NEW POSSIBLE evidence of past life on Mars!

New evidence of life on our neighboring planet has been found in the form of microscopic spheres in a martin meteorite that contain twice as much carbon as the surrounding rocky material. There is also evidence of burrows or tunnels which are comparable to holes made in terrestrial rocks by microorganisms. The meteor , Yamato 000593, Is composed of Iddingsite which is formed by the action of water. I find this to be pretty damning evidence of past microbial life on Mars. You have microscopic spheres "which is the shape of a lot of microorganisms" which contain high concentrations of Carbon "which is what all life that we know of is made of" next there are microscopic holes "which is a know trait of terrestrial microorganisms" in rock that formed in water "which is what all known life needs to survive" Then you have the recent announcements from MSL of the habitability of Mars in the past. If any one has Ideas of how these tunnels and spheres could have been formed by natural processes, I'd be very interested in hearing . Here is the article and pictures.





www.space.com...

Drip, drip, drip goes the water based evidence.

BGTM90The meteor , Yamato 000593, Is composed of Iddingsite which is formed by the action of water. I find this to be pretty damning evidence of past microbial life on Mars. www.space.com...

Well it's interesting, but you're the only one calling it damning evidence. The paper itself doesn't do so, and they even say everything they see COULD be Earth contamination, or have nothing to do with life from any planet.

The study authors also wrote that they couldn't rule out the possibility that these tiny fossils are the result of abiotic (or nonliving) processes.

Then an actual expert ...

"At the small scales involved, shapes and compositions are not compelling indications of function,"

It's interesting, but the only thing it supports for sure is that we need to get more information from Mars itself.

Yes, saying that it is pretty damning evidence is an opinion and I understand that it could have been formed by abiotic processes thats why I asked for other peoples insight on how these could have been formed. I don't understand how it could be earthly contamination if it is fossilized material, but Im not an astro-biologist. But the fact that theses spheres contain twice as much carbon as the surrounding material needs to be explained and seems pretty suspicious. Does any one have any example of micro-sphereicals that have twice concentrations of carbon than the surrounding martial that also have micro tunnels in the surrounding rock that are not of biotic origins?

reply to post by BGTM90

The whole dang planet is crawling with shells and fossils, take a look for yourselves.

Also I realize that sense this is all speculation evidence by it self is not a suitable word for the title of the thread I will change it to make it better to fit the article and my post better.

reply to post by BGTM90


Email the authors of the paper, maybe they will answer you. It's interesting. Certainly not damning, or even close to damning.

Damning evidence can only be obtained from Mars itself. Or something incontravertible from a Mars meteorite, such as a living organism, or DNA from a dead organism so foreign it can not reasonably be from Earth.

NASA will prolly republish the pics after grinding and say these ones were... pixelated

reply to post by Char-Lee


Yes, I have seen the picture, and yes I do think that they do look like the shells of crustaceans. But that is just one thing, a picture and a lot are grainy and hard to make out. "What I find remarkable here (Even if others don't agree) is that you have multiple factors pointing to past microscopic life.

gardener
NASA will prolly republish the pics after grinding and say these ones were... pixelated

Zing! Ignorant post of the day award

BGTM90
reply to post by Char-Lee

 

Yes, I have seen the picture, and yes I do think that they do look like the shells of crustaceans. But that is just one thing, a picture and a lot are grainy and hard to make out. "What I find remarkable here (Even if others don't agree) is that you have multiple factors pointing to past microscopic life.

They don't look like crustaceans. These aren't fossils. It would be more like ... excrement of microbes.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


I will email them, thank you for the suggestion and yes maybe damning was to strong of a word to use but to me it is. Also what if we find life and it does have DNA similar to DNA found in organisms here on earth that doesn't necessarily mean that it is of earthly origins. Life could have started on mars and traveled to earth on a meteor which I think is just as fascinating than if they were of two completely different genetic origins.

