Proof of life in Mars, Why it is so important?

[Elliot]

Isn't more important to determine ways that allow us to colonize Mars? Having life in the past is a requisite to develope new life? Even more, Is that an inssurance that new life can be developed? What will bring more technological and scientific advances, looking for past life or looking for ways to sustain life even by artificial methods?

[selden]

Elliot,

I think you've posed what could be a highly-emotionally-charged question.

Bear in mind that popular reports of scientific results only contain information that the editors think will be of most interest to most of their readers or viewers. They don't have the room or the time to report everything. Trying to find signs of life on Mars is only a part of what's happening.

Also, some scientists are very focused in their interests. They spend their time involved in very limited areas of research. They either aren't interested or just don't have the time to explore other areas. If their reports are what happen to get publicised the most, you may overlook all the others.

Many people feel that discovering life somewhere other than on the Earth is extremely important.

Some feel that any money spent on human space flight is a waste of precious and limited resources that could be better spent on robotic exploration.

Others feel the opposite.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Bear in mind that popular reports of scientific results only contain information that the editors think will be of most interest to most of their readers or viewers. They don't have the room or the time to report everything. Trying to find signs of life on Mars is only a part of what's happening.

I'm not even convinced that a lot of people would care if there was evidence of life on Mars... there was a bit of hubbub when they found something in the ALH 840001 Mars meteorite a few years ago, and then that turned out to be inconclusive. I think most people would find it only a curiosity now, since we've essentially cried wolf once about it already.

Many people feel that discovering life somewhere other than on the Earth is extremely important.

I can't help but think this is for purely irrational reasons (not that this is necessarily bad...). Religious types want to know because it'll knock a lot of mythologies around (I'm sure some religious nut will start the first interstellar war by saying "we're clearly the chosen race of God, you aliens are therefore not as good as we are and we have every right to enslave you") and alien life has to be fit into their paradigms. Other people want to find alien life because we don't and if all of space is empty of life, it would mean that we're really rather important, and that life is extremely precious indeed. Others just want to find life so they can have new things to study and can learn more about the origins of life.

"Are we alone in the universe?" is a Big Question. Personally, I don't really care either way about the answer, as long as we keep venturing out and exploring and learning.

Some feel that any money spent on human space flight is a waste of precious and limited resources that could be better spent on robotic exploration.

I'd be one of those . At least, with the current laughable manned moon/mars landings "plan" that Bush has concocted, particularly since it'd be likely to scupper a lot of unmanned exploration in the process.

[t00fri]

Life on Earth is one of the most important and mysterious phenomena we can witness every day. It concerns ourselves and our culltural heritage in the deepest sense.

I gather that people finding the possible discovery of alien life unimportant and perhaps even boring, will rather be excited by the daily evolution of the stock market...

Honestly, I AM shocked...

Bye Fridger

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Life on Earth is one of the most important and mysterious phenomena we can witness every day. It concerns ourselves and our culltural heritage in the deepest sense.

You'll notice we're talking about alien life - specifically whether there is anything out there, and if so, how important is it - on several levels - to know about it? I don't think anybody is claiming that Life on Earth is boring.

I gather that people finding the possible discovery of alien life unimportant and perhaps even boring, will rather be excited by the daily evolution of the stock market...

What's that supposed to mean exactly? Jeez, Fridger, why do you insist on sneering at people who don't share the same almost evangelical level of devotion in your interests as you?! I'm sure you consider many things to be dull and boring, but kindly refrain from belittling people who are interested in them just because you don't see the attraction of what they do. People are interested in different things to different extents - that doesn't make them wrong or dull or boring, it just makes them different.

Anyway.

Of course I'm interested in the possibility of alien life. But it's not going to shake my world particularly, because I am fairly convinced that it must be out there and that it's a matter of time before we find evidence of it. If it's not there, I'd be more shocked, but it's a lot harder to prove that it's not out there at all than to prove that it is - maybe life is just spread rather thinly throughout the universe.

I also don't really think it's going to shake up anyone else's world, unless the aliens happen to be intelligent and technologically advanced. A possible microbe fossil on Mars didn't really turn the world upsidedown, after all. People were interested for a bit, then they moved on to the next bit of news. It caught people's attention, the Pope said a few things about it, and then everything went back to normal. I suspect a lot of it goes rather over peoples' heads anyway - most people aren't really into thinking deeply about philosophical questions about "why we're here" or "are we alone". Hell, most people don't even have TIME to think about that - they often have more immediate practical concerns to worry about.

