life as we know it must be much more slimmer, it seems there is a narrow band that a planet must traverse to support life like us.

It may not be as common as some think....

Well, I'm pretty sure there's a hole in this.

There it is. After looking at Wikipedia Mars's "See Also" section, I found Mars Meteorites - and read up on the subject.

The main problems I find with this study are first that 2-3 of the 16 or so meteorites appear to show signs of ancient microbial life, that another 2-3 appear to show liquid water having been in direct contact with them prior to their ejection from wherever they were, and finally, chiefly, that there is no proof they were from mars. It's generally believed that they are, and it will continue to be, though a great amount of evidence suggests that they are not, but we expect that it will slowly work itself out. The fact that the isotope ratios differ from those found commonly on earth is the reason we're pretty sure they aren't from here. Well those numbers don't actually line up very well with the known martian isotope ratios either. The fact that they don't seem to have the sort of wear and tear that's expected on things that were blasted off of Mars straight into space is interesting. The fact that there are no large, young craters on the Martian surface that would account for many of these, again, interesting. But we like to think they're from Mars, as that just makes sense, doesn't it?. So they are.

Problems like this are littering the topic, and I'd have to say that a single method suggesting that these 2-3 rocks examined were never very warm for very long does not by any means show that none of mars was ever very warm for very long.

It shows that on the assumption that these examined rocks are from mars and that our theory does not have any holes, the local areas around these rocks were never very warm.

Polar areas? They get a statistically insane number of meteorite hits as opposed to equatorial regions. If, perhaps, these rocks are from northern Polar regions where rock is exposed annually during the spring sublimation and then hidden during the winter freeze, they never would have to have been warm for a long period of time there.

My point: It's like the creation vs evolution debate. Evolution has an established view, and so does creation. They try to take each other down by slowly picking at tiny little pieces of the argument, making their own weak arguments that will later be picked apart, and claiming that they have just made the decisive move to end the battle.

With this, the people who think life/habitable conditions were there and the people who think they weren't are obviously slowly making new theories and correcting each other on minor points, and claiming it wins the argument entirely.

It doesn't.

Edit: Man, who am I talking to? I just realised that despite my best efforts I've merely mirrored the thread.

Let's get something useful into this post:

Answer to Netchicken:

Were it that Mars had Venus' atmosphere, it might be nigh-habitable. Were it that Venus had Mars' atmosphere, again, similar. It is just unfortunate circumstance for us that the Small Mars with low heat-holding ability is farther and the Large Venus with high heat-holding ability is so close. I think we're pretty lucky, but that the circumstances for life are not necessarily thinner than expected or known, just that the wide range we've given isn't all expansive and all-encompassing as we wish it were.

[edit on 23-7-2005 by Viendin]

Of course this claim has been countered by other planetary scientists...and every person who can just LOOK at MARS. Where did all those canyons come from? Hmm....let's see which bit of evidence do I believe? The evidence actually seen on Mars today or evidence taken from a meteorite that someone thinks is from Mars?

they are NOT scientists; they are bias BS'ers who wanna lie all day long

cmon; how do they know those rocks are from mars???

They Fell to earth before we were even born; they have NO WAY OF KNOWING where they come from

they arent scientists; scientists dont make stupid rationalizations based on Assumptions!

those rocks are probably not from mars; most likely they were floating in space for 4billion years and yes its cold up there

for gods sake whos letting these crackpots in the mainstream media?
they are completely unscientific in every way

im sorry; but "Just because you say so" isnt good enough to prove the rocks were from mars
the study was bias and full of half-truths

1) the rocks probably were not from mars
2) just because its cold doesnt mean life couldnt form
**example :: Those creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean on the volcanic vents -- very very very hot; yet they survive just fine**

how egocentric and anthropocentic or gaiacentric can people be? this is rediculous....
So you actually believe the Everything in the Universe will operate as you say it does?

So; since you live at say 20 to 100 degrees F; you expect all other life forms in the universe to abide by the "Human Law of Universal Life"

ya rite aliens dont care what any of us think; because we are stupid prejudice judgemental nin-com-poops

humans; we are just as narrowminded as we always have been
we still think we are the center of the universe
we are still cavemen definatly

look this thread proves it; u think that since you are this way; everything else "HAS TO BE" this way too

NewsFlash
Your Not the Center of the Universe
Get Over it

Thanks ; my rant was fufilling ill go to bed now

propably christian scientist whom think proof of life will undermine the religieus system and that it will lead for the down fall for every believe system in a god which only created life on our planet.

so I still stay on the theory which claims life was posible until real proof extracted by non religieus scientist on mars trough a manned mars mission.

Why does everyone think that life on another planet has to be under the EXACT same weather/climate as it is on earth? I'm sure different stuff could live there even if it was cold for that long.

``

Once again,
it might be worth it to look again at the Exploded Planet Hypothesis
www.metaresearch.org...

the Mars landscape does indeed look like erosion from liquid water,
but the water just might have been blown off the exploded planet
which Mars was probably a satellite (moon) of.
and during that epoch of inundation, the Mars surface 'aged' in record time

as far as the meteorites, which are attributed to a Mars origin...
couldn't they be from the eph- which is now the astroid belt?
see in the(eph) link about the two seperate types of asteroid>meteor
compositions....is the fanciful, Edgar Rice Burroughs (spelling?)
Mars myths/stories, bleeding into the scientific models for Mars history?

just offering a thought.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
they are NOT scientists; they are bias BS'ers who wanna lie all day long

cmon; how do they know those rocks are from mars???

