Mars Soil Fit for Life, Tests Confirm

Mars Soil Fit for Life, Tests Confirm

dsc.discovery.com

The Phoenix lander's first taste test of soil near Mars' north pole reveals a briny environment similar to what can be found in backyards on Earth, scientists said Thursday.

The finding raises hope that the Martian arctic plains could have conditions favorable for primitive life. Phoenix landed a month ago to study the habitability of Mars' northern latitudes.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Was this ever in question? Apparently so! I always thought it was a given. What do y'all think? I mean, it's not like the soil was thought to be radioactive or poisoned.

dsc.discovery.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 26-6-2008 by no name needed]

so... good soil... water ice... damp soil... there are arguably "trees" on mars, or at least some other plant life... why can't they just come out with it already!!!

thanks for the update

Thing that bugs me is the narrow mindedness exhibited when defining a life supporting environment. For instance, their requirement for organic carbon to be found... Great, so it's a requirement for life as we know it on earth... so what? Doesn't mean it's required for extra-terrestrial life. how many life forms not from earth have we examined, in order to determine carbon is required for all life? Uh, zero last I checked. In these cases, too many seem to forget that there's life as we know it, then there's the possibility of life as we don't know it.

reply to post by Unit541


Right you are! Life could potentially come in many forms that have vastly differing requirements. But since life as we know it is all we know, then this confirms that life as we know it is possible on Mars. I know, simple minded, but at least it will be one more thing to get the masses excited about the prospects of a manned mission to Mars.

it's all such nonsense... someone, some... dork, decided decades ago that revelations about life on other worlds would "shock the masses" a dummy in a lab coat decided that they should, sloooooooooowly release bit by bit proof and get the public used to the idea...

we could drop men on mars in 2-5 years from any point we tried over the last 25 years if we chose to Lol what's Nasa's budget 16 Billion... per year, how pathetic is that compared to 1 Trillion on defense?

The soil right on the surface can support life, soo 1 + 1 = 2, the planet passes through a ton of junk flying off the earth for 4 Billion years now... even if it's under the surface surely we have seeded mars and probably everything else with water in the solar system...

frack... 4 Billion years? especially the erlies days of life a Billion billion 5 back... we have had chunks of earth rock, ice and dust land in the centauri system by now... let alone Mars

I mean they really need to get this over with... drop people on the planet, a large mission, orbital manned space station, set up an airstrip for shuttles..

at a few hundred million per craft, i'd be droping robotic landers weekly if i was president... preping the first base camp..

OK. Lets go start a Mars colony. Really!

I believe that if we had "wanted' too we could have had a new settlement on Mars years ago.

What are they hiding!!!!????

[edit on 26-6-2008 by whiteraven]

Originally posted by Unit541
Thing that bugs me is the narrow mindedness exhibited when defining a life supporting environment. For instance, their requirement for organic carbon to be found... Great, so it's a requirement for life as we know it on earth... so what? Doesn't mean it's required for extra-terrestrial life. how many life forms not from earth have we examined, in order to determine carbon is required for all life? Uh, zero last I checked. In these cases, too many seem to forget that there's life as we know it, then there's the possibility of life as we don't know it.

Ok I just had a whole post typed out and blew it back accidentally deleting it by going back. /sigh

My points in point for.

- All life on earth is Carbon based, even the ones in extreme environments, we won't know what to look for unless we find an example here(or develop a testable hypothesis on what chemical signatures to look for, I know of none at this time).

- Fixation on mars is silly. We should be looking for life on more likely bodies like Europa instead. Imagine finding a totally different ecosystem evolved in a totally alien environment. Not like Mars at all, it's potentially much more exciting then a few microbes (IMO).

Also, they haven't found any Nitrogen which would be necessary for a colony. No Nitrogen equals no earth-based life on mars. Though if we do get a successful arcology setup on mars, crops should thrive there due to the lower gravity. Have to use artificial lighting unfortunately.

[edit on 26-6-2008 by sardion2000]

reply to post by mopusvindictus


LOL I read it like I thought you were saying it: All fast and a complete run-on sentence , all excited. Shoot, I'm excited after reading your view on it! LOL Thanks!

news.yahoo.com...

This is most interesting!

Excellent post. I am glad that this story is continuing in the right direction. I have had my fingers crossed and eyeballs peeled to this NASA mission from the start. One can only say things are looking on the up and up! I am feeling a sense of happiness every time this story is updated. It's like being a kid again!!! Even though progress in the past has been quite slow it is finally picking up...

