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I think it is the general population's consensus that there is no life on mars. With the minuscule amount of area we have explored, I think there is ample oppor

I think it is the general population's consensus that there is no life on mars. With the minuscule amount of area we have explored, I think there is ample opportunity to still discover life. Considering most landing sites have been selected for their ease of touchdown and not possibility of life, I'd day we still have a fair chance of finding it. This is especially true in light of these new findings.

bfe 15y ago
Great point that most people don't get. As Robert Zubrin said, you could drop 100 Spirit/Opportunity level rovers into the Rocky Mountains and probably never find prehistoric fossils, while a team of four human scientists would easily find a lot. The probes are amazing and important, but no substitute for sending humans.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
I think there's also an element of the scientific bias for assuming the mundane leaking into the public. Which is fine, but scientists have learned to temper that by maintaining a strong sense of curiosity and determination. Personally, my gut instinct is that the chances of life having existed on Mars at some point are quite high, above 90%. But the evidence for such may be very hard to come by. What if all life on Mars had never advanced beyond a unicellular level? What if most/all life died out one or two billion years ago? How challenging will it be to find evidence of that life? Especially when we only have a few robotic explorers to work with?
- athom 15y ago
  Microbial mats look like one of the most promising candidates, and NASA has a team seriously exploring this possibility: http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page6.cfm http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page6.cfm These mats tend to build up in layers, and often form structures known as stromatolites. You can find some examples both at the NASA team's site (http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page2.cfm http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page2.cfm) and here: http://www.evolutionaryresearch.org/stromatolites.htm http://www.evolutionaryresearch.org/stromatolites.htm There used to be a page up, claiming to show the remains of actual stromatolites on Mars, but it seems to be completely gone now (Spirit Finds Stromatolites, http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm). The Wayback Machine has it at http://web.archive.org/web/20081120022703/http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20081120022703/http://www.xenotec... but I'd probably rank its credibility with the Face On Mars. EDIT: Just to make it clear, all actual stromatolites in these links are definitely of terrestrial origin! (At least, I think they are)
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Personally I couldn't care less about finding microbial life. I want to find animal-sized life or heavy vegetation. That Mars might house single-celled life does nothing for my excitement.
- owenmarshall 15y ago
  Seriously? Remember, we all started as microbes. Finding any life outside our planet would be a huge discovery; even if it's billions of years away from growing legs, we could learn so much about life in its early stages, which could answer some big questions about our own evolution.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    True, but I'd rather send a fleet of robots over there and bottle 1000 different soil samples for later study, and then get on with terraforming the place, perhaps by crashing a comet into it. 'But what if we contaminate this otherwise pristine natural environment' seems to get trotted out in every discussion of Martian exploration and is (IMHO) slowing us down.
    - cryptoz 15y ago
      The International Space Station is the most expensive object humanity has ever built. You think that the reason we are slow at terraforming Mars is because we're debating about life there?! No. The reason we're slow is because it would take millennia and incomprehensible amounts of money. I say we land there with humans, spend a few decades checking the place out, then begin with the terraforming.
      - nkassis 15y ago
        Wait that tin can floating around above us is the most expensive thing we've built? Wow, that's sort of kills all the dreams of things like building an enterprise size ship in space for a long while. I guess it's a function of cheap transport to LEO. If we get that, other things will follow. Go Space X!

bfe 15y ago

Great point that most people don't get. As Robert Zubrin said, you could drop 100 Spirit/Opportunity level rovers into the Rocky Mountains and probably never find prehistoric fossils, while a team of four human scientists would easily find a lot. The probes are amazing and important, but no substitute for sending humans.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

I think there's also an element of the scientific bias for assuming the mundane leaking into the public. Which is fine, but scientists have learned to temper that by maintaining a strong sense of curiosity and determination. Personally, my gut instinct is that the chances of life having existed on Mars at some point are quite high, above 90%. But the evidence for such may be very hard to come by. What if all life on Mars had never advanced beyond a unicellular level? What if most/all life died out one or two billion years ago? How challenging will it be to find evidence of that life? Especially when we only have a few robotic explorers to work with?

athom 15y ago
Microbial mats look like one of the most promising candidates, and NASA has a team seriously exploring this possibility: http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page6.cfm http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page6.cfm These mats tend to build up in layers, and often form structures known as stromatolites. You can find some examples both at the NASA team's site (http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page2.cfm http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/students/this_month/page2.cfm) and here: http://www.evolutionaryresearch.org/stromatolites.htm http://www.evolutionaryresearch.org/stromatolites.htm There used to be a page up, claiming to show the remains of actual stromatolites on Mars, but it seems to be completely gone now (Spirit Finds Stromatolites, http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm). The Wayback Machine has it at http://web.archive.org/web/20081120022703/http://www.xenotechresearch.com/marsstro.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20081120022703/http://www.xenotec... but I'd probably rank its credibility with the Face On Mars. EDIT: Just to make it clear, all actual stromatolites in these links are definitely of terrestrial origin! (At least, I think they are)

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Personally I couldn't care less about finding microbial life. I want to find animal-sized life or heavy vegetation. That Mars might house single-celled life does nothing for my excitement.

owenmarshall 15y ago
Seriously? Remember, we all started as microbes. Finding any life outside our planet would be a huge discovery; even if it's billions of years away from growing legs, we could learn so much about life in its early stages, which could answer some big questions about our own evolution.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  True, but I'd rather send a fleet of robots over there and bottle 1000 different soil samples for later study, and then get on with terraforming the place, perhaps by crashing a comet into it. 'But what if we contaminate this otherwise pristine natural environment' seems to get trotted out in every discussion of Martian exploration and is (IMHO) slowing us down.
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    The International Space Station is the most expensive object humanity has ever built. You think that the reason we are slow at terraforming Mars is because we're debating about life there?! No. The reason we're slow is because it would take millennia and incomprehensible amounts of money. I say we land there with humans, spend a few decades checking the place out, then begin with the terraforming.
    - nkassis 15y ago
      Wait that tin can floating around above us is the most expensive thing we've built? Wow, that's sort of kills all the dreams of things like building an enterprise size ship in space for a long while. I guess it's a function of cheap transport to LEO. If we get that, other things will follow. Go Space X!