Past Life on Mars: Potential Fossilized Algae Imaged by Curiosity

I hear Devon Island is nice this time of year.

a reply to: ArMaP
you're absolutely right they can't fool us forever ..

Let's just cut the bs and send someone there .

originally posted by: ArMaP
More knowledge makes for better comparisons in the future, so the possibilities of being wrong in the future are getting smaller and smaller.

That would be the hope. It's scientific. Keep narrowing the chances of a misinterpretation or hoax. I'm not sure what that will eventually leave. Don't know if I'll live long enough to see something to break or at least bend the paradigm.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Some think the paradigm has already been shattered:
Is NASA Running Away From Life on Mars?

originally posted by: jeep3r
Some think the paradigm has already been shattered:
Is NASA Running Away From Life on Mars?

Could be that signs of life on Mars are like meteorites or giant "hairy men" living in the forests of Africa. They always existed, but it took a while for everybody to reach that kind of tipping point that changed them from the stray reports or insistences of a few fanatics into common knowledge and accepted fact.

A couple of other things I'd kind of like to see make that transition:
* "psychic" effects including thought transference, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and possibly even prognostication (pre-memories of potential timelines)
* multi-dimensionality in common elements that account for gravity and magnetism effects
* transitory interaction with alternate realities.

Sure, there are folks working verifying this stuff, and they could be right. But it would be nice if one day, it was just decided, "Yeah, this stuff is the real deal, and at this point, this is how we think it works."

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but if they definitively discover that there was simple life on Mars, I don't get what the big deal is. Life on our own planet almost certainly was kicked off from meteorites. I have a feeling some form of life is actually very abundant in the universe.. we are not a special snowflake of a planet.

So while it would be a "Ok.. that's cool," moment.. that would be it for me. I think life is probably ridiculously abundant in general, in our own galaxy even. I think the real goal is to find sentient life.. not algae.

a reply to: fleabit

For you it wouldn't be. For me it would be a big deal, not because I'm not pretty damn sure, but because a whole lot of people still choose to disbelieve. If found it not only proves alien life exists, but to happen twice on two different worlds in our own galaxy will mean that life is far more common than a lot of people currently accept. Especially those who think we're a super rare fluke, or are here as the providence of God and are all there is.

Once alien life is accepted as more common, it changes our world academically in many ways, as well as opens a lot of eyes. It also might bring some excitement back to the field of space exploration. Mars is only one of a few places in our very own solar system that might have life.

If we prove that life is not rare but common, popping up anywhere it might get hold, then suddenly we're in a whole new universe. It's exciting stuff.

A new brushed area, "Marimba":


(Picture nicked from UMSF)

Here we see similar swirly things, albeit faint, and I'm pretty sure those are scratch marks from the brush's metallic bristles. The mineral veins would be the ones much straighter and more prominent.

a reply to: wildespace

I think we can conclude that this rock is not as hard as the ones before, as it looks like the brush leaves stronger marks in it.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Lol. We'll keep you updated.

originally posted by: jeep3r
a reply to: Blue Shift

Some think the paradigm has already been shattered:
Is NASA Running Away From Life on Mars?

That's really interesting article. There's one scientist (Levin) who thinks that Earth and Mars should be considered a single biosphere because of the potential for asteroid impacts to blast fragments of one planet (Earth or Mars) out beyond the gravitational well of that planet, into interplanetary space and then onto the other planet.

What about volcanic areas on Earth? Many volcamic areas were used as health spas because of the hot mineral water. These ended up being decorated as shrines with ornaments, baths and tiles. What if an eruption knocked some of these ornaments down into the vents only to be blasted out into space in the first few milliseconds of the explosion. Some volcanic eruptions had the strength of several dozen Hiroshimas.

NASA wants a manned mission to Mars. But if it were proved that there was microbial life on Mars, it would be impossible to prove that it was not pathogenic to Earth life. Then there is the ethics of visiting a living planet and affecting evolution.

It's similar to trying to prove the existence of Hogzilla in farm states. The fractal complexity of a forest; given by dividing the surface area of all space (tree hollows, root tunnels, cave systems) by the volume of the whole area would suggest it is possible. But until someone actually finds one it is purely theory.