Practically, I don't think it's a very important question. Philosophically it might be, but I can't see the conclusive discovery of alien life really changing things in the world any more than the discovery of planets around other stars has changed it. That's not to say that it isn't worth searching for it - I'd much rather we used whatever means we have of exploring the universe and studying it and learning from it... we shouldn't need excuses like finding answers to "Big Questions" to do that.


To answer the question that was asked though, I think we'd gain more scientifically and technologically by developing ways to sustain life. Studying evidence of past life on other worlds will certainly be scientifically interesting, but probably can't yield too many practical technological rewards. It's not like we're likely to be able to find DNA samples, after all.

[Rassilon]

My idea of life elsewhere is pretty much based in what 'religous nuts' would call faith more than you have to prove it to me before I consider it...I believe there is life other than whats on our planet...Its only logical to assume there must be life elsewhere in the universe considering its well LARGE! so I personally wouldnt be shocked if we found life on Mars...It would be more of a I knew it situation than a jaw dropping in disbelief
As far as the general public caring...I have to agree with that one...Its not everyday you see an article about some 500 lb behemoth birthing the monster baby from mars now is it?

To add more to the subject...and to add to what was said by Mr Ganymede...Its true that the general population isnt concerned for much past thier boundries of every day life...I fear that it would take a rather large 'slap-in-the-face' scenerio to wake people up to the ideas of other life in the Universe...And to clarify my absurd remark above...Most read this kind of thing in the tabloids and wonder if its not just more media hype than facts...so they shrug and move on...Typical response in a over-indulged and over saturated world of 'Show me something that will really knock my socks off and Ill pay attention...Otherwise piss off!' Our planet really needs to take the time to appreciate whats out there and realise that we are so insignificant compared to the Universe on a whole...If the Universe were placed next to the human ego...I fear the weight of it would be far too unfathonable for the ego to withstand and therefore would be crushed into a singularity!

[Bob Hegwood]

Concerning life on other planets - intelligent or otherwise...

How can you look at the countless billions of stars in a single galaxy, the countless
billions of galaxies in the universe and not conclude that there just *have* to be
other forms of life in abundant quantities. Even if the chances that created life
on Earth are something on the order of 1,000,000 to one, that means that there
*still* have to be millions of other forms of life in the universe.

Ask yourselves this question too... "Are we alone in the Universe, or are we
surrounded by other types of life?"

In my opinion, the answer to this question causes dumb-founded amazement
regardless of the answer. If we are alone in the universe, this - to me - is just as
incredible as an answer which finds us surrounded by intelligent life.

Either way, the answer is incredible. Yes?

Take care, Bob

[Dollan]

Life on Mars... to me, the possibility is absolutely exciting, and at the same time I would hold onto a cautious note or two even if we *did* find someting (speaking in the microbial sense, of course).

there has been a lot of material from Mars that has found its way to Earth. The opposite is also a possibility, although at this point demonstrably unprovable. Nevertheless, the fact that Martian meteorites have found their way here, and the fact that we know some forms of microbial life can survive sustained periods even in hard, radiated vacuum, opens up the distinct possibility that life on Mars, if found, could be related to us. This sort of short distance panspermia would probably do very little to tell us what the odds are of life beyond the solar system.

However, if discovered microbial forms on Mars were proven to be absolutely different from Earth forms, a true second genesis, as it were, then the implications would be staggering. Not only would there be two representative examples of life in our univerese, but they occured next door to each other! This would possibly mean that life, in the universe, is common. The odds for intelligent life would sky rocket (Fermi aside, much of which I don't agree with anyway).

How would this further our knowledge and ability to colonize Mars at some point in the future (to finally address the original question)? This life, even if fossilized, could tell us what kind of habitat once existed on the red planet. It would tell us that the key ingredients for life are still on the planet, and could be released. It is telling us that life on the Red Planet is possible.

Of course, we already know much of what it would take to live on Mars. It is merely a matter of refining the technologies needed. We could go to Mars right now, today, if we really wanted to (ignoring the price tag). With a few more years research, we could live there indefinitely. The key is, the knowledge to live on the Red Planet will be found on Earth, not on Mars. It is almost purely a technology question. But the probes *do* add to that knowledge, because every mission is refining our knowledge of Mars' geology. We know, for example, that the elements needed to live there are present in the rocks, and that we can release them. This couldn't have been gained by remote observation.

