Simple proof there is no life on Mars

Life is a chemical chain-reaction which in the case of Earth (believed to be fairly similar to the composition of Venus and Mars) has altered the composition drastically.

Earth now has an atmosphere mostly of Oxygen and Nitrogen (more of the latter) and almost no Carbon-Dioxide.

This is no accident, life altered the atmosphere as well as things such as soil chemistry and ocean chemistry of the Earth.

Martian soil chemistry is dead (contains little to no organics) and is thus a "regolith".

Martian atmospheric composition is mostly the same as Venus' (as well as crustal compositions and zoning)

Differences are mostly due to what's available, Venus has higher concentrations of Sulfur in its clouds (significantly compared to Mars).

The Martian atmosphere is almost entirely CO2 and is barely noticeable, it is therefore anabolic and obviously not being altered by life forms.

The Atmosphere being such a small mass would be the most rapidly altered chemistry by life forms.

This is a simple proof that life doesn't exist on Mars, thus NASA only searches for if life ever existed and was aborted; anything else stated is merely to get money.

While you do make valid points, I would like to point out that it's still a somewhat closed minded perspective. Life as we know it couldn't exist on Mars; that doesn't mean we're the end-all-and-be-all of designs. I'm sure somewhere in this universe a species could have evolved to not only survive in such a barren environment, but possibly even thrive.

Besides, I wasn't aware NASA was searching for current life on Mars...

You are falling victim to "changing defintions to fit your beliefs".

Life as we know it is all we care about (recombinations of organic compounds that is sustained).

If you want to change the definition to any chemical process, the whole universe is alive.

Originally posted by MCory1
I would like to point out that it's still a somewhat closed minded perspective. Life as we know it couldn't exist on Mars

Man you suck ........... I wanted to say that !!! lol.

This is what has urked me about science for all my life and before ........... when looking for life on other planets, water is the pre-requisite. Well, sure ..... if you're looking for Earth-like life. Who's to say an alien species doesn't breathe hydrogen the way we breathe air, or that an aliens' favorite drink could be liquid plutoneum?

It wasn't until the other day, on a Discovery show, that I heard the similar perspective, about alien life needs ...... they were talking about how an alien may land his craft on Earth, get out, take a breathe and kill over from oxygen exposure.

It's all in perspective - when contimplating alien life on other planets, how can one limit that perspective to human and plant life on Earth?

Misfit

Here's something alike (though highly controversial)
The Gaia hypothesis

Encountering the Earth from space, a witness would know immediately that the planet was alive. The atmosphere would give it away. The atmospheric compositions of our sister planets, venus and mars, are: 95-96% carbon dioxide, 3-4% nitrogen, with traces of oxygen, argon and methane. The earth's atmosphere at present is 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen with traces of carbon dioxide, methane and argon. The difference is Gaia, which transforms the outer layer of the planet into environments suitable to its further growth
In the 1960's, during the space race which followed the launching of Sputnik, he was asked by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nasa to help design experiments to detect life on Mars [...] Lovelock had predicted as much, by analyzing the atmosphere of Mars: it is in a dead equilibrium. By contrast, the atmosphere of Earth is in a "far from equilib rium" state- meaning that there was some other complex process going on which maintained such an unlikely balance
erg.ucd.ie...

edited to add the link

[edit on 25-8-2006 by Apass]

Given this:

1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

(from dictionary.com's definition for "life")

I agree in regards to your comment about changing definitions. I was thinking of life as being defined by that above, minus the reference to organic matter.

I still stand by my previous statement though, and thinks it's very unimaginative to consider our requisites for sustaining life to be what defines life throughout the universe. IMO it's similar to saying "a planet is a body that has trees, life, rocks, oceans, seismic activity, and seasons" because that's all we have to base it on (which, at one point, we did.)

Edit: bad bbCode...

[edit on 8/25/2006 by MCory1]

Let's put it this way, if a life form NOT as defined by our requirements for life tells you it's alive...then I'll concede to your changing defintion...

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus
This is a simple proof that life doesn't exist on Mars, thus NASA only searches for if life ever existed and was aborted; anything else stated is merely to get money.

Thats not entirely true, as if life ever did exist on Mars theres still a good chance it would still exist in some form on the planet. Life can be very tenacious when it comes to surviving in extreme conditions. Look at the varied examples of Extremophiles that exist today, and are still being discovered on Earth.

Of course current thinking suggests its highly unlikely for life to arise in conditions such as we see on Mars today (at least life as we know it), but it may have if conditions were different in the past. Also of interest would be trying to find out what happened to cause the conditions to change to what they are today.

Extremophiles are proven not to be native but adapted to their environments, thus temporary.

As previously stated, Mars is a world in dead equillibrium. Much like the Moon.

Basically, Mars' conditions haven't changed, that's why it is still its original composition when it formed.

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus
As previously stated, Mars is a world in dead equillibrium. Much like the Moon.

Though it's true our opinions are concieved from the data provided to us, I have often found that the data provided is wrong.

I'll make up my mind when i'm walking around on Mars, kicking over rocks and seeing if anything comes scurrying out.

Just because you don't believe it's possible for it to be there, That does not mean it is not there.

Our exploration of other planets is still in it's infancy. There is no telling what we will find.

Just my thoughts on it,

wupy

Again this is not my belief, this is logic.

It's stating that Mars and Venus have similar compositions and no disernable life...Earth has life and a changed (different from its original for certain) composition.

We know life is the culprit.

