Why speculate about the "Face" or the "Pyramids of Cydonia?"

NASA, ESA and other space-science consortiums have now gathered proof of conditions on Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn , sufficient to support extraterrestrial life.

Recent discoveries in Earthly extremes that mimic some of these conditions reveal bacteria and more advanced lifeforms thriving where no one expected; in many cases even contrary to our understanding of biology and biological processes.

The driest place on Earth (the Atacama Desert), the "barren" valleys and plains of Antarctica, deep-sea volcanic vents of superheated water and toxic gases, and even the stratosphere, all harbor life in the form of "extremophiles" that defy our commonly accepted notions of where life should exist and what it night look like.

Now, scientists have discovered a previously unknown bacterium that lived billions of years ago when Earth resembled what Mars is today.

"Earthly Cave Bacteria Hint at Mars Life"
dsc.discovery.com...

Primitive bacteria that lived 2.75 billion years ago built themselves caves to live in, according to a new study. Today, the traces they left behind are stoking hopes that similar life forms could exist on Mars.

Birger Rasmussen of Curtin University of Technology in Bentley, Australia, and a team of researchers have found what they believe is evidence that bacteria nearly 3 billion years old lived on the roofs of tiny hollows in lake and river sediments.

Just a centimeter or so tall and a couple of millimeters across, the 'caves' aren't much to look at. But they formed in a curious fashion -- bacteria grew in air-tight sheets, which inflated like balloons as they trapped methane gas seeping up through the sediments. Over time the bacteria built up layer upon layer of material on the cave roofs, descending deeper into the sediment and forming the laminate fossils Rasmussen's team discovered.

"Cavity dwelling would've been a good way of escaping harsh radiation at the surface," Rasmussen said. "The cavities were protected and probably had water seeping through."

The team's finding, published this month in the journal Geology, strengthens a longstanding hypothesis that similar life forms may be hiding out on Mars.

Early Earth was a rough place to live -- there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, or ozone layer to protect the surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Today the Martian surface is desolate, and probably too harsh to support life -- though much colder, it's similar in many ways to the young Earth. And newly uncovered hints of water provide hope that life underground is still hanging on.

"By 2.75 billion years ago, you've got life on land and in the sea, so life in a cave is not that shocking," Robert Rye of the University of Southern California said. "On the other hand, it's nice to know that we have evidence of life in a potentially good analogue environment for underground voids on Mars."

With Mars probes establishing the presence of water, and trace methane detected in soil and air samples, it seems we have links between lifeforms on Earth and the conditions in which they thrived.

Why scour photos for modern analogues to the Martian "canali," once accepted by a consensus of the learned as 'proof' of life on Mars, when the evidence is "in our backyard," and the means to find it on the red planet are in place and capable?

jw


[edit on 10-5-2009 by jdub297]

Although Mars gets the most attention, probably because of its proximity and our growing presence with more sophisticated "noses, eyes, ears and hands," it is not the only likely harbor for ET.

Considerations for the main candidates are explained, or can start from here:

Mars:
[ur]http://science.howstuffworks.com/mars8.htm[/url]

Enceladus:
[utl]http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1909/enceladus-has-potential-life[/url]

www.msnbc.msn.com...

Europa:

blogs.discovermagazine.com...

blogs.tnr.com...


Journalist/futurist Joel Achenbach (NPR's "How Things Work") believes that the fierce competition between planetary scietists and exobiologists will result in confirmatory missions to Jupiter, rather than Saturn.

"Search for Life Heads to the Outer Solar System"

Europa vs. Titan. They're two moons in the outer solar system, both circling gas giants but otherwise as alien from each other as alien can be. One orbits Jupiter and is a crusty iceball with signs of a very deep subsurface ocean. The other orbits Saturn and has a thick atmosphere, dramatic weather, lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, methane rain, and sand dunes of organic material the color of coffee grounds.

For many months and years, two scientific camps polished their proposals, each hoping that its moon would get official sanction as NASA's next "flagship" mission to the outer solar system. The answer finally arrived last week: Europa, and by extension the whole Jupiter system, will be first.

www.washingtonpost.com...