So, in my opinion as always, these probes *have* and *do* teach us how to live there. But there is still plenty of room to learn about life on Mars, and whether or not it ever existed there. And I firmly believe that, if it is proven that it did, people will notice, and they will move on. If living microbial forms are found, people will notice even more... and they will move on. I don't think it is a matter of what people think is important or not. It is simple Human nature. We get shocked, we babble excitedly about it, and then after a few weeks or months, we move on.

Now, if one of the MER's takes a picture of a little green man peering at the camera, shaking a little fist at it because it has just rolled through its rock garden... THEN there will probably be a bit more of a hub-bub!

Goodness, I didn't mean to rant for so long...!

...john...

[t00fri]

The quest for the origin of life, i.e. for our mere existence, is essentially as old as the human race. The greatest minds of all times have tackled it...It is clearly most basic and most important.

[Of course, entirely beyond the issue of /my personal/ interests...sigh...]

Any discovery of alien forms of life (even primitive forms) will shed significant new light on this existential question.

Of course, from a statistical point of view, the chances are not bad to discover alien life soon or later...

Bye Fridger

[Cormoran]

Just my opinion, but I think the discovery of extra-terrestrial life will be epoch-making. However, How many people's epoch it will make is probably related to how big and weird the life we find actually is.

To some of us, the simple discovery of life elsewhere, ANY life, will be a pivotal event.

To others (with all due respect to the UFO community), it will provoke knowing nods, Erich von Daniken will write a new book, and make a fortune. The location of the life-forms will be written retroactively into the various conspiracy theories, which will probably make even less sense than they do now...

For still others, the reaction will, as I said, be based on how big and/or weird the life-forms are. Lets face it, unless one is either a micro-biologist or one of the open-minded and erudite individuals such as we find in this Forum, a puddle of Prokaryotes is dull.... On the other hand, finding (unlikely though it may be) macrolife in the oceans of Europa would be interesting to most people who don't have their heads up their excretory orifices....for a while....

I stand firmly in camp one above, with a slight bias towards camp three. I'd be very interested in martian microbes; how they work, their metabolism, their structural encoding etc etc... but I hope that what we find (most likely not on Mars ) is large and complex. Partially because its interesting (picture David Attenborough in a pressure suit doing 'Life on Europa'), and partially because it would probably increase the budget for further unmanned missions. It would also possibly justify a manned effort, which I now believe is highly unjustified, given the abilities of unmanned probes...

Anyway, this is a very interesting thread. Long may it continue

Cheers,

Cormoran

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

The quest for the origin of life, i.e. for our mere existence, is essentially as old as the human race. The greatest minds of all times have tackled it...It is clearly most basic and most important.

I think this is a pointless question, largely because I think much of this quest is driven by a search for "meaning" to our existence, with the inherent assumption that there is a "meaning" to find - a "reason" as to why we exist.

But why *should* there be any reason for us to exist at all? That implies that we were made for a purpose, and that in itself implies that we don't believe that the universe is a scientifically rational place - that some "creator" exists that made us. Do we really need this as a crutch to justify our existence though? At the end of the day, we exist - we're here. I think we'd be much better served by finding ways to maintain our existence rather than question it.

On a practical level, of course it's very interesting to actually study the origins of life from a biological and chemical level - I'm not disputing that. But while I'd say that life on this planet is special because it's all we know of, this doesn't itself mean the whole universe has to revolve around us.

Knowing whether there is alien life out there would mean that life isn't unique to this planet. This is certainly a useful thing to know. It doesn't make our existence any less valid though. However, if we found that there wasn't any alien life out there - or at least anywhere remotely accessible to us - this would hammer home that we are perhaps a very rare occurrence. But we shouldn't need that to tell us that life on this planet is precious - we should already be treating it like that.

[eburacum45]

I don't think there will be any life left on Mars, unless it is deep underground in the rocks like the extremeophiles that live in the Earth's crust;
But if life is discovered, we will probably have to declare Mars a nature reserve; no humans will be allowed to land there except in biologically sealed suits; and certainly no terraforming.

Hopefully life will be widespread throughout the universe, but not too widespread- it seems likely to me that any planet with a rich biosphere will almost certainly be declared off-limits for colonisation - so that Earth explorers do not contaminate the alien ecology.

Careful and considerate study will no doubt be permitted, but exploitation and destruction should be avoided.