Mars Rover Curiosity Confirms Habitable Environment in Distant Past
Source: CBS News
Mars rover Curiosity confirms habitable environment in distant past
March 12, 2013
Analyzing powdered samples drilled from the interior of a sedimentary rock, the Curiosity Mars rover has detected traces of the chemicals and compounds necessary for a habitable environment in the red planet's distant past, scientists reported Tuesday.
Whether life ever managed to evolve on Mars remains an open question, but the environment characterized by Curiosity's instruments, an area where water once flowed and pooled, could have supported microbial life as it is known on Earth.
"The key thing here is an environment a microbe could have lived in and might have even prospered in," John Grotzinger, the Mars Science Laboratory project scientist, said during a news conference at NASA Headquarters.
Answering questions later, he added that "we have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it."
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57573899/mars-rover-curiosity-confirms-habitable-environment-in-distant-past
= new reply since forum marked as read
ugh
but yeah...
...there might be in the universe"? It's all speculation until it isn't speculation and we know, for sure, that there is even one instance of life or intelligent life elsewhere in the universe--and even then, the universe is so vast and the time/space barriers are so daunting that it's unlikely that we will ever know the total "amount" of it in the Universe. And I don't think that even the most speculative of thinkers have ventured to guess what those "amounts" might be. I can't even think of sf writers who have tried that one.
Anybody? I can't think of any such predictions--let alone a consensus ("current thinking"
. I could be wrong, but, anyway, if there is no accepted "current thinking" about the "amounts" of life or intelligent life in the Universe, then life having failed on Mars won't have any effect on such thinking.
Your scenario that Mars may have had a life-friendly environment but didn't develop life could be read the opposite way--that life is constantly trying to get a foothold, and will succeed in some places (as here) and not in others. That is, finding that life tried and failed on Mars could be a positive indicator about life elsewhere. One infinitesimal solar system (in the vastness of the Universe), two seedings of life, one highly successful. Makes the odds go up, doesn't it?
But it's such a limited sample that it tells us very little about probabilities. I think it's likely that this drama (success or failure of life getting a foothold) is occurring everywhere throughout the Universe. There is no reason whatever that it wouldn't be. And the more we learn about the prevalence of planets, and the conditions for life--including very unusual life habitats here on earth (the "extremophiles" --the more likely that those experiments are constantly in progress in very great numbers to the far reaches of the Universe.
One sample of a planet with abundant life, Earth, and one sample of life having the right conditions but failing for some reason, Mars, is simply not sufficient information. I think it's likely that we will find at least microbial life on the moons of Jupiter and/or Saturn. Some of those moons are more promising than Mars, as to current life. THAT will help, as to speculations about the Universe--if life is found throughout our solar system. There is no reason to think that our solar system is unique--and much reason to think that it is quite common, as solar systems go. Same with our galaxy--no reason to think it unique. We did at one time think that planets were rare. That wrong presumption has been completely overthrown, fairly recently. With better technology, astronomers are finding planets everywhere.
Scientists have limited the search to the Goldilocks planets (not too hot, not too cold--the right distance from suns) out of necessity (they had to start somewhere), but the existence of "extremophiles" on earth indicates that life and intelligent life could develop in non-temperate conditions--and even in completely...um, alien conditions, such as in particle clouds between planets.
I just heard about "water bears"--microbe sized critters (that apparently resemble bears when seen under a microscope) and live in numerous ponds and wetlands on Earth. Heard it on NPR's "Science Friday." These critters survive intense fire, survive intense freezing and survive being completely dried out. They just go dormant and then pop back to life when conditions are right. What's with that, eh? Eternal life despite the withdrawal of "Goldilocks" conditions! Sure makes you think about what might be "out there."
But it's early days in the search for life. Way early days--despite all our amazing progress. What's likely? That there is life everywhere. I think that's the best guess, at this point--despite our not having found any yet. Intelligent life? I think we may be in for some surprises, as to what can have intelligence. (We are also no doubt egocentric as to what we think intelligence is--consider Dolphins, for instance.)