Thus...if a = b is true then a /= b is true also. (That is what you have to argue against).

If change due to life is true on Earth, then no change on Mars is due to no life.

You need to argue the logic string...because the evidence is what it is.

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus

You need to argue the logic string...because the evidence is what it is.

From the beginning of mankind logic told us that the world was flat. It was only in the past few hundred years that we learned otherwise. Logic is what your senses and available information tell you. That does not mean it is the truth.

I don't know if there is life on Mars or not. I just hope to go there some day and kick over the rocks and find out for myself.

My argument is you are stating an absolute in a very young and untried field.

The cruelest prison is that of the closed mind.

I hope Marvin Martian is looking at us thru the telescope and plotting our demise. I also hope to go there someday and find out for myself if he is real or not.

I will not just believe what is presented to me as fact by those who think they know everything. I want to explore and find out on my own.

Then I will make my final decision on it.

Hope that was clear enough,

wupy

As far as I know though, life wouldn't make any changes to the chemical composition of the atmosphere that would continue after life had left a planet. I might be wrong here, but with enough time wouldn't any lifeless planet eventually look like any other of similar elemental composition?

While life was active it could affect what the basic elements were doing (for example creating free oxygen in the form of O2 here on Earth) but after life left I would have thought the major elements would through entropy would revert to the molecules that have the lowest chemical potential.*

ie if life on Earth died off over time the Oxygen would again get tied up in oxides over a period of time.



* Theres probably a better term for this, but I mean the potential chemical energy of the system would drop back towards zero, thanks to entropy.

First, logic did not state the Earth was flat.

Even the Church decreed the Earth was round because Aristotle(?) proved such by viewing Lunar Eclipses.

Second...what a planet would "decay" to in billions of years is a good question, however, take for instance the permanent effect of life on Earth...Limestone.

There is literally thousands of thousands of feet thick units of coral deposited limestone because of lifeforms (coral).

This will remain just as at the top of Mount Everest remains (it is composed of marine sediments) and it will remain for billions of years.

Life would not be so hard to find if it ever existed on Mars.

Life formed from an abundant disharmony in the chemistry of our world...regardless of if it is God's will or hand; it is the mechanism.

Then how do you explain this?

Touche! I forgot about the pesky limestone. Is the only method of its formation through life? Does CaCO3 even arise spontaneously without life?

Still however I think its folly to assume we'd already know if life had existed on Mars, billions of years of erosion and degradation would do a lot of covering up. Simply the fact that we haven't seen anything yet, while lowering the likeliness, is far from confirmation that it never existed.

people always think in short vision because why does life have to be just to excist in place similair to earth.
life may be based on a different chemical composition and there for will be possible to excist in places we currently believe to be unbareble are not suiteble for life.

I believe there is life on several places in our sol system.
on mars venus and several of the moons around jupiter and saturn.

Originally posted by 1spookychick
Then how do you explain this?

Ok for starters that is way off topic. But to put a stop to such I'll telly you. Marvin as you all know him, was looking for his pet. He stopped there for a quick stop to let his dog out. Ok, let's get back on topic that is the only case of that instance on Mars, we all know planet X is his hang out.

Originally posted by Kano
While life was active it could affect what the basic elements were doing (for example creating free oxygen in the form of O2 here on Earth) [...]

ie if life on Earth died off over time the Oxygen would again get tied up in oxides over a period of time.

You're wright about that, but on the other hand nitrogen won't be affected like oxygen, so in a bilion of years after life on Earth disappears you'll find N2 and CO2 as the major components in Earth's atmosphere (lets say 50% -50%), wich are quite diffrent from what you can find wright now on Mars or Venus. The weak point in this reasoning is to consider that the accretion disk that formed Venus, Earth and Mars was homogeneous in the first place and thus all the planets began with the same atmospheric composition.Though, I think it will be unlikely that Mars and Venus would have similar compositions and only the Earth would be different in case the accretion disk wasn't homgeneous. I think that all the planets would have been different (i.e something like Venus 95% CO2 - 5% N2, Earth 50% CO2 - 50% N2 and Mars 25% CO2 - 75% N2)

Now, in the special case of Mars, because of its weak gravity and distance to the sun the initial atmosphere (or what the atmosphere looked like after, lets say, life disapeared if there was any) would be affected also by atmospheric losses into space or by atmospheric freezing in the polar caps so in a bilion years or so it's possible that its composition would only bear traces of alteration by life.

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
life may be based on a different chemical composition and there for will be possible to excist in places we currently believe to be unbareble are not suiteble for life.

Yes, that might be possible, but still, life would affect atmospheric composition or surface composition in such a way that compared with the other planets formed in the same region would make the origin planet look quite diffrent.

Originally posted by Kano
Touche! I forgot about the pesky limestone. Is the only method of its formation through life? Does CaCO3 even arise spontaneously without life?

Still however I think its folly to assume we'd already know if life had existed on Mars, billions of years of erosion and degradation would do a lot of covering up. Simply the fact that we haven't seen anything yet, while lowering the likeliness, is far from confirmation that it never existed.

That's the thing though, there is almost no erosion on Mars. The dune features are Barachan because of a lack of sediment, craters are as plentiful as on the Moon. And even more striking.

Olympus Mons is larger than the Hawaii Volcanic shield or Mount Everest and the Hymalays and those two Earthly giants are constantly being built-up by uplift or volcanism and Olympus Mons is 3 billion years old.

In 3 billion years the Earth would be smooth as a marble if left to the constant erosional processes of the ocean.