NASA may have unknowingly found and killed alien life on Mars 50 years ago, scientist claims

[Admin]

One researcher hypothesizes that experiments carried out by NASA's Viking landers in 1976 could have inadvertently killed microbes living in Martian rocks. Other experts are skeptical.

NASA may have unknowingly found and killed alien life on Mars 50 years ago, scientist claims : Read more

 

[rod]

Good news for life: Mars rivers flowed for long stretches long ago, https://forums.space.com/threads/go...ers-flowed-for-long-stretches-long-ago.62274/

Interesting how life on Mars reports keep popping up through the years

 

[billslugg]

ET life is reported often because the first person to make a verified claim stands to become the most celebrated person in history since dirt. There is no downside for a false claim. False claims can feed forever on:
"Shoulda' been here yesterday"
"Check's in the mail"
"Free beer tomorrow"
"Dog ate my pyrolytic mass spectrometer readout"
"Government is hiding the evidence"
"The sheer bulk of fake evidence should convince you"
"Open your eyes, Man!"

 

[DeltaGyver]

Did anyone ever suspect that Mars, is, the end result, of a 'flat-spin'-ing planet?

 

[billslugg]

What is a flat spinning planet?

 

[COLGeek]

What is a flat spinning planet?

+1. Not sure to what this term refers to.

In Depth | Mars – NASA Solar System Exploration

NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system.

solarsystem.nasa.gov

 

[billslugg]

Apparently "flat spinning planet" is a band aid to fix hydrostatic equilibrium problem with a large disc such as flat Earth. Large flat disc would quickly form a sphere, so they are saying "what if the disc rotates fast enough to maintain the disc shape?" For example: If the Earth spun just barely below the "fly apart" limit, it would be 3:1 diameter to thickness. Denser is better, pure uranium could get 5:1 before flying apart.
The opriginal poster is suggesting Mars is a disc facing us and rotating fast enough to stay stable. Which we can see, by simple observation, it is not, so the answer would be "no", no one is considering Mars as a disc.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Getting back to the subject of the article, I don't see anything wrong with the logic that we may not have good proof that there was no life form present in the samples taken by the Viking probes.

It would be interesting to see what the results would be for doing the same tests on the Atacama microbes. But, even that does not tell us what microbes might be like on Mars. If they exist, they are probably adapted to somewhat different chemistry and different temperatures than we expect for life on Earth. Wetting samples, heating samples, and any other disruptions of their actual natural environment should not be expected to produce the same effects as what we would see on Earth with microbes that evolved here.

There does seem to be sufficient energy sources and water to support some forms of extreme life on Mars, so the real question is whether life ever originated there and if it did, has it adapted well enough to still survive there now in at least some locations.

I don't think we can logically exclude the possibility without exploring a lot more of the potential habitats with a lot more sophisticated techniques. It would probably require a crewed mission and an extended stay to prove that life does not exist there now, and it would take a lot more to be confident that it had never gotten a start there.

On the other hand, it is logically possible to prove that is did occur there is we can find just one example.

 

[rod]

In my post #2, I cited some of Charles Darwin letters and applied to life on Mars reporting. Charles Darwin acknowledged that life evolving from non-living matter, there was no worthwhile evidence for this in science as he clearly stated in his 1882 letter. Apply this standard to life on Mars or origin of life on Mars. IMO, no worthwhile evidence presented shows life on Mars today, yesterday or a trillion years ago or abiogenesis took place on Mars. This includes Bill Clinton Administration presser on ALH84001 meteorite back in the 1990s, one time looked like the best evidence but not around today as previously thought. I found Charles Darwin statements in his 1871 and 1882 letters, refreshing to read.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Rod,

We have learned a lot since Charles Darwin started guessing about the origins of life on Earth. I see no reason to limit myself to the thinking based only on the knowledge available in 1882.

Finding life on another planet would be a big step in our learning process, if that ever occurs.

Not finding life on Mars, even after a thorough search, would not completely settle the question, though. However, as we learn more about the very early conditions on both Earth and Mars, and see where life is able to exist in places like the Atacoma Desert and in solid rocks miles below Earth's surface, it seems as though Mars is a pretty good test for whether life on Earth is an extremely rare or a rather common situation.

At this point, we have neither found life on Mars nor ruled out the possibility that we will find life on Mars. If not by better examination of the materials that the Viking landers tested, then perhaps somewhere else on the planet.

 

[rod]

Unclear Engineer, interesting thinking in your post #10. However, I am not limiting science to 1882 but pointing out Charles Darwin willingness to be objective and freely acknowledge the lack of evidence for abiogenesis in his days. The Mars life theme repeated over and over again to the public, lacks such a direct, and objective expression of the facts as Charles Darwin expressed in his letters.