CAM Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Liquid water found. Granted it is in tiny salty quantities but this lends further credit to the current theory that the red planet once supported life. Rover worth its salt: Mars sometimes has LIQUID WATER • The Register Good news that life may exist elsewhere....or a scary insight into the post-apocalyptic fate of our own planet Earth?
pcstru Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Liquid water found. Granted it is in tiny salty quantities but this lends further credit to the current theory that the red planet once supported life. It might be (more) evidence that there was once oceans on Mars, but it is not evidential that the planet once supported life.
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 It might be (more) evidence that there was once oceans on Mars, but it is not evidential that the planet once supported life. Generally no we can't prove it. I'd suspect if there was any kind of intelligent life on Mars at any point we'd of found fossils and such as it's such a rocky planet. Though on Earth creatures can live in the most inhospitable places at the depths of the sea which humans could simply not go to before they died so there's nothing to say that if Mars was covered in oceans at one point there wasn't some type of life on there, even simple forms like bacteria.
sonofsanta Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Generally no we can't prove it. I'd suspect if there was any kind of intelligent life on Mars at any point we'd of found fossils and such as it's such a rocky planet. Though on Earth creatures can live in the most inhospitable places at the depths of the sea which humans could simply not go to before they died so there's nothing to say that if Mars was covered in oceans at one point there wasn't some type of life on there, even simple forms like bacteria. No-one has ever suggested (well, reasonably and recently, at least) that there is or was intelligent life on Mars, but finding any life on Mars - just simple microbial stuff - would be huge, because at the moment the Earth is the only place we know of in the whole Universe where life has developed. If it's happened on the world just next door as well, suddenly it starts looking like life will be a lot more common - as in, it's on 2 out of 2 places we've studied in depth - and the chances of finding other intelligent life elsewhere go up massively. There has definitely been free-flowing water on Mars in the past, that's been shown before, but the interior of Mars cooled and set, the magnetic field disappeared, and the solar wind stripped the planet of atmosphere and moisture. This new discovery, though, is that thin films of water exist right now due to the very high concentration of salt lowering the freezing point of water to the point it can exist as a liquid. The concentration of salt is too high to support life as we know it, but given the situations and locations life manages to exist on this planet, I wouldn't be surprised if something has adapted to it. Liquid water is a much bigger step towards the possibility of life; said life being able to handle the conditions is almost a fine detail after that. 2
CAM Posted April 14, 2015 Author Posted April 14, 2015 And Mars isn't the only major discovery either. Various moons further out have potential sub-surface oceans of liquid water that could potentially support life similar to the bizarre stuff found deep undersea. There is also talk of the clouds of Venus holding life at a particular altitude which acts as a mini habitable zone at the right temperature. Such life would have to be vastly different to what we expect though in order to live in a soupy cloud of gas.
LosOjos Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 (edited) I understand the need to limit our scientific research (initially, at least) to search for only those kinds of life we know could exist on Earth as this is the only point of reference we currently have, but then when discoveries like the bacteria that survive solely on electrons are being made right here on our own planet, I really struggle to understand anyone who outright claims there is no life out there - I mean it's just so statistically improbable that we're the only inhabited planet that it's insane to me that anyone could doubt the possibility... then again, people have been known to make wilder claims EDIT: as for fossils on Mars @abillybob - we have never had the means to investigate the surface of Mars in the detail we are doing right now, so the fact we haven't found fossils is no surprise. It's highly unlikely we'll find any fossils that might exist with the rover up there now either, given the depth they tend to be found at and the fact it isn't looking for them. Who knows what future missions might reveal though - the first alien fossil would be a more incredible discovery than bacteria, as it'd likely prove intelligent life once existed on another planet Edited April 14, 2015 by LosOjos
sted Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 EDIT: as for fossils on Mars @abillybob - we have never had the means to investigate the surface of Mars in the detail we are doing right now, so the fact we haven't found fossils is no surprise. It's highly unlikely we'll find any fossils that might exist with the rover up there now either, given the depth they tend to be found at and the fact it isn't looking for them. Who knows what future missions might reveal though - the first alien fossil would be a more incredible discovery than bacteria, as it'd likely prove intelligent life once existed on another planet true drop a mars rover on a random location on earth and travel 30 miles say and what are the chances of finding a fossil somewhere where we know they exist esp if all you can do is look at the surface
pcstru Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 so there's nothing to say that if Mars was covered in oceans at one point there wasn't some type of life on there, even simple forms like bacteria. To illustrate the fallacy of proving a negative, there is nothing to say that fairies do not live at the bottom of my garden. It is a basic tenet of the scientific method that claims are supported by evidence. So the rational view would be that if there is no evidence of life on Mars, then there is no reason to believe there is life on Mars. I understand the need to limit our scientific research (initially, at least) to search for only those kinds of life we know could exist on Earth as this is the only point of reference we currently have, but then when discoveries like the bacteria that survive solely on electrons are being made right here on our own planet, I really struggle to understand anyone who outright claims there is no life out there - I mean it's just so statistically improbable that we're the only inhabited planet that it's insane to me that anyone could doubt the possibility... then again, people have been known to make wilder claims There is a fallacy of large numbers which is illustrated by the claim that "infinity must contain everything" (which is simply refuted by the fact that you can have a set of even numbers which is infinite, but contains no odd numbers at all, not even one). Unfortunately the implications of large numbers, while it might seem to make the probability of other life into a certainty, it also makes it difficult to explain why we don't see any evidence of other life in the universe. It might be correct to say that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but without evidence, we are back to faeries at the bottom of the garden.
