NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4413

by dylnclrk • 12 years ago

264 101 12 years ago

jpl.nasa.gov

dylnclrk• 12 years ago

"NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill."

swombat4• 12 years ago

For those eager to read ahead, they are very, very careful in this article not to imply in any way that this is definitely from any sort of living sources.

Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life. Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has ever harbored living microbes, but the findings do shed light on a chemically active modern Mars and on favorable conditions for life on ancient Mars.

Shame. I for one am looking forward to reading about actual life on Mars within my lifetime. Hopefully active life. We shall see.

manachar• 12 years ago

Shame

Poor word choice. There's no shame in being careful about the science and trying to represent it carefully in your press releases.

Many non-science types do not know that organic molecules can exist without life and will already be jumping to conclusions.

aaroninsf• 12 years ago

I believe OP shares your sentiments, and that you mistake the usage here.

'Shame' as used here is shorthand for 'that's a shame,' which used colloquially to express disappointment colored with sympathy and understanding, does not imply that any of the nominal subjects is being criticized.

Source: I'm a native English speaker.

Thieum22• 12 years ago

It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.

omgitstom• 12 years ago

It matters what stage of life is found on Mars. Regardless, one data point even if it is our own solar system won't be enough for us to determine what/where the Great Filter or Great Filters could be.

givan8• 12 years ago

Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject.

Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or efficient way of communication to associate missing radio data to absence of other civilizations.

In conclusion we have no data about life in the universe to jump to such conclusions or any conclusion, the only thing we can do is continue exploring and speculate on the question if there are advanced civilization capable of contact why aren't they contacting us?

madaxe_again• 12 years ago

The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities -

Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us.

Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion.

Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside.

Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise.

Intelligent life is actually very dumb on a macro scale, and falls prey to Malthusian collapse, either by falling into a significant energy gap or by destroying their biosphere.

Intelligent life tends to succumb to dysgenic fertility, and ceases to be intelligent.

Therefore the discovery of life on other worlds means little for the Fermi paradox, as our model may grossly oversimplify or overlook one or more variables which lead to us, now.

Personally I think we're in a sim and we're about to lose the game, as we're staring down an energy deficit Malthusian collapse, uh, right now.

maaku3• 12 years ago

Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).

Houshalter5• 12 years ago

Only if it's independently evolved, if it's a fork of life on Earth then it doesn't tell us anything about the probability of life elsewhere.

The great filter is very likely the evolution of multicelluar life and animals, which are unlikely to be found on mars. If we found living animals on mars I would be very concerned about the future of the human race.

cLeEOGPw• 12 years ago

One of the so called "Great Filters" is our Moon. It is providing Earth's metal core with constant moving force and refreshing the dynamo and keeping our atmosphere and water not blown away by solar winds. Since the size of Earths satellite is far from ordinary, this instantly reduces chance of advanced life appearing elsewhere. And if the theory of the source of Moon is right, it formed after collision with object of a size of Earth, the filter is restricted by star systems with the planets within a certain range that had a collision with other planet in a way that left long lasting big object rotating around that planet and generating magnetic field preventing water and atmosphere from escaping. So just by applying only this "Moon filter", reduces the chances of advanced life in our own Milky Way to probably just few cases in whole galaxy. And add the probability of intelligent beings appearing on random planet that has life, it starts to seem pretty realistic that we are only ones not only in Milky Way, but also surrounding galaxies.

The conclusion is we better start working on colonization techniques, because chances are that the future of life in our galaxy is in our hands.

givan8• 12 years ago

Mars and his satellites have many surprises, maybe we will find something extraordinary there during our lifetime.

We should go boldly where man has not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars. There’s a monolith there. A very unusual structure on this potato shaped object that goes around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out about that they’re going to say ‘Who put that there? Who put that there?’ The universe put it there. If you choose, God put it there..

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_%28moon%29#Proposed_miss...

WalterBright• 12 years ago

Let's face it, like the canals, there is no life on Mars. 40 years of probes have come up empty. It's a sterile rock. We should be thinking in terms of terraforming it by seeding it with terrestrial life.

ceejayoz• 12 years ago

40 years of probes haven't been testing for it. To my knowledge, the last formal attempt at actual detection of life (not conditions for life, but life) was the 1970s Viking landers. There's not even scientific agreement on the right way to search.

