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Is There Life on Mars

Prester John

Anti-homeopathy Illuminati member
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Well, the first thing you mention seems to be the guy in the charged sheet vortex thread.

On the second subject - define "life". Are we looking for "life as we know it, Jim", with cells and protein and nucleic acids and so on? If so, are we expecting the genetic code to be identical to the one we know? If so, would this not be very strong evidence of a common origin for such life?

Or if "life as we know it" nevertheless has a different genetic code (that is different base triplets corresponding to different amino acids), the implications are very different, surely.

Or thirdly, some other completely different chemical system nevertheless producing something we would still define as "life".

And maybe there are still more options.

Sorry, big questions, but these are the ones my mind gravitates to whenever the question of life on other planets is raised.

Rolfe.
 
The question specifically refers to the large tree like objects in the photographs from the Mars surveyor, which as you said are also displayed in the charged vortex blokes website.

So really i am asking is about macroscopic treelike life. Have the objects in the photographs had an adequate explanation ?
 
Athur C Clarke speaks of trees. One kilometer wide trees?

Peter Thompson speaks of one-meter structures, in pictures with 1.46 meter/pixel resolution??

Sure there might be life on Mars. That is why we are sending probes to investigate just that. But nothing in those pictures provides compelling evidence.

Hans
 
But i am very curious as to what they are tho'. If NASA thought they were evidence of life there would be a probe there now (or very shortly), so i have do not think they are "trees" at all.
 
The conditions on Mars are very different from Earth.

- Temperatures generally way below water's freezing point, somewhere below the freezing point of carbon dioxide.

- Atmospheric pressure around 10mBar (1/100 of what it is here).

- Humidity very low.

- Practically no free oxygen.

- Wind velocities very high, but effects of wind in the low pressure very limited.

- Little or no geological activity.

- Very limited or slow surface erosion.

- Little seasonal change.

- No precipitation.

Whatever features we observe may have taken thousands, even millions of years to form in this environment.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
The conditions on Mars are very different from Earth.

- Temperatures generally way below water's freezing point, somewhere below the freezing point of carbon dioxide.

- Atmospheric pressure around 10mBar (1/100 of what it is here).

- Humidity very low.

- Practically no free oxygen.

- Wind velocities very high, but effects of wind in the low pressure very limited.

- Little or no geological activity.

- Very limited or slow surface erosion.

- Little seasonal change.

- No precipitation.

Whatever features we observe may have taken thousands, even millions of years to form in this environment.

Hans
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Yes...but what are those things? I have never heard a convincing explanation (which probably only indicates I haven't looked in the right places). Arthur C. Clarke did express the opinion a while back that they were probably plant life.

So...what are they? Enquiring minds want to know.
 
Prester John said:
If NASA thought they were evidence of life there would be a probe there now (or very shortly),
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Even with the new "Faster, Cheaper, Better" philosophy of NASA's unmanned space probe division, it still takes up to a decade between the time a spacecraft first hits the drawing board and the time it's launched.
 
Trees on Mars? How boring.

It's much more fun to contemplate a vast ocean under the crust of Europa, an ocean teeming with all sorts of odd and wonderous fishes, wonderful alien fishies that have never, ever seen a fishing lure...

Here fishy fishy fishy!

Come on, I can't be the only one who wants to go fishing on Europa.
 
i was thinking rather of the probes that are landing now. If NASA seriously thought these photos showed "trees" they would have targetted one of the two landers there spirit/opportunity.
 
tracer said:

Even with the new "Faster, Cheaper, Better" philosophy of NASA's unmanned space probe division, it still takes over a decade between the time a spacecraft first hits the drawing board and the time it's launched.
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MER took 3 years from first design to launch.

It was fast, it was better, but it wasn't cheap. "Faster, better, cheaper" has fortunately gone bye-bye.
 
Keziah Mason said:
MER took 3 years from first design to launch.
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Okay, so my "over a decade" estimate was on the high side. But still -- it hasn't even been 3 years yet since the first sighting of those "trees" on Mars. (And even if it were, you'd have to add another 9 months for the flight time from Earth to Mars.)