They Fell to earth before we were even born; they have NO WAY OF KNOWING where they come from

they arent scientists; scientists dont make stupid rationalizations based on Assumptions!

those rocks are probably not from mars; most likely they were floating in space for 4billion years and yes its cold up there

for gods sake whos letting these crackpots in the mainstream media?
they are completely unscientific in every way

im sorry; but "Just because you say so" isnt good enough to prove the rocks were from mars
the study was bias and full of half-truths

1) the rocks probably were not from mars
2) just because its cold doesnt mean life couldnt form
**example :: Those creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean on the volcanic vents -- very very very hot; yet they survive just fine**

how egocentric and anthropocentic or gaiacentric can people be? this is rediculous....
So you actually believe the Everything in the Universe will operate as you say it does?

So; since you live at say 20 to 100 degrees F; you expect all other life forms in the universe to abide by the "Human Law of Universal Life"

ya rite aliens dont care what any of us think; because we are stupid prejudice judgemental nin-com-poops

humans; we are just as narrowminded as we always have been
we still think we are the center of the universe
we are still cavemen definatly

look this thread proves it; u think that since you are this way; everything else "HAS TO BE" this way too

NewsFlash
Your Not the Center of the Universe
Get Over it

Thanks ; my rant was fufilling ill go to bed now

Muzzleflash, it is good that you made a reply, but you should really look into these things a bit more before you post about them. Check my links for a bit of a read up on these Mars Meteorites.

I almost made the same point as you. "How do we know that these rocks haven't been in space for billions of years" - We know because of a technique called "cosmic ray tracing". In CRT, scientists look at how much exposure to radiation meteors have had, and, knowing the average amount an object floating along a random path in space would receive, can estimate to within 100,000 years how long the meteorite has been in space.

These have been in space less than 20 million years, and that's not something some whackjob thought up. That's a commonly used method and it works.

Now, let's drop the whole centrism deal. Of course life can exist that we don't yet comprehend. It can exist in rare and bizarre forms to cope with its surroundings.

But we know this: Heat, Water, and some form of nutrient are all requirements for life as we know it. If these aren't there, no, it doesn't mean life can not be there, but it does mean that it's not there as we know it, making it a lot less likely overall.

Those volcanic vents on the bottom of the ocean? They're hot places in water, where nutrient rich dust is released diluted into the water over time. It's quite hospitable when you get down to it.

But if mars were always cold enough that there were no standing bodies of liquid water on it, at least never for very long, then the chances of there being any life there are minimal.

Of course, this doesn't account for under ground, or for the fact that these few meteorites don't cover the entire planet, but I think you took your disagreement with them a bit too far. Though i agree, ranting can sometimes be fun.

Or maybe, some life forms just won't need water to survive?

Isn't that also possible?

I'm not ready to write Mars off as a possible source of and habitat for life, at least not just yet. Firstly, I agree with others who have said that the sample tested is far to small to make sweeping generalizations about the entire planet. Secondly, again agreeing with others, there is no real proof these rocks actually came from Mars. Thirdly, scientists here on Earth have recently discovered living, active microbes in permafrost above the Arctic Circle where the permafrost has not been thawed. I don't think we have enough knowledge about the almost unbelievable adaptability of life to write off Mars, even if it has always been cold. Further, the evidence for flowing water on Mars at some time in the past is pervasive, we may yet discover liquid water below the surface of the planet. Finally, Olympus Mons didn't get built in a day either. I have no idea how long it would take for such a gigantic structure to form, but it sure wasn't instant.

[edit on 24-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

who says life has to even exist on a planet? maybe its possible that there are free floating microbes out there that can locomote themselves around in space

Here is a link to some recent research findings, plus an article about it:

DEEP THINKING: SCIENTISTS SEQUENCE A COLD-LOVING MARINE
MICROBE, July 26
At home in the deep, dark Arctic Ocean, the marine bacterium
Colwellia psychrerythraea 34H keeps very cool--typically below 5°
degrees Celsius. How does the bacterium function in this frigid
environment? To find out, scientists at The Institute for
Genomic Research (TIGR) and collaborators have sequenced and
analyzed C. psychrerythraea's genome.
Full story at www.physorg.com...

[edit on 26-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

Wikipedia is a risky website to quote from. Anyone can log-in and create an article.

I'll go with NASA's view:
NASA - Why Are They From Mars?

The 31 meteorites are unusual igneous meteorites (SNC achondrites named Shergotty, Nakhla, Chassigny are type examples). Most martian meteorites are 1.3 billion years old or less, much younger than typical igneous meteorites from asteroids which are 4.5 billion years old. They also have higher contents of volatiles than igneous meteorites. The conclusive evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars comes from the measurement of gases trapped in one meteorite's interior. The trapped gases match those that Viking measured in the martian atmosphere.

The question of "life in meteorites" remains open. Not much data, and hard to tell.