If we look in the right places with the right tools, we will confirm EBEs, and probably meet them, within our lifetimes.

jw

reply to post by jdub297


"If we look in the right places with the right tools, we will confirm EBEs, and probably meet them, within our lifetimes. "

So, do you have any anticipations as to what "level of complexity" we might encounter here in the solar system?

reply to post by jdub297
I'm not sure why you've linked a good question to Cydonia and whatnot It definitely seems that nature abhors a vacuum and life will fill any niche available. Extremophiles (sp?) indicate that every time we widen the parameters of possible environments for life, it will still surprise us ((Volcanic microbes?).

One of the most mind-boggling, bamfoozling ideas to ponder is that, at some point, somewhere, the inanimate became animated. By what process we might never know.

Conditions on Earth have undergone profound changes over the past approx 4.5 billion years. The atmosphere has altered, temperatures have soared and plummeted, extinction events and, at one time, a cataclysmic volcanic, molten surface. Despite, or because of this here we all are in our myriad and diverse glory An interlinked web of life going back to who knows when or where?

I look forward to the next Mars mission. It should identify the source of the seasonal methane output. If it's life, it may become likely that 'Life' is inevitable and to be found in any environment it can gain a foothold. I firmly believe that we will enjoy this historic and profound event in our lifetimes. It'll put the Apollo missions in the shade in historical significance.

Flagged to see what other folk have to say about it

Originally posted by jdub297
NASA, ESA and other space-science consortiums have now gathered proof of conditions on Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn , sufficient to support extraterrestrial life.

Before we can ever attempt to answer the original question we must look in to whether or not the evidence that NASA, ESA and other space-science consortiums have given us is indeed what they say it is.

Unfortunately, your going to have a very hard time on this subject as the majority of us take any evidence supplied by any space- science consortium with a pinch of salt.

There is a very good thread on this site that shows evidence to support the fact that NASA changed the colours of their photos to trick the public into thinking that there is nothing to MARS except poisonous gases and barron wasteland.

Of course I beg to differ.

reply to post by franspeakfree


And, of course, the rest of MSS is "in bed" with NASA on that, ranks unbroken. It's amazing how they keep everything quiet, isn't it?

Originally posted by Gawdzilla
reply to post by jdub297

 

So, do you have any anticipations as to what "level of complexity" we might encounter here in the solar system?

We are finding "levels of complexity" no one ever anticipated right now, here on Earth!

I think complexity is a function of time and resources. In a resource-rich environment, over millions of years, life will evolve to more complex levels of organization and specialization.

Mars is too limited in resources, from what I see, but Europa, Titan and Enceladus could very well have much higher life than microbes.

The Jovian equivalent of invertebrates and vertebrates would not surprise me. Social colonies? That seems to be the norm rather than the exception.

I've read that even the large moons of the outer planets may present potential habitats for extremophiles.

We'll see soon, I'm sure.

jw

Originally posted by Kandinsky

I'm not sure why you've linked a good question to Cydonia and whatnot

It seems to me that efforts to find higher intelligence cause us to overlook 'the forest for the trees,' so to speak.

We continually confound our limited understanding of "life" and its origins just by exploring our own planet.

Scouring photos of the surface of Mars certainly reveals interesting if not unexplainable "anomalies." But speculating from 35,000,000 miles away adds only questions to our search for EBEs, not answers.

jw

Originally posted by franspeakfree

Before we can ever attempt to answer the original question we must look in to whether or not the evidence that NASA, ESA and other space-science consortiums have given us is indeed what they say it is.

Unfortunately, your going to have a very hard time on this subject as the majority of us take any evidence supplied by any space- science consortium with a pinch of salt.

Fortunatley, we no longer have to rely on the space-PTB as keepers of the keys. Earth scientists and exobiologists with no obvious malicious agenda are providing information and clues of what life can look like and where we may find it.

With new countries, NGOs and even private enterprise breaking the monopoly on space exploration, we have a wide range of sources to draw upon, and from whom we should be able to separate 'the wheat from the chaff.'