[edit on 26-6-2008 by looneyhd]

Err sry I just started similar a thread on this. I did a search and nothing came up but when I looked again here it was.... sry..

I guess NBC news tonite was saying that Reuters originally ran a story about this called "Life on Mars" but quickly changed it because of the misleading title..

-ChriS

Well, now that we know that the Martian soil has the potential for harboring life, I am left wondering just how long it will take for some mega corporation to claim Mars, build a Wal Mart there, and throw up a gated community?

reply to post by Hefficide


Well, now that we know that the soil is fertile, it will only be am matter of time before the universities, like my dear old Texas A&M, will start genetically engineering food plants so that they will maximize the light absorption in spectrum best suited for the Martian atmosphere.

My my. Just two weeks ago some nasa person ran a story mars would be too salty for life.
An almost formerly earthlike planet that had most of its atmosphere blown away.
If there was not 'something' quite extraordinary there, they would not be throwing all this hardware at it.

Trying to understand the reason for the spins though. No it can't. Yes it can. Soft prepping?

I'm curious... Do you think NASA/JPL really has a "Prime Directive" against biologically or botanically contaminating another world? I mean, we know why we want to go to Mars — to change the damned place into Earth II. That's no secret. Do you seriously think that any discovery of Life on Mars will prevent us from going there and terraforming the place? Of course not. It's our manifest destiny to plow Martian soil.

So why aren't our intrepid Mars probes pooting out Earthly seeds and spores and bacteria to prepare Mars for our coming? Or are they doing that already?

The pic below is just a joke that I threw together, but I think it would be very, very easy for our various landers to sew a few seeds in advance of our manned arrival on The Red Planet.

lol very funny.

I read about this earlier today. One article stated you could actually grow vegetables in Martian soil.

Not bad considering the announcement of possible "super earths" that are habitable and dwarf our planet in size.

Here's me being the pessimist:

If they ever get transport to one of those "super earths" the only people to stay on this one would be slave workers to the elites. The average citizen couldn't afford the trip and when all the wealthy, the scientists and brains leave we'd have no choice but to work in factories that ship them goods for our own survival. Of course they would leave behind a military presence. In other words...Earth would become a 3rd world.

Maybe not though.

- Lee

- Lee

Originally posted by uplander
reply to post by mopusvindictus

 

LOL I read it like I thought you were saying it: All fast and a complete run-on sentence , all excited. Shoot, I'm excited after reading your view on it! LOL Thanks!

LOL I am like a kid with a new toy on this topic huh?

I just sooooo can not understand why we are bickering about resources on Earth when we have a whole solar system.

People were just as negative in Europe prior to the discovery of the new world, war, incurable disease, over crowding. How can anyone not know we have the green light here?

I know allot of people in here, dissatisfied with the way things are... are just like me, living in a day and age where pioneers have no outlet.

I really want to head off world and explore, build it my own way, do something a place and a chance to explore new ideas besides a forum.

I know, I am 100% certain that the caverns of Mars hold life, the planet is basically hollow, it's core is nowhere near as hot as ours. Somewhere, 10, 20 feet down that ice via pressure melts and creates water which hollows out caverns, We can live in Mars.

Given the certainty of this scenario, plus a surface to build on, there is more room for us on Mars then there is on Earth... so long over population.

Let's do this!

But you know the main drawback of living on (or in) Mars... Gravity. Mars is much smaller than Earth, doesn't have the gravity to retain an atmosphere of sufficient pressure for us to breathe without life support gear. Even if we could somehow flip a switch and pump out gigatons of sweet Oxygen/Nitrogen gases and water vapor (ala Total Recall), the Martian gravity is too weak to hold a dense atmosphere — all that good air would just boil off into space, leaving an atmosphere 10X thinner than the summit of Everest.

So, the point is we'll always be limited in how we exploit Mars, we'll always be living in pressurized containers and wearing self-contained breathing apparatus.

Same sort of problems in the other extreme if we ever make it to the so-called "super Earths"... Too much gravity for our frail little Earthly bodies, and atmospheres dense enough to crush us like rotten grapes.

In order to move beyond Earth and exploit new worlds the way we do it best, those new planets must be like all those fantasy worlds in Star Trek... All of them had perfect gravity, perfect atmospheres, perfect temperatures, and most were already populated by humanoids. Who spoke English.

[edit on 6/27/2008 by Doc Velocity]