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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/12/2009 : 04:05:06
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I can't wait to see AiG's reaction!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 05:43:36 [Permalink]
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Fascinating stuff!
Hey, in the last image on that page, when you look at the enlarged version, both shots there shows a little, Slinky-like object in the lower-right quadrant. I've rearranged the photos vertically so they can be shown full size here, and put in red arrows, but haven't otherwise Photoshopped them.
What is that thing, I wonder? Me, I suspect it's something that fell off the Phoenix Lander, like a spring or maybe a flexible protective sheath for cabling. Or maybe a fusilli pasta noodle. But damned if it doesn't also look a bit like a fossil shell.
He-ee-re's Slinky:
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/12/2009 13:37:21 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 07:30:10 [Permalink]
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It DOES look a bit like a fossil.
It actually looks more like some plastic tubing, the kind you pass electric cable through, as its widths seems to be constant...
I wonder what it can be, it'd surprise me if NASA had left some unnecessary tubing to ride in the probe. Mabe somebody should ask Phil Plait to investigate for us... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/12/2009 : 09:11:48 [Permalink]
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More likely, I think, it's just a bit of debris photoed in such conditions that it looks like, well, whatever you'd like to see it to be. Happens all the time here on Earth.
But wouldn't be exciting if it really were a fossil of a multicelluar organism?!
In all truth though, I don't regard life on Mars as all that noteworthy. It would be interesting, surely, as it would show just how tough extremophils can be and how diverse an environment they can thrive in, but we already have better than an inkling of that. Of course, it would lend support to the abiogenesis hypothesis, but again, it would not be definitive. It would neither refute the existence of God nor support it, even though the Bible apologists might have to strain their imaginations to tuck it into Scripture. Heh, this last is what I'd like to see. 
But until these organisms (if any) can be brought back and studied in the lab, actually finding them will only assist NASA in getting funding.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 03/12/2009 09:13:04 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 09:33:21 [Permalink]
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Differences would be fascinating, either we'd have something totally alien or we'd have something quite similar, DNA and proteins. This later option might hint at panspermia, especially if it involve a totally different genetic code. On the other hand, it might just mean that the path life took an earth is a natural and likely consequence of environmental conditions common in the universe (my personal opinion based on what Abiogenesis have taught us so far).
I will also give us an indication of how common is life in the universe. If life developed on Mars, then it'd confirm not only that life is not too demanding in term of the conditions it requires as well as the biochemistry of life is not particularly unlikely.
Truly, it would rise the number of likely inhabited planets in the universe, and hence, the number of likely intelligent life forms. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 18:51:46 [Permalink]
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filthy:
| In all truth though, I don't regard life on Mars as all that noteworthy. |
Gasp. Can you imagine the scientific insights this could give us? |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 19:52:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
filthy:
| In all truth though, I don't regard life on Mars as all that noteworthy. |
Gasp. Can you imagine the scientific insights this could give us?
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There goes Filthy, thinking outside of the box again.  |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2009 : 21:02:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
In all truth though, I don't regard life on Mars as all that noteworthy. |
This, from a guy who is tickled pink (probably even literally) by Naked Mole Rats?
Finding any kind of Martian (excepting, maybe, the HG Wells type) would make me so happy. And the discovery of life there would mean a boom for both humanity's life sciences and exploration of space. (So long as those pursuits were not engaged in by angry Wellsean Martians.)
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 07:40:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
In all truth though, I don't regard life on Mars as all that noteworthy. |
[vador]I find your lack of curiosity... disturbing [/vador]. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/13/2009 : 11:33:57 [Permalink]
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So what insights might it give us about single-celled (probably) extremophiles that we don't already have? Unless they should be really strange, notably in chemical composition, very little. And unless some can be brought back to the lab, or a lander with a lab of some sort is put to use, we won't even know that little bit.
I'm not saying that the thought & prospect is not exciting; it most certainly is and I hope that it is so. I am merely saying that the main practical use for the information as it stands at the moment is to yank the fundie-religious community around like a bent yo-yo.