Spirit and Opportunity were ready to go on time, but they were probably not designed to land in the kind of terrain that those "trees" are in. I guess.
 
tracer said:

But still -- it hasn't even been 3 years yet since the first sighting of those "trees" on Mars.
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The real issue is that no one in the scientific community(*) believes they are trees or anything remotely related to living organisms. Looking at structures from orbit and calling them trees is like looking through a telescope and seeing "canals".

(*)And no, Arthur C. Clarke doesn't count.


Spirit and Opportunity were ready to go on time, but they were probably not designed to land in the kind of terrain that those "trees" are in. I guess.
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They were designed to go where water might have existed in the past. If evidence of past water exists then evidence of past life may be found in those regions. Given the dubious nature of those "trees" I think this is by far the better choice of landing sites.
 
Keziah Mason said:


The real issue is that no one in the scientific community(*) believes they are trees or anything remotely related to living organisms. Looking at structures from orbit and calling them trees is like looking through a telescope and seeing "canals".

(*)And no, Arthur C. Clarke doesn't count.




They were designed to go where water might have existed in the past. If evidence of past water exists then evidence of past life may be found in those regions. Given the dubious nature of those "trees" I think this is by far the better choice of landing sites.
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Fair enough. But I'll ask again: does anyone know of an explanation of what they might be if not trees?

And why doesn't Arhtur C. Clarke count? He was a scientist before he was a writer of s/f.
 
Granted, and yes Europa should be visited :) but are they Photographic artifacts or real ? Are there any ideas as to what they might be?
 
Mark said:


Fair enough. But I'll ask again: does anyone know of an explanation of what they might be if not trees?
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Depends how big they are and how long they have been there.

BTW there are some strange looking things on venus. They look like radar domes.
 
geni said:


Depends how big they are and how long they have been there.

BTW there are some strange looking things on venus. They look like radar domes.
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OMG we're gonna be attacked from both directions.
 
Mark said:


Fair enough. But I'll ask again: does anyone know of an explanation of what they might be if not trees?
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A cracked sediment basin after evaporation? I'm not a geologist but that's my first impression.

But if that is incorrect then it doesn't mean they are trees. Even if scientists currently working in Mars geology can't readily identify them it doesn't mean they are trees. Trees are incredibly unlikely given the size of the features and what we know about the current conditions on Mars. This is nothing more than a rehash of the infamous canals.

And why doesn't Arhtur C. Clarke count? He was a scientist before he was a writer of s/f.
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He hasn't worked as a scientist in quite some time and I rather doubt he has kept up to date on current Mars studies. (Not to mention that IMO his suggesting these things are trees instead of some interesting and perhaps unknown geological phenomenon puts him smack into the woo-woo camp.)
 
Prester John said:


OMG we're gonna be attacked from both directions.
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Don't worry in order to keep you carm it has been explaned that they are old volcaneos
 
Keziah Mason said:


A cracked sediment basin after evaporation? I'm not a geologist but that's my first impression.

But if that is incorrect then it doesn't mean they are trees. Even if scientists currently working in Mars geology can't readily identify them it doesn't mean they are trees. Trees are incredibly unlikely given the size of the features and what we know about the current conditions on Mars. This is nothing more than a rehash of the infamous canals.



He hasn't worked as a scientist in quite some time and I rather doubt he has kept up to date on current Mars studies. (Not to mention that IMO his suggesting these things are trees instead of some interesting and perhaps unknown geological phenomenon puts him smack into the woo-woo camp.)
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Interesting...but to me they don't look concave at all. I am not saying they are trees, though. I am saying they should be (when possible) studied.

The canal comparison is not valid, I think. No one but Lowell ever really saw the "canals"...we can all see these things.

I wasn't aware that scientist's opinions become invalid after their active career ends. Your "woo woo" comment supports my view that anyone with a differening opinion (on this board) is immediately declared a woo-woo. ACC is hardly a woo-woo. Give me a break.
 
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