Meanwhile, here on Earth, we thought until recently that deep sea vents were sterile. If we didn't know life's limits here, we certainly can't claim to know them on Mars.

harel2• 12 years ago

It could also be a case of severe alien flatulence. Sorry, I could not resist...

civilian• 12 years ago

I think you were looking for this: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2phv82/nasa_rover_f...

cdelsolar• 12 years ago

What is the current height of your horse?

comex• 12 years ago

A similar comment on the other /r/science thread about this was also downvoted into oblivion; don't make cheap criticism based on stereotypes.

greggarious• 12 years ago

Here's a fun exercise in speculation: How long does HN think it will be between confirming life (e.g. bacteria), confirming life (e.g. mammals / bugs), and confirming intelligent life?

(Never is an an acceptable answer for all 3, but please state why you hold your position)

danbruc• 12 years ago

Another question is in which order this would happen - if there is no other life in the solar system it might very well happen that we find (signs of) intelligent life before simple life.

grecy• 12 years ago

we find (signs of) intelligent life

Or it finds us.

rybosome3• 12 years ago

I think we're nearly at confirmation of basic alien life. IIRC there are talks of missions to Europa as early as the 2020's, and I would honestly be surprised if no microbial life was found there. Liquid water, chemical processes that could support chemosynthesis, a likely abundance of organic compounds and protection from radiation and cosmic rays are all critical factors. That may even extend to larger fish-like life...there's a chance that the moon's icy shell releases oxygen into its interior liquid ocean in large enough quantities to promote the freakishly-large growth we enjoy. If we don't discover larger multi-cellular life within our solar system (perhaps also on Titan, though that seems less likely), then it'll be many, many years before we discover it. Interstellar travel is a massive hurdle. =)

Intelligent life, though...that's tricky. Given the size of the universe, it is almost certain that there is other intelligent life but who knows whether or not it survives long enough to come into contact? Discovering another civilization would be one of the most incredible experiences I can imagine, so I certainly hope it happens (peacefully) within my lifetime.

lumpypua4• 12 years ago

Can't speak to likelihood of discovering life on Europa but it would be fucking awesome.

To be clear, microbial life in no way entails higher life. It's only by the insanely chance event of the eurkaryotic cell emerging that sophisticated multicellular life became possible on earth. Even if life is common in the universe, sophisticated multicellular life is extremely rare.

The selective pressures on bacterial life favors small size and rapid reproduction, jettisoning any unnecessary genetic material.

Mitochondrial ancestors relieved those pressures in a couple ways. Once the eukaryotic cell developed, multicellularity has evolved several times. All the cool things (multicellularity, eyes, flight) have evolved independently a bunch of times, and the eukaryote has happened only fucking once. Here's a deeper explanation of why it's so rare: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1622/2012...

Even if life is common in the universe, multicellular life is extremely rare because the evolution of eukaryote-esque organisms is extraordinarily rare and chance.

Edit: That is to say, there's a strong case that step 4 is the Great Filter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter#The_Great_Filter

zbyte64• 12 years ago

I would think the simple life we would see in our solar system would be less sophisticated then bacteria. Confirming plants and animals outside of earth would mean looking beyond our solar system and in 20-30 years we should be able to see the color of the planets Kepler has found. Once we can get a few pixels off a planet we can start to tell if photosynthesis is occurring. So for the first two categories my money is on 15/30. For intelligent life I can't even make a good guess.

NARKOZ• 12 years ago

This will take decades to resolve. Random blasts of methane will be very hard to characterise in any methodical way.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

If we put humans on Mars do you think we could find the source quickly/quicker than using robots? Is it a case of the robots finding signs of life and humans confirming them and getting the specifics? I'm asking because I'm not all that informed on this but from what I can tell robots have very specific missions so may not be able to find life even if they detect the signs.

anigbrowl2• 12 years ago

They'll assay them to see the ratio of different carbon isotopes. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa-rover-finds-m...

snowwrestler• 12 years ago

I think we will confirm life within 50 years by reading the spectra of distant planets and finding free oxygen in the atmosphere. As far as we know, that can only happen if living creatures are replenishing it.

I think it's unlikely that we will find life anywhere else in our solar system. It's possible that we'll evidence of past life on Mars, but not current. Basically, it's just way too cold or way too hot everywhere but Earth.

edit to add: I hope we do not discover intelligent life until we travel to distant star systems ourselves. If it discovers us here, the outcome will almost certainly be terrible for us, based on the long Earth history of species encountering species.

gloriousduke• 12 years ago

way too cold or way too hot

This isn't as big of a concern as it once might have been. See extremophiles.

It's possible that we'll evidence of past life on Mars, but not current.

If life takes hold anywhere and has any amount of (geologic) time to spread, I'm guessing only an extremely powerful gamma ray burst or other high energy event could completely exterminate it. It might be impossible to sterilize the earth at this point without completely destroying it, and even then there'd probably be microbes in the resulting meteors, etc (until our sun dies at least).

bdamm• 12 years ago

There are regions of relative temperature stability, such as towards the poles.

