Jason Moyer on 23/11/2012 at 17:19
Personally I find it interesting from the "HOLY SHIT WE'RE LEARNING NEW THINGS ABOUT THIS VAST EMPTY FUCKING THING WE LIVE IN" perspective but YMMV.
faetal on 23/11/2012 at 17:25
Quote Posted by Yakoob
TBH, maybe I am just not into science enough, but I cant understand the excitment of "water on mars!" or "a bacteria!" I mean, it's all cool and all but... did you really think Earth was the only planet that has water, one of the most abundant compounds in, well, anywhere?
On earth, for example.
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Bacteria are a bit more interesting but still, it's not exactly all too unlikely some basic life-like forms would shape somewhere else; it's just a matter of time stumbling upon them.
In terms of something which spontaneously forms, a bacterium is like a metropolis of molecular reactions.
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Now, if they found more complex, semi-intelligent life forms, I could see getting excited about that. I hear the meat of space bunnies is quite the delicacy...
This is where sci-fi has in some respect de-sensitised us to just how amazing and specific an event the formation of life is.
Water is a big deal because it is the indispensable and fundamental solvent required to shape and move the molecules of life. Cell membranes form because of hydrophobicity, proteins fold in certain ways for the same reason. That's not to say no other solvent could do it
per se, but water has special properties - namely the ability to form h-bonds in such a way that makes a really very tiny and light molecule form a liquid rather than a gas (molecular weight of water is 18, carbon dioxide is 50) at life's temperature ranges (barring a few exceptions). The idea that life exists elsewhere is the universe is not so controversial, given the vastness of it, combined with the fact that we have already spotted a number of contenders for places that could in theory have the right conditions, but the idea that it might be found on the planet next door would be a probabilistic jackpot in terms of having something fun to study for generations to come.
SubJeff on 23/11/2012 at 21:50
I thought there was water on one of Jupiter's many awesome moons.
And if you can't see how monumental discovery of life on Mars would be, even if only bacterial or a bacterial equivalent then you really have been desensitized by sci-fi. Which is kind of sad.
Renzatic on 23/11/2012 at 22:01
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
I thought there was water on one of Jupiter's many awesome moons.
Yup. Europa. It's also the one likeliest place we'll find semi-complex life in the solar system outside of Earth.
Azaran on 23/11/2012 at 22:13
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Yup. Europa. It's also the one likeliest place we'll find semi-complex life in the solar system outside of Earth.
I saw a documentary on it a few months ago, apparently there's a huge ocean beneath the surface and the plan is to eventually send a submarine probe in there. I'd love to see what might be lurking in those depths.
Nicker on 23/11/2012 at 22:27
My bet is that they have photos of the 1999 Mars Polar lander (which "crashed" during its landing attempt), sitting on cinder blocks and stripped to the chassis.
Renzatic on 23/11/2012 at 22:40
Quote Posted by Azaran
I'd love to see what might be lurking in those depths.
Considering the best case scenario would be similar to an abyssal ocean environment here on Earth, I'd like to think it's filled with horrific sea creatures, like super deformed Angler fish three times the size of a blue whale with teeth as big as an old Buick.
And to make it even more nightmarish for Dethtoll, they secrete brown recluses when frightened.
Fafhrd on 24/11/2012 at 01:02
E
Quote Posted by Yakoob
"Hey guys we found something REALLY AWESOME but we ain't teeeeeeeelin!' Hmph. NASA the attention whores :|
TBH, maybe I am just not into science enough, but I cant understand the excitment of "water on mars!" or "a bacteria!" I mean, it's all cool and all but... did you really think Earth was the only planet that has water, one of the most abundant compounds in, well, anywhere?
The water itself wasn't the big deal. Like you said there's water everywhere (water ice in comets, water on Europa, etc). The water on Mars having been liquid and flowing at one point
is important, because that tells us that at one point Mars's average temperature was warm enough for liquid water to exist, which tells us that Mars may have been much more earthlike in the distant past, which in turn increases the chances that life formed there (given our current theories of how life formed here). The same thing with Europa having liquid oceans under the ice: it let's us know that Europa is geologically active enough to have high enough temperatures at its core to keep ice liquid.
demagogue on 24/11/2012 at 06:26
Speaking of geologically active, Mars not only had liquid water in the past, but active volcanism, so the environment and atmosphere were more like Earth's in terms of what things like stromatolites want to have.
I don't blame them a bit for both announcing something huge now (how could they resist!) and wanting to triple check every little detail to make absolutely sure it's legitimate & all the i's are dotted & t's crossed before giving the details, in essentially making one of the most historic announcements ever.
I think it's interesting because of course it's on a completely different track than Earth life. One of the most basic things you learn in biology is the tree of life with all the branches eventually connecting, and realizing you can make new branches, but life doesn't just start a new tree on Earth. But Mars, it'd be a completely different tree from the roots up. Everything about that sounds like learning things completely new.
Neb on 24/11/2012 at 08:03
I have a personal hope that the hypothesis about organic materials from space pushing the development of life in a certain direction (L as opposed to D amino acid stereoisomers) turns out to be false. It would be so amazing to not only find life on other planets, but to see how they'd developed in complete isolation to one another. (Can't be picky though, if we do find anything. Also, my point is kind of irrelevant anyhow if you consider the creation of planets as them being "seeded" in the first place.)