OccamsRazor04

BGTM90
reply to post by Char-Lee

 

Yes, I have seen the picture, and yes I do think that they do look like the shells of crustaceans. But that is just one thing, a picture and a lot are grainy and hard to make out. "What I find remarkable here (Even if others don't agree) is that you have multiple factors pointing to past microscopic life.

They don't look like crustaceans. These aren't fossils. It would be more like ... excrement of microbes.

I was not speaking of the pictures I posted I was talking about other picture that have objects that look like shells embedded in the rocks, so yeah . . . chill out.

BGTM90
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I will email them, thank you for the suggestion and yes maybe damning was to strong of a word to use but to me it is. Also what if we find life and it does have DNA similar to DNA found in organisms here on earth that doesn't necessarily mean that it is of earthly origins. Life could have started on mars and traveled to earth on a meteor which I think is just as fascinating than if they were of two completely different genetic origins.

If you find life on Earth with DNA similar to other life on Earth then that points to the life being from Earth.

If life was found on Mars similar to life on Earth then you have a problem. Is it Martian, or Earth contamination? The experiment would require to be repeated.

OccamsRazor04

BGTM90
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I will email them, thank you for the suggestion and yes maybe damning was to strong of a word to use but to me it is. Also what if we find life and it does have DNA similar to DNA found in organisms here on earth that doesn't necessarily mean that it is of earthly origins. Life could have started on mars and traveled to earth on a meteor which I think is just as fascinating than if they were of two completely different genetic origins.

If you find life on Earth with DNA similar to other life on Earth then that points to the life being from Earth.

If life was found on Mars similar to life on Earth then you have a problem. Is it Martian, or Earth contamination? The experiment would require to be repeated.

What is "The experiment"?

BGTM90

OccamsRazor04

BGTM90
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I will email them, thank you for the suggestion and yes maybe damning was to strong of a word to use but to me it is. Also what if we find life and it does have DNA similar to DNA found in organisms here on earth that doesn't necessarily mean that it is of earthly origins. Life could have started on mars and traveled to earth on a meteor which I think is just as fascinating than if they were of two completely different genetic origins.

If you find life on Earth with DNA similar to other life on Earth then that points to the life being from Earth.

If life was found on Mars similar to life on Earth then you have a problem. Is it Martian, or Earth contamination? The experiment would require to be repeated.

What is "The experiment"?

The experiment is whatever they did that found life from Mars .. bringing rocks back from Mars to Earth for example.

Here's the original paper: online.liebertpub.com...

Here's an intersting quote from the paper:

It is possible the carbonaceous matter has an abiotic origin or origins derived from exogenous (cometary/asteroidal/interplanetary dust) sources and/or through planetary process including magmatic and impact-generated gases. Alternatively, the spherules and associated carbonaceous matter may have biogenic origins because spherulitic features are similar in both size (0.1–0.5 μm) and shape to known terrestrial fossilized microbes reported in the range of 0.13–0.55 μm.

It is, of course, a specualtion, and by no means a proof or evidence of anything.

Spheric and undulating features can be created naturally through concretion and erosion. en.wikipedia.org...

However, as much as we tend to be skeptic about such things, these indeed may be traces of biotic activity on Mars! It certainly would be more credible than, say, fossilised skeletons, skulls, alien bases, martian rats, etc. Mars wasn't habitable for very long, and it takes microorganisms billions of years to evolve into plants and animals.

P.S. Good job correcting the thread title!

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


What if all life in the universe has similar DNA structure to life on Earth? There's no reason to think we're something special; we're most probably just a typical sample of life, and all life elsewhere follows the same structure and evolution.

Just for a link to more information, Jim Oberg put up a thread on this, with some good material added by him and others. It's only three pages though, so f&s to this thread, because the more on something like this (which has gained very little news compared to its importance as a news item) the merrier.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Aleister


I'm Sorry I did a search and didn't see anything but I have read that the search function doesn't always work properly so I even wen't through the new post in the Space Exploration list of threads and didn't see anything. I didn't even think to look in the Alien forum. So again, Sorry mistake on my part.