Beyond that, I am sure enough that wherever conditions are right, abiogenesis, or something, has/will take place and anything found on Mars will be unremarkable beyond it's discovery. The big mystery is that of what conditions might be right. I don't think that our species will last long enough to ever know more than bits and pieces of it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 03/13/2009 11:40:59 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 11:46:23 [Permalink]
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filthy, I think you're assuming any life found on Mars will be extremely similar to life found on Earth. But it might be totally different. What if a probe discovers silicon-based life instead of the carbon-based lifeforms found here? That would have a huge impact on the biological sciences. Or, if others have pointed out, what if it employs a replication mechanism other than DNA? The truth is, we just won't know until we discover something. But whatever they find, the reaction will be far from ho-hum, even if it just means that life is common in the Universe. Right now, we can't even say that with confidence.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 13:20:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
filthy, I think you're assuming any life found on Mars will be extremely similar to life found on Earth. But it might be totally different. What if a probe discovers silicon-based life instead of the carbon-based lifeforms found here? That would have a huge impact on the biological sciences. Or, if others have pointed out, what if it employs a replication mechanism other than DNA? The truth is, we just won't know until we discover something. But whatever they find, the reaction will be far from ho-hum, even if it just means that life is common in the Universe. Right now, we can't even say that with confidence.
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Not at all, and you've just made my point for me. Until these organisms, again: if any, are subjected to scientific inquiry and examination, they will not be even as remarkable as those extremophils we have here on Earth. I remind: Mars does not have even a fraction of the diverse habitats that we enjoy even considering possible subterranean habitats, therefore evolution, while working as usual, would not create the diversity that we are familiar with.
I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility of other-than-carbon based life, but I am not willing to buy a science fiction pig in a poke. I'm a skeptic, so I'll leave that to the Scientologists. Let us find the organism(s) and study them before we go off the deep end. Hell, we don't even know for sure that liquid water has been found. | This mosaic assembled from Phoenix images show the spacecraft's three landing legs. Splotches of Martian material on the landing leg strut at left could be liquid saline-water. See the enlargement below. Credit: Kenneth Kremer, Marco Di Lorenzo, NASA/JPL/UA/Max Planck Institute |
Emphasis mine.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 14:05:01 [Permalink]
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| It'd seem likely that the lifeforms would be carbon based, but apart from that they might be very different. They might not be using DNA, for example... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 15:19:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Not at all, and you've just made my point for me. Until these organisms, again: if any, are subjected to scientific inquiry and examination, they will not be even as remarkable as those extremophils we have here on Earth. |
Well, they will be remarkable in that they will be the first non-Earth lifeforms ever discovered. I'd say that's pretty special, whatever their composition. But if it leaves you unimpressed, you need only wait for the alien invasion. When the Grays land their mother ship on the White House lawn, I don't think even you, filthy, will be changing the channel.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 03/13/2009 15:19:36 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 15:28:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
It'd seem likely that the lifeforms would be carbon based, but apart from that they might be very different. They might not be using DNA, for example...
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But again, we speculate. There's nothing wrong with speculation as long as we don't take it too seriously until some factual support for or against it is found. Currently, we have only Earth's life forms for reference and really can't even guess with any reliability as to what a Martian life form might be -- if they exist, and I hope they do as much as anyone. But I'm not falling into the what-if-maybe trap; I've been shown to be wrong too many times before.
Me, I'm starting at the beginning; are those splotches on the landing gear actually water as, well, speculated? Prove that out and then I'll be open to considering further speculations as to what might be living in it.
Now that I think of it, a chemical analysis of that water, if indeed water it is,  , would go quite a way toward telling us what could live in it.
Using known extremophils as examples -- some colonial bacteria live in a strong dilute of sulfuric acid excreted by themselves -- those speculations would be doozies, and then it would be time to shut up and go bug-hunting.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2009 : 15:46:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by filthy
Not at all, and you've just made my point for me. Until these organisms, again: if any, are subjected to scientific inquiry and examination, they will not be even as remarkable as those extremophils we have here on Earth. |
Well, they will be remarkable in that they will be the first non-Earth lifeforms ever discovered. I'd say that's pretty special, whatever their composition. But if it leaves you unimpressed, you need only wait for the alien invasion. When the Grays land their mother ship on the White House lawn, I don't think even you, filthy, will be changing the channel.
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I am vastly impressed that we have these amazing landers crawling about on Mars. I am astonished that they have done so very well in their explorations. But I am not impressed by the virtual hysteria -- bad word for it, I know, but the only one I can think of -- over the possibility of living creatures on that planet. Find the bug, tell me about it, and then I'll break out the good booze.
Until then, the possibility, even though it might be looking slightly better, is only good for flogging AiG, et al. Thus far; we shall see.
Edit: The Greys would have be too stupid to breath if they willingly landed anywhere near DC, and that would refute their very existence, utterly.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 03/13/2009 15:50:35 |
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This oughta Ham things a bit…