Competition, and a new 'race to confirm life,' will produce results we haven't yet imagined.

jw

[edit on 12-5-2009 by jdub297]

reply to post by jdub297
Yeah, I understood your point after I'd posted. The search for microbial proof of life is more urgent and realistic than proving UFOs are extraterrestrial and intelligent. The modern UFO phenomena is no further ahead than it was 60 years ago. Although admittedly 'faith,' I feel sure that (if it's out there) we'll have confirmation of basic life within the next 60 years. UFOs may remain inconclusive...

It's a paradoxical situation as many of us can be persuaded by Malmstrom, Indian Point, Height 611, Colares, Rendlesham etc that 'life' is active in some way. Despite this, it isn't 'confirmation.' Proving that methane on Mars is an outcome of biology or that Europa has arctic flowers is where my hopes are focused.

If I awake one groggy morning to a news bulletin screaming 'Contact!', I'll be as pleased as finding an extremophile amoeba on a Jovian moon. We'll still all be at school, college or work the next day...

If we find anything, how can we be sure it was not us who put it there first? We landed on mars, venus and the moon and most likely something was taken with it, and maybe we even killed something 40 years ago.

Originally posted by jdub297
Why scour photos for modern analogues to the Martian "canali," once accepted by a consensus of the learned as 'proof' of life on Mars, when the evidence is "in our backyard," and the means to find it on the red planet are in place and capable?

There's a big, big difference between discovering a potential environment for ET bacteria or something along those lines, and actually discovering those bacteria. And then there's another huge difference between discovering bacteria and saying that there are intelligent, social beings out there somewhere besides Earth.

When it comes to extraterrestrial life, there either is/was, or there isn't/wasn't. There's really no in-between. Just because somebody finds a puddle of muddy water somewhere doesn't mean there's anything in it besides mud and water.

No one has any clue as to how life managed to form. We only that it exists. So we have no basis for comparison, and no reason to assume that it's an automatic thing that just automatically "happens" if you (or God) put all the right chemicals into a puddle and stir it around long enough.

Originally posted by Cygnific
If we find anything, how can we be sure it was not us who put it there first? We landed on mars, venus and the moon and most likely something was taken with it, and maybe we even killed something 40 years ago.

One thing we can certainly say about Earth is that it's just crawling with life in every little nook and cranny, but it's also had a few billion years to spread around. Of course, we've contaminated Mars. But it will take a little while for it to spread completely around the planet. So it's still probably lingering near our probes.

Also, the stuff we put there will be recognizable as Earth bacteria, and wouldn't have had time to evolve into something different. If something isn't genetically similar to stuff found on Earth, then it's probably native.

And, of course, if we find fossils older than any Earth contact with Mars, then that'll be a good indicator that there at least used to be life there, even if there isn't anything but Earth bugs there, now.

[edit on 12-5-2009 by Nohup]

Originally posted by Kandinsky

It's a paradoxical situation as many of us can be persuaded by Malmstrom, Indian Point, Height 611, Colares, Rendlesham etc that 'life' is active in some way. Despite this, it isn't 'confirmation.'

Proving that methane on Mars is an outcome of biology or that Europa has arctic flowers is where my hopes are focused.

If I awake one groggy morning to a news bulletin screaming 'Contact!', I'll be as pleased as finding an extremophile amoeba on a Jovian moon. We'll still all be at school, college or work the next day...

I was raised by a "believer" parent and was exposed to Frank Edwards, von Daniken, Cayce, Blue Book, Hynek et al from an early age.

I too think Rendelsham is an outstanding example of "UFO" along with the others. But, unless super-intelligent EBEs want to be discovered, the general public will never have "conclusive proof."

Like you, I'd be very excited to hear of even microbial life elsewhere. It would confirm that "life" is a natural process, and could occur under various, and 'alien' conditions. Given that, it's no great leap to other intelligences.

jw

Originally posted by Nohup

Just because somebody finds a puddle of muddy water somewhere doesn't mean there's anything in it besides mud and water.

Except that on Earth, every puddle of muddy water does have living things in it besides mud and water.

jw