I think the outlook for intelligent life in the solar system, other than us, is very bleak for them. If there are whales on Europa, Titan, or Enceladus then it would seem easier for us to damage their ecosystem than the other way around. Unless, of course, they've infiltrated our political systems and are steering us towards self destruction.

FranOntanaya• 12 years ago

Basically, it's just way too cold or way too hot everywhere but Earth.

That's not really true. Only a thin layer of Earth's crust and atmosphere are great for life. Such Goldilocks layers aren't that uncommon if we look at all boundary climates on each body (subsurface sea boundaries, polar boundaries, higher atmosphere boundaries, etc), and not just the boundary analog to Earth's.

Even Mercury has free standing water ice. Somewhere between that ice and the scorched plains there's going to be a somewhat comfy place.

givan8• 12 years ago

If we will find them then this is an intersection on our technology advancements and proximity of such lifeforms, considering how little effort is currently put on space exploration it will take extremely long, things will probably accelerate when we find alternatives to the primitive combustion engine that makes fuel tanks bigger than rockets and makes the process very expensive.

If they will find us and this only means more advanced intelligent life then this obviously can happen any time or might already happened and can be delayed by us not being considered ready/worthy for contact or according to many conspiracy theories our governments considers we are not ready.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

There's a respectable contingent of scientists that believe Martian microorganisms were already confirmed 38 years ago by the Viking Lander experiments:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120413-nasa-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experi...

A future mission should definitely include a biologically-useful microscope, as suggested by USC neurobiologist Joseph Miller in the National Geograhic article linked above. Miller, also a former NASA space shuttle program director, is one of the proponents of the idea that the 1976 Viking results already demonstrated life.

raverbashing2• 12 years ago

However, the discovery of perchlorates severely weaken the results of that experiment

palmer_eldritch• 12 years ago

1. Before the end of century, there's probably some around the solar system 2. Never 3. Never

I don't think we'll ever go beyond the solar system and that the only place with complex life in the solar system is the Earth.

r0muald• 12 years ago

I totally understand being very cautious about their findings, but the wording of this paragraph struck me as odd:

The ratio that Curiosity found in the Cumberland sample is about one-half the ratio in water vapor in today's Martian atmosphere
suggesting much of the planet's water loss occurred since that rock formed
However, the measured ratio is about three times higher than the ratio in the original water supply of Mars, based on the assumption that supply had a ratio similar to that measured in Earth's oceans
This suggests much of Mars' original water was lost before the rock formed.

So I guess a lot of water was lost both before and after the formation of the rock, and they only have ballpark figures for the hypothetical amounts?

InclinedPlane• 12 years ago

Correct.

pepve• 12 years ago

Methane outside of earth is more common than I thought it would be (after reading the article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Extraterrestrial_methan...

codeshaman• 12 years ago

Totally unscientific impulse based speculation, but here it is, I want to be the first.

A long time ago (billions of years), our ancestors lived on Mars. The climate was changing due to human activity and shrinking of the Sun. Shit was getting serious and humanity needed a way to escape. The third planet from the Sun was chosen for seeding life into, due to it's proximity to the star and life-supporting characteristics.

A ball of DNA was sent here to seed the planet. It contained the code for all living things, including humans with the source code for a consciousness able to evolve until it finds out the truth of creation. And here we are, close to finding that out and able to continue what our ancestors left behind billions of years ago, before going extinct. But that is only Step 1. Step 2 is finding out who seeded Mars and the Sun and the Universe. Might just be that it was us all along forever. Good night world ;)

jackkcaj• 12 years ago

That's quite a narrative.

Houshalter5• 12 years ago

If life is discovered on mars, would we be allowed to colonize it?

Mahn• 12 years ago

Colonization is probably not the motivation for finding some microbial life there at the moment, but provided we wanted and could colonize, I'd guess we would just do it.

Houshalter5• 12 years ago

I do remember hearing there was debate if we should introduce invasive species, let alone terraform, or try to preserve life the way it is. There is also concern about it going the other way around mar's life becoming invasive on Earth or infectious to humans.

Obviously neither of our planet's life has evolved to be very fit in surviving in the other's environment. But evolution often has "arms races" where organisms evolve highly optimized weapons and defenses against them. It's possible one planet has evolved something the other has no defenses against which would give it an advantage.

E.g. on Earth, the cane toad produces a poison that no Australian predators can survive, and so they all die and the toad overpopulates. Same with many invasive species, like plants that produce poison that kill all the other plants nearby, and take over fields and native ecosystems. Or predators introduced on islands that are much better than the native predators and kill all the native life.

NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars

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