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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:33
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Something big is happening at JPL. There is buzz that they are going to annouce the discovery of life!
http://www.space.com/scienceastrono...nce_040229.html
PASADENA, California -- Evidence that suggests Mars was once a water-rich world is mounting as scientists scrutinize data from the Mars Exploration rover, Opportunity, busily at work in a small crater at Meridiani Planum. That information may well be leading to a biological bombshell of a finding that the red planet has been, and could well be now, an extraterrestrial home for life.
There is a palpable buzz here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California that something wonderful is about to happen in the exploration of Mars.
There is no doubt that the Opportunity Mars rover is relaying a mother lode of geological data. Using an array of tools carried by the golf cart-sized robot -- from spectrometers, a rock grinder, cameras and powerful microscopic imager -- scientists are carefully piecing together a compelling historical portrait of a wet and wild world.
Where Opportunity now roves, some scientists here suggest, could have been underneath a huge ocean or lake. But what has truly been uncovered by the robot at Meridiani Planum is under judicious and tight-lipped review.
Those findings and their implications are headed for a major press conference, rumored to occur early next week -- but given unanimity among rover scientists and agreement on how and who should unveil the dramatic findings. Turns out, even on Mars, a political and ego outcrop hangs over science.
There is speculation that the soil underneath the wheels of both Spirit and Opportunity rovers contains small amounts of water mixed with salt in a brine. That brew of dissolved salts keeps the mixture well below the freezing point of pure water, permitting it to exist in liquid form.
Opportunity has revisited select spots in the outcrop, drawn there, in part, to look for cross-beds -- sedimentary deposits that are formed in beach, river and sand-dune environments. Using its Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), the rover has carried out several cleaning and grinding sessions on exposed rock outcrop.
Cross-beds are patterns of curving lines or traces found within the strata of sandstone and other sedimentary rocks. Cross-bedding indicates the general direction and force of the wind or water that originally laid down the sediments.
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One scientist eagerly awaiting the news from Mars, particularly from Opportunity, is Gilbert Levin. He is Chairman of the Board and Executive Officer for Science of Spherix Incorporated in Beltsville, Maryland.
Levin is a former Viking Mars lander investigator. He has long argued that his 1976 Viking Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment found living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.
In 1997, Levin reported that simple laws of physics require water to occur as a liquid on the surface of Mars. Subsequent experiments and research have bolstered this view, he said, and reaffirms his Viking LR data regarding microbial life on Mars.
Levin detailed his Mars views in a SPACE.com phone interview and via email.
"It's hard to image why such bullet-proof evidence was denied for such a long time, and why those so vigorously denying it never did so by meeting the science, but merely by brushing it away," Levin said.
"Of course, now that it must be acknowledged by all that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars," Levin added, "this starts those denying the validity of the Mars LR data down the slippery slope leading to life."
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Eli
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Israel
Jul 2000
time: 07:33
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Bah.
After this thread title, even an announcement about water in the soil doesnt seem to be exciting. :/
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Tripledoc
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If there is life, probably bacteria, (vira is not technically life, but need a host), then the people who eventually go there can't come back. Quarantine restrictions must apply.
So finding life on Mars is not good news in my opinion.
Even sending back detailed analysis of the life found, might infect the recievers on earth with a computer virus.
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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Never thought of this. Can this be true? |
I don¨t know. If you were minister of health, would you allow an astronaut who had been exposed to alien bacteria to mingle with people on Earth?
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Proteus_MST
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Never thought of this. Can this be true? |
Don´t think so.
It would mean that special measures have to be taken,
for example bringing the Astronauts into a sealed Environment upon Landing (directly from the Landing Capsule, without any Exposure to fresh air) a letting them stay there under medical examination for some time.
But AFAIK most of them are measures which were also in Effect at the Beginning of Spacetravel (Apollo-Program and the like) as they already feared that the Astronauts could bring some Bacteriae from Moon to Earth..
But aside from this I doubt that any special measures would have to be taken.
But special Quarantine measures should also be taken to sterilize any probes which are sent to Mars, as Microorganisms from Earth could as well pollute Mars.
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02-03-2004 06:08
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Damn you Ned that said nothing about life on Mars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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