As I have said in the other thread...
Richard C. Hoagland: I knew that all along! See? Proof that there was life on Mars right here!
Posted on 02/16/2005 12:45:39 PM PST by edcoil
Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer posted: 16 February 2005 02:09 pm ET
WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.
The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.
What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.
Stoker and other researchers have long theorized that the Martian subsurface could harbor biological organisms that have developed unusual strategies for existing in extreme environments. That suspicion led Stoker and a team of U.S. and Spanish researchers in 2003 to southwestern Spain to search for subsurface life near the Rio Tinto river—so-called because of its reddish tint—the product of iron being dissolved in its highly acidic water.
Stoker did not respond to messages left Tuesday on her voice mail at Ames.
Stoker told SPACE.com in 2003, weeks before leading the expedition to southwestern Spain, that by studying the very acidic Rio Tinto, she and other scientists hoped to characterize the potential for a “chemical bioreactor” in the subsurface – an underground microbial ecosystem of sorts that might well control the chemistry of the surface environment.
Making such a discovery at Rio Tinto, Stoker said in 2003, would mean uncovering a new, previously uncharacterized metabolic strategy for living in the subsurface. “For that reason, the search for life in the Rio Tinto is a good analog for searching for life on Mars,” she said.
Stoker told her private audience Sunday evening that by comparing discoveries made at Rio Tinto with data collected by ground-based telescopes and orbiting spacecraft, including the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, she and Lemke have made a very a strong case that life exists below Mars’ surface.
The two scientists, according to sources at the Sunday meeting, based their case in part on Mars’ fluctuating methane signatures that could be a sign of an active underground biosphere and nearby surface concentrations of the sulfate jarosite, a mineral salt found on Earth in hot springs and other acidic bodies of water like Rio Tinto that have been found to harbor life despite their inhospitable environments.
One of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, bolstered the case for water on Mars when it discovered jarosite and other mineral salts on a rocky outcropping in Merdiani Planum, the intrepid rover’s landing site chosen because scientists believe the area was once covered by salty sea.
Stoker and Lemke’s research could lead the search for Martian biology underground, where standing water would help account for the curious methane signatures the two have been analyzing.
“They are desperate to find out what could be producing the methane,” one attendee told Space News. “Their answer is drill, drill, drill.”
NASA has no firm plans for sending a drill-equipped lander to Mars, but the agency is planning to launch a powerful new rover in 2009 that could help shed additional light on Stoker and Lemke’s intriguing findings. Dubbed the Mars Science Laboratory, the nuclear-powered rover will range farther than any of its predecessors and will be carrying an advanced mass spectrometer to sniff out methane with greater sensitivity than any instrument flown to date.
In 1996 a team of NASA and Stanford University researchers created a stir when they published findings that meteorites recovered from the Allen Hills region of Antarctica contained evidence of possible past life on Mars. Those findings remain controversial, with many researchers unconvinced that those meteorites held even possible evidence that very primitive microbial life had once existed on Mars.
Yeah, it's doubtful that the whole planet is sterile. I've never believed it. I feel certain that they'll at least find microbes in the future if they look in the right places.
bttt
Comets are composed of frozen water, ammonia, and methane, left over from the formation of the solar system. They are created through natural chemical reactions. Other such chemicals that occur naturally include carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, (laughing gas) potassium chloride, sodium chloride (salt), acetylene, and formaldehyde, methanol. I once read about a nebula which was comprised of 200 proof ethanol alcohol!
unlike the current Mars Exploration Rovers, will be powered by a "nuclear" battery ..
Sorry the current rovers are solar powered. They were to last only 90 days before the dust was to cover the battery collectors but the wind seems to keep them clean so they have continued to operate.
Someone should tell Teddy. NASA's funding would be secure for decades!
A large contingent of FR just signed up for space travel.
As I have said in the other thread...
Richard C. Hoagland: I knew that all along! See? Proof that there was life on Mars right here!
should this pan out, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be epic
I predict that eventually we will discover the existence of large "mats" of living microogranisms in the upper few meters of regolith across the Martian surface. I further predict that these microrganisms will be found to be Earth-native life forms (algae and bacteria) which were brought to Mars from Earth inside rocky debris kicked into space by meteor and comet impacts upon our planet. This subsurface life will eventually explain the "canals" and large, greenish areas that observers have seen on Mars over the centuries.
Finally, I predict that similar locally-adapted Earth organisms will be discovered on Titan and within the Galilean moons. In time, it will become obvious that all life in the solar system originated on Earth.
The Garden of Eden isn't on Earth. Earth is the Garden of Eden. The creation story in Genesis is true; we simply haven't allowed ourselves to imagine what the ancient sages who wrote it were really trying to say. God showed Moses and the Prophets the literal Truth of how all things began -- but since they didn't know what planets, stars, and comets were back then, the writers of Genesis put the Truth in terms of clay, ribs, gardens, and days of the week -- things their readers would understand.
But behind that beautiful Bronze Age poetry lies the literal Truth, still there, still waiting for us to figure it out. And figure it out we will.
I AM not that inform but could this be related
Blast kills researcher at ATK Thiokol lab
BRIGHAM CITY - Firefighters responding to an explosion in an ATK Thiokol research laboratory pulled a badly injured woman from the wrecked and burning building but could not save her co-worker, who perished in the blaze.
Steve Watters was the first Thiokol employee to die in an on-the-job accident since 1987, when nearly 100,000 pounds of rocket propellant ignited, killing five men.
No propellant was being used or stored in the building involved in Monday night's blast, on the north end of the 20,000-acre facility, about 25 miles northwest of Brigham City.
http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=2569853
so wrong thread.....disreguard!
This should put an end to the C/E debates. But some will find a way to continue.
doubtless.
but the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the interim will be astounding.
NASA Researches Claim Evidenc of Present Life on Mars
Space News | Feb. 16, 2005 | Brian Berger
Posted on 02/16/2005 11:35:13 AM PST by PresbyRev
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1344592/posts
NASA Scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, but that they are having trouble finding life in the womb.
You just showed off your stupidity by missing the irony in the statement %*@#face.
1. Okaaaaaaaay, supposed you explain it to me? If I misunderstood, you have my apology in advance.
2. Mods, why'd you pull my post? I used the word we often abbreviate as a$$ or a**, but was not meant in that context. Where did I err?
C'mon guys! I've got my electronic hat in my hand here - I'd like some resolution here. Making enemies is the last thing on my mind.
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