Mars may have had life 4 billion years ago, page 1
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Topic started on 30-7-2010 @ 11:03 AM by Gentill Abdulla
www.sciencedaily.com...

ScienceDaily (July 29, 2010) — A new article in press of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters unveils groundbreaking research on the hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The findings may provide a link to evidence of living organisms on Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago in the Noachian period.

Brown explains: "We suggest that the associated hydrothermal activity would have provided sufficient energy for biological activity on early Mars at Nili Fossae. Furthermore, in the article we discuss the potential of the Archean volcanics of the East Pilbara region of Western Australia as an analog for the Nochian Nili Fossae on Mars. They indicate that biomarkers or evidence of living organisms, if produced at Nili, could have been preserved, as they have been in the North Pole Dome region of the Pilbara craton."


I am really not surprised if it turns out life could be there. I mean mars to me is like a mother planet.

I want you guys to say why this does or doesn't surprise you that life could be on mars.


reply posted on 30-7-2010 @ 12:53 PM by Gentill Abdulla
reply to post by xxcalbier


What causes the heat at the core of the earth is radioactive decay not the gravity there.

(And you should really watch your spelling and grammar.)

[edit on 30-7-2010 by Gentill Abdulla]


reply posted on 31-7-2010 @ 02:50 AM by Arbitrageur
Originally posted by Gentill Abdulla
I am really not surprised if it turns out life could be there. I mean mars to me is like a mother planet.
I want you guys to say why this does or doesn't surprise you that life could be on mars.
I won't be surprised at all if we find life on Mars, nor will I be surprised if it turns out life originated there and we are all descendants of martians, meaning it COULD be a mother planet for life on Earth.

However while I think it's reasonable to speculate about that possibility, I must admit I don't quite consider Mars a mother planet yet until we find some evidence to suggest that it is.

Originally posted by Essan
Not 4 billion years ago. I see no reason why life on Mars shoud have appeared any earlier than on Earth, and given it's smaller size, quite possibly later.

Couldn't Mars have cooled to habitable temperatures sooner than Earth did, BECAUSE of it's smaller size? The greater surface area to mass ratio and less radioactively generated heat compared to Earth would cause it to cool more quickly creating favorable conditions for life on Mars while Earth was still a sea of molten lava.

openthefuture.com...
News today from NASA that they've confirmed the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere, concentrated in three areas (one of the major sources, Nili Fossae, is shown here). For a variety of reasons, this offers the strongest evidence yet that Mars may have an active biology under the surface...Then there's the possibility that said Martian microbes would have a biology essentially identical to that found on Earth. The most plausible explanation for that would be that Earth life actually started on Mars (which cooled faster than Earth, so would have started its biology sooner) and was exported via Martian rocks ejected from massive impacts and hitting Earth as meteorites.

Now do you see a reason why life on Mars could have appeared earlier than on Earth? It's because Earth stayed too hot for life longer than Mars did.

I'm not sure the methane proves there is still life in Mars, but it's possible. There could be liquid water, and simple life forms (microbes?) living below the surface.

[edit on 31-7-2010 by Arbitrageur]



reply posted on 31-7-2010 @ 04:17 AM by Three_moons
reply to post by Gentill Abdulla

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Mars had life 4 billion years ago.

Our understanding of the universe is at an early grade level in comparison to the post graduate level we still need to attain. It seems that every day I come on here there’s a thread about a new discovery that challenges our current knowledge assumptions of space and beyond.

In regards to the temperatures and conditions on Mars, either in the present or the past, they may suggest that we didn’t originate from there but it doesn’t take into account other forms of life, micro organisms or otherwise. Extremophiles on earth proved that life can exist in places where we didn’t believe it was possible decades or centuries earlier.

Slightly off topic, but if Mars' conditions were favorable at some point in the past and was our mother planet, that only answers the question that life didn’t originate here. It still leaves the unanswered questions of how we got there, if we originated there and how we got here.

We have so many unanswered questions.
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