i know this may be boring to you, but DOD is right. actually, the discovery of life off the planet earth is probably the single biggest discovery ever. i may sound like i am overstating things, but i don't know how i can. this has so many implications thru the scientific, philisophical, and religious world. what does finding life on another planet do to the basis of religion? i know its not going to destroy religion, because people are still going to believe it, but it goes against everything that it says.
How impossible is it for microbes to have been transported on the landers that we've sent over there? Yeah, vast void of empty cold deadly space and whatnot, but those are tough little buggers, folks.
This has been speculated on past missions to other planets. One of the fears people have always had is that merely by us sending terrestrial vehicles there, we could be changing the "biology" of the planet due to the organisms that may be transferred by the exploration vehicles. I'm sure that if things can live near volcanic vents in the sea, there's a good chance they could adapt and survive up there. The question would be how quickly could they adapt? Would they die off before they could adapt to a world with hardly anything to feed off?
"One microbe said to the other microbe, did you just grab my ass Pete. Wait a minute, WTF is that! Help!"
ok if we find some form of life and that is really the first planet we have studied .just think if we could send little rover guys to all the other zillion planets out there. odds are there would be "stuff" at a ton of them. whatever stuff that might be who knows. exciting stuff.
I can't wait to hear the announcement. I keep checking on the Net. Did they announce a time? I'm another guy who's hoping it's not another one of those NASA "important announcements" that turn out to be nothing much dicernable to us "average people". It'll probably be here within minutes, anyway. edit: 1 pm.? Cool! edit-2: what the hell is this?? Looks like a shell! (or something! Plant fossil??)
The problem of course is that we'd be long dead by the time the little rover guys got to those planets outside the solar system.
Rover finds Mars was wet enough for life - - - - - - - - - - - - By Paul Recer March 2, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mars rover Opportunity has found evidence that the Red Planet was once wet enough for life to exist there, but the robot has not found any direct traces of living organisms, NASA scientists announced Tuesday. A study of a fine, layered rock by the rover detected evidence of sulfates and other minerals that form in the presence of water. The finding suggests that if there had been life present when the rocks were formed, then the living conditions could have permitted an organism to flourish. The study, however, has found no direct evidence of life. "NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check whether at least one part of Mars had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life," James Garvin, a lead NASA scientist, said in a statement. "Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Yes." Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, are controlled by a team of scientists working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Scientists there earlier in the week said they had found exciting results from the work of Opportunity. Details were not immediately available. Steve Squyres, a Cornell University scientist and principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity, said the rover's study of formations near its landing site show that liquid water once flowed there, changing the chemistry and composition of the rocks. "We've been able to read the telltale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion," Squyres said in a statement. Additional studies will determine if the rocks were laid down by minerals formed at the bottom of a salty lake or sea. Opportunity landed five weeks ago near an exposed bedrock embedded in the wall of a small crater. The rover conducted a chemical analysis of the outcrop, including a rock named El Capitan by scientists, and found a concentration of sulphur rich in magnesium, iron and other sulfate salts. Opportunity's instrument also detected jarosite, an iron sulfate mineral. On Earth, such minerals would have formed in water and the presence of jarosite suggests an acid-rich lake or hot springs environment, scientists said. John Grotzinger, a geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said the evidence of water also includes three direct visual observations: the presence in El Capitan of small voids, called vugs; the presence of spherules, and the layering of the rock. Images shows that El Capitan is pocked with .4-inch long indentations or voids that may have once contained salt minerals. Such voids, or vugs, form when crystals of salt minerals aggregate within a rock sitting in salty water. Later processes cause the crystals to disappear, leaving behind the voids within the rock. BB-sized particles, called spherules, also formed in the rock. These can be formed from molten droplets originating from meteor impacts or from volcanic action, or they can precipitate from solution inside of porous rock. NASA scientists said that since the spherules are randomly distributed they probably formed in water. If they were of volcanic or impact origin, the spherules would probably concentrate in rock layers that were exposed at the time of those events, the researchers said in a statement. The rock also has layers in a pattern called crossbedding that can be formed by water or wind action, the statement said. More study of the target rocks is planned. Officials said they will maneuver the six-wheeled rover closer to the outcrop to get closer, more detailed views.
why do you feel that to be so??? I don't know about the Koran, but the Bible says absolutely nothing about the possibility of life on other planets. help me out here, because I've readh through it a few times, and I'm not remembering what leads you to this conclusion.
Pat Robertson says that any life outside of Earth is work of the devil. this seems to be a fairly common belief among more orthadox believers they seem to believe that any ET life that we would discover is just the work of Satan posing as aliens to confuse and undermine that the only life outside of earth is their God, Satan and Angelic/Demonic spirits
no doubt.... seems to me it wouldnt be a far stretch to say that if God created this world...than whos to say he hasnt had a hand in other planets as well? Pat Robertson and Falwell and jokers like that I dont take seriously anyway...they say anyting that willget them more money...I refuse to give them any credence as authoritive theologians.
Well, it was fun anticipating what they would say. Dang CNN and Fox only showed the very begining of the press conference and then went to some politics news regarding ugh.....Kerry.