sonofsanta Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 (edited) Unfortunately the implications of large numbers, while it might seem to make the probability of other life into a certainty, it also makes it difficult to explain why we don't see any evidence of other life in the universe. All about that Fermi Paradox. Have we passed the Great Filter successfully—the first race ever to do so—or is it still in our future, waiting to destroy us? Or—more likely—waiting for us to destroy ourselves... Edited April 14, 2015 by sonofsanta
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 I think the thing that will make us unique will be that we are intelligent, humans are totally different and have evolved at a much faster rate than any other animal here on earth has. I think that if we ever do find life on another planet, it will be that of an animal, like the Dinosaurs.... only different depending on the world they live in. I doubt in the existence of humans will we ever find another species as intelligent as ourselves. Professor Brian Cox words this better but you get the point I'm trying to make. http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/no-brian-cox-does-not-think-we-are-truly-alone-in-the-universe--x1fAYBCaLg I believe kind of the same as him, we are NOT alone in the universe but are in the MilkyWay and as our MilkyWay alone is about 100,000 Light Years long I doubt we or any other civilization in the universe will ever find each other. The best bet we have in finding proper intelligent life out there are radio signals of which then we have to assume the other civilisation will be using the same technology to receive the transmission we send which again is unlikely. The hope in finding intelligent life anywhere before the extinction of our planet or humans (which ever comes first) is massively unlikely. Even finding living bacteria (single cell organisms) is very unlikely. Sorry to put a downer on it all but it's true.
LosOjos Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 I think the thing that will make us unique will be that we are intelligent, humans are totally different and have evolved at a much faster rate than any other animal here on earth has. I think that if we ever do find life on another planet, it will be that of an animal, like the Dinosaurs.... only different depending on the world they live in. I doubt in the existence of humans will we ever find another species as intelligent as ourselves. OK, just to be clear, intelligent life doesn't mean a life form that is capable of reading, writing and performing arithmetic. A dinosaur most definitely is an intelligent life form - a discovery of an animal of that complexity on another planet would be absolutely astronomical! (excuse the pun) How Do You Define "Intelligent Life"? — Emily Dawn Calandrelli
jinnantonnixx Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 I think the thing that will make us unique will be that we are intelligent, humans are totally different and have evolved at a much faster rate than any other animal here on earth has. I think that if we ever do find life on another planet, it will be that of an animal, like the Dinosaurs.... only different depending on the world they live in. I doubt in the existence of humans will we ever find another species as intelligent as ourselves. Professor Brian Cox words this better but you get the point I'm trying to make. http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/no-brian-cox-does-not-think-we-are-truly-alone-in-the-universe--x1fAYBCaLg I believe kind of the same as him, we are NOT alone in the universe but are in the MilkyWay and as our MilkyWay alone is about 100,000 Light Years long I doubt we or any other civilization in the universe will ever find each other. The best bet we have in finding proper intelligent life out there are radio signals of which then we have to assume the other civilisation will be using the same technology to receive the transmission we send which again is unlikely. The hope in finding intelligent life anywhere before the extinction of our planet or humans (which ever comes first) is massively unlikely. Even finding living bacteria (single cell organisms) is very unlikely. Sorry to put a downer on it all but it's true. The Earth is a fairly young planet (on the cosmological scale), but a more important consideration is that it has been subject to mass-extinction cataclysms during its history. Life as we know it has emerged within the last few instants and is clinging on until the next devastating event. It's possible that a planet conducive to life has emerged elsewhere in the universe and has had a far quieter history; perhaps this has allowed life to evolve to an unimaginable degree of sophistication. I echo your point about communication with other life, if it exists. My view is that we are utterly isolated by the laws of physics and the mind boggling distances that separate life-supporting candidate planets. If life exists elsewhere, the distances involved mean that we have no way to exchange information.
