Is there Life on Mars?

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#2032309 8-Jun-2018 18:50

gzt:
Fred99:

Organic molecules from heating sedimentary rock consistent with the type of compounds you'd get from heating rock which contained coal etc.

First time I heard that analysis. How close is that to reality? Ie; actual aged coal? It seems a way off.

Isn't coal 100% organic? As in trees?

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#2032358 8-Jun-2018 21:16

Organic as in carbon chemistry. Aromatic compounds as in benzene, toluene. Hydrocarbons - alkanes and alkenes, thiophene (containing sulphur).
But note that more interesting compounds have been found in meteorites - such as amino acids with unexplained asymmetric ratio of entaniomers that don't fit with expectations for abiotic synthesis - but with no other evidence that they have a biological origin.

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#2032775 9-Jun-2018 22:30

Once, there was life on Mars some billion years ago.

Today: no. Alone the (now) unhindered cosmic radiation sterilises the first meter of ground soil preventing the survival of any higher organisms.

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#2032787 9-Jun-2018 23:56

I propose that the methane found was the remnants of defecation of explorers from the ancient civilizations.

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#2032826 10-Jun-2018 09:37

Argument 1: There is no life on Mars. Life tends to change the environment to suit it if it has time to evolve. The environment on Mars is hostile to life, hence there is no life.

Argument 2: There is life on Mars. It has had time to adapt to the harsh conditions so it has moved underground to where it can survive. Anaerobic ice bacteria from earth could live there if they were shielded from the radiation.

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#2032830 10-Jun-2018 09:41

Rikkitic:

Argument 1: There is no life on Mars. Life tends to change the environment to suit it if it has time to evolve. The environment on Mars is hostile to life, hence there is no life.

Argument 2: There is life on Mars. It has had time to adapt to the harsh conditions so it has moved underground to where it can survive. Anaerobic ice bacteria from earth could live there if they were shielded from the radiation.

What is the definition of life? Anyone?

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#2032854 10-Jun-2018 10:02

A quick google indicates to me that life may never have been on Mars. Life started on Earth soon after the Great Bombardment, which brought water here. Water, rotating iron core to give us the magnetic field, heat, electricity, atmosphere. All was ripe. They say Mars iron core stopped when it was 500 million years old, probably caused by the Great Bombardment disrupting heat and cool cycles that churn the molten core and outer core. If thats the case then what probably started life on Earth, ended Mars ability to have life. As we know Mars had water, its possible that life started early then was fried. Possible it tasted long enough while the core slowed and cooled to evolve underground. But what is its food?

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#2032887 10-Jun-2018 10:13

There are earth bacteria that live on minerals.

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#2032894 10-Jun-2018 10:28

Rikkitic:

There are earth bacteria that live on minerals.

Good to know. They are amazing. They also live in boiling sulpher pools.

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#2032897 10-Jun-2018 11:01

Batman:

What is the definition of life? Anyone?

Michael Crichton tried that one. I think he came up with a warm rock, amongst other things. Our kind of life is organic, meaning carbon-based. It also means organised, as in organism, bits that work together to function. Life can make copies of itself, otherwise known as reproduction. It metabolises, using chemicals in its environment to produce reactions that release energy that it utilises for growth and survival. Beyond that it is anyone's guess.

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#2033050 10-Jun-2018 15:09

Life is a self-sustaining system for harvesting energy from its environment, which it uses to maintain the system.

Thermodynamically, life increases entropy in one place to create organisation (decreased entropy) elsewhere. (e.g. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/429162/physicist-derives-laws-of-thermodynamics-for-life-itself/)

I think this implies that life must expand... if it can't expand to get more "environment" (energy), it will eventually deplete all the "environment" it can reach, then it will run out of energy and die.

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#2033206 10-Jun-2018 18:44

tdgeek:

A quick google indicates to me that life may never have been on Mars.

Still unconfirmed.

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#2033627 11-Jun-2018 12:46

"What is life" etc

Life has been defined by the MRS GREN characteristics for quite sometime:

Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrition.

The definition excludes viruses and prions.

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#2033643 11-Jun-2018 13:04

The interesting thing about viruses and prions is that as far as I know, no-one can decide if they are alive or not.

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#2033666 11-Jun-2018 13:28

Rikkitic:

The interesting thing about viruses and prions is that as far as I know, no-one can decide if they are alive or not.

They can't even decide how they came to be. For example if they found a virus in a sample from Mars, it could be argued that it escaped from or devolved from a higher form of "life", thus is evidence that life existed there once. Then again if there's no evidence that there ever was higher life, it could be evidence that viruses could evolve directly from "primal soup" rather than exist and replicate parasitically - so perhaps they could be thought of as "life".

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