NASA to annouce life on Mars

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Each local strain will be placed on the bacterial tree of life.

That's not a bacterial tree of life. Bacteria have a strict biological definition.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


That's not a bacterial tree of life. Bacteria have a strict biological definition.

I am not sure what you mean. There must be different types of bacterial strains. Some more complex than others. Do you mean all bacteria evolved in lines from one original bacteria, and no bacteria evolved further by themselves and broke off from these lines creating new strains?

[Kuciwalker]

All bacteria have a "common ancestor".

(Incidentially, some primary-source articles we were reading in AP Biology indicate that this "common ancestor" was not, in fact, a single cell but rather a community of proto-cells, with the primary mechanism of inheritence being mobile genetic elements rather than parent-child.)

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by skywalker
Why would the microbes be spreading at a constant rate away from the point of origin?

Interplanetary diffusion of life goes on at fairly a constant rate, compared to the long timespan. However, interstallar diffusion is perhaps another matter. I am not quite sure how life is supposed to travel from star system to star system.

[The Mad Monk]

Cometary bodies flung out-system by close encounters with a gas giant or star.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Lancer

I hope there's ancient oil and/or coal on Mars that we can turn into rocket fuel.

Wouldn't that be a quite slow and dirty rocket?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
I am not sure what you mean. There must be different types of bacterial strains. Some more complex than others. Do you mean all bacteria evolved in lines from one original bacteria, and no bacteria evolved further by themselves and broke off from these lines creating new strains?

Background information

[Chemical Ollie]

What says any possible micro organisms on Mars would be bacteria? They are probably a class of organisms not really applicable to our known terrestrial classifications.

[-Jrabbit]

Mars is pretty damn hospitable by human standards. In the Summer it can reach 40 F around the equator. But winter can drop Below 250F around the poles.

Sounds like Duluth...

[My Wife Hates CIV]

mars is a cold dead world. you will find that it always has been a cold dead world. nasa comes out and claims it found that water was (at one time) there on mars. well no duh! i could have told you that for a lot less than 800 million freakin bucks. there are pictures of old river beds - you can see from space that at one time water flowed. now, from those pics you can't say where the water came from, how long it was there and where it went. but, these questions are still unknowns. i bet mars was cold and dead probably not long after it formed. the core probably cooled in less than a billion years. no ozone, no magnetic field, probably never much for an atmosphere - not what i would call a place good for life. at least a not a good place for life to START.

say what you will... in the end i'll be right!

[The Viceroy]

Mars still has a small % of Oxygen, its now evident that water did once flow, and there is evidence to suggest it still remains in ice form.

As for what happened to it, well, there are as many theories as people interested in the subject. I prefer the disaster scenario, where Mars was hit by meteorite (no coincidence that it lies right next to the asteroid belt), lost enough mass to reduce the planets gravity below the trickle point. At this point, water cannot hold the oxygen and hydrogen, and splits up, Hydrogen making a rather quick exit, and Oxygen slowly following. The vast majority of Oxygen that did remain, bonded with Carbon forming Carbon dioxide, and hence we have 96% CO2, 2% O2, 2% other atmosphere.

As for life, well .. all I can say is, there are some pretty unhospitable places on earth, and still we find life there .. It seems whenever we draw limits on where life can exist, we go and find some where we didn't believe it possible.

We are explorers by nature, and the experience that colonising the moon and mars will bring (if we ever get round to it) will help the future generations one day finally move out of this system. If we can build colonies on the moon and mars, who needs a earth like planet ?? any lump of rock with the basic elements will do

[Barinthus]

Mars have this huge inner core of ice, thought this was a common knowledge?

Arnold Schwarzenegger even went there!

[The Viceroy]

No .. that hasn't happened .. YET !

[Barinthus]

Sure it have in Total Rekall

[Ned]

The Viceroy, you post implies that we could make Mars habitable again by adding just a little more mass. How much more do we need?