sted Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 The Earth is a fairly young planet (on the cosmological scale), but a more important consideration is that it has been subject to mass-extinction cataclysms during its history. Life as we know it has emerged within the last few instants and is clinging on until the next devastating event. It's possible that a planet conducive to life has emerged elsewhere in the universe and has had a far quieter history; perhaps this has allowed life to evolve to an unimaginable degree of sophistication. I echo your point about communication with other life, if it exists. My view is that we are utterly isolated by the laws of physics and the mind boggling distances that separate life-supporting candidate planets. If life exists elsewhere, the distances involved mean that we have no way to exchange information. or maybe a lack of extinction events leads to stagnation and little evolution. if the game never changes theres little impetus for random mutations to make much difference
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Teleportation device is what is needed. That is all.
sted Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Teleportation device is what is needed. That is all. id imagine even that hits the speed of light limitation so still no use for anything much further away than mars at best
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 id imagine even that hits the speed of light limitation so still no use for anything much further away than mars at best Not mine... 100x the speed of light? Did you update yours to the latest firmware that maybe why you have such a bottleneck?
sonofsanta Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Teleportation device is what is needed. That is all. Not for me, thanks. I'd rather not commit suicide repeatedly and hope that the reconstructed clone that comes out the other side continues to live my life in accordance with my moral principles. Plus, as @sted says, information is still bound by the speed of light. And the bandwidth requirements are horrendous. 1
jinnantonnixx Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 (edited) or maybe a lack of extinction events leads to stagnation and little evolution. if the game never changes theres little impetus for random mutations to make much difference From a biological point of view, maybe. But (admittedly using a sample size of 1) things change rapidly once a species evolves to use tools, language and is able to build on previous generations achievements. Edited April 14, 2015 by jinnantonnixx
LosOjos Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Not for me, thanks. I'd rather not commit suicide repeatedly and hope that the reconstructed clone that comes out the other side continues to live my life in accordance with my moral principles. Plus, as @sted says, information is still bound by the speed of light. And the bandwidth requirements are horrendous. The ability to create and destroy wormholes at will without unraveling space/time then...
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Here's a question for you science people... On the film interstellar the dad goes to another planet and an hour on that planet is considered to be 7 years on Earth, therefore he only ages 1hour but all the people on Earth have aged 7 years. Now I know there's something about if you travel really fast time slows down. But is this all the case and if so how!?!? This is the one subject that has always really confused me. Does that mean if I travel faster than the speed of light you'd go back in time? Does it mean I wouldn't age if I travelled consistently at the speed of light? I don't get it?
pcstru Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 The Earth is a fairly young planet (on the cosmological scale), but a more important consideration is that it has been subject to mass-extinction cataclysms during its history. Life as we know it has emerged within the last few instants and is clinging on until the next devastating event. Surely, that tells us that once life actually gets a foothold, it is incredibly tenacious and life survives, even when cataclysmic events happen that substantially reduce the quantity and variety. The problem is, the genesis of life on earth seems to have been a one off event. So we have a fairly rare star type with a rare planet in that it happens to be at the correct distance to be at the right temperature and it has things like a moon, plate tectonics, a magnetic field etc all of which might be essential to molecular chemistry grasping onto that one moment where some kind of organic molecule was knocked into a configuration which was self replicating but didn't get canned by a stray cosmic ray and then manages to survive, prosper and evolve. In other words, just as the universe may be a large number, the probability of life arising might be an infinitesimally small number. We might be alone. That is a possibility. It's possible that a planet conducive to life has emerged elsewhere in the universe and has had a far quieter history; perhaps this has allowed life to evolve to an unimaginable degree of sophistication. Given that I see people proposing black hole star drives, I have to wonder about unimaginable degrees of sophistication! The fact is, even with modest propulsion technology the human race could colonise the whole galaxy in a million years or so. If the probabilities of life are such that people believe life must arise elsewhere simply because the universe is so vast, then it surely would have arisen long enough ago to have already populated a galaxy -a million years being less than the blink of an eye on cosmological time-scales. The sheer scale of that kind of activity would leave tell tale signs - signs we simply do not see. So the basic paradox for those that think life must be out there is that the more likely they think that is, the more difficult it is to explain why we don't see evidence of it.
Carter Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Waiting for the rover to make it around the corner to find a small town of aliens
LosOjos Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Here's a question for you science people... On the film interstellar the dad goes to another planet and an hour on that planet is considered to be 7 years on Earth, therefore he only ages 1hour but all the people on Earth have aged 7 years. Now I know there's something about if you travel really fast time slows down. But is this all the case and if so how!?!? This is the one subject that has always really confused me. Does that mean if I travel faster than the speed of light you'd go back in time? Does it mean I wouldn't age if I travelled consistently at the speed of light? I don't get it? Don't put too much weight in anything that happens in Interstellar - it's wildly inaccurate. [i watched it last week - I think it might be the second worst film (after Lucy) I've seen this year]
abillybob Posted April 14, 2015 Posted April 14, 2015 Waiting for the rover to make it around the corner to find a small town of aliens Pfft way ahead of you it's already found it *Plays dramatic alien music*
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