Researchers consider chances of life on Mars

[teej]

Researchers can now say definitively that Mars once supported a watery environment, but whether the red planet could have ever supported life is still far from certain.


Opportunity makes tracks through the Meridiani Planum plains, where it has found evidence of past water.


The success of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity in finding tell-tale signs of past water at its Meridiani Planum landing site has left some researchers believing the region could have once been a habitable, albeit still hostile, environment.

"We can say 'yeah, it was probably a habitable environment, but was it an environment in which life could have arisen,'" said Cornell University's Steve Squyres, principal science investigator for the Mars rover mission, in a telephone interview.

[GeeFuss]

This calls for a celebration...Everyone make alien sigs

[Sal UK]

They should know it had life, We messed that one up first thats why they sent us here, And now look what Were doing to this one all over again.

Well they say History repeats its self....lol

[Lakie]

i wonder if there assuming that to support life there would need to be an atmospehere with a 78% Nitrogen/8% Oxygen combination and water on the planet, just because weve evolved that way (or were created - whatever you believe) dosent mean that it has to be the same on mars, for all we know life could be supported by a helium atmoshpere and cyclohexane (C6H12) seas

[Hellfighter]

all planet had life on them as the sun get older it get smaller in size when this happens life die away and other planets closer to the sun beget new life when the tempter is cooler on the surface of the planet. old store beginning of time. j/k

Grand father use to say to me when he work at NASA. he no more pass-on

[BADDOG]

This is very exciting and interesting news not least because if there is water below the Martian surface, (and a lot of scientists now believe that there is), it means we can sustain a manned mission there.

BB/mike makes a good point in his post in as much as an alien life form may not require an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere to live in.

We may yet find signs of past life on our near neighbour mars!

Regards

[Stu]

thats an interesting piece of news atchually, and asks questions about is there still life? Its a big planet, so we'll never know that soon, but its a step closer to an answer now

[zza1pqx]

You cant have life in a Helium enviroment because the Aliens would end up with squeaky voices and God wouldn't enjoy thier Sunday services.

[BADDOG]

Imagine what would happen if these aliens with squeaky voices invaded earth!!!!! It would be chaos and we would to be laughing to protect ourselves lol!!!!

Warm Regards and her's mud in your eye!!!!!

[zaitsev]

i agree with BB/Mike*MFA*, since i was a kid i have always wondered that. who knows, there maybe life there now, whats to say that they are aliens that are smaller than what we can detect? or not be able to pickup from our senses? whats to say that there arent aliens living among us, but we just cant sense them?

[Hektik420]

i think somethins just gonna go terribly wrong if or when they do find life on mars.. then agian i watch alot of sci-fi movies =\

[Sal UK]

Well I Always thought it was just a myth about mars being the bringer of war.
either last year or the year before(cant remember now) it was the closest to earth its been in 60 years, But draw your own conclusions.

As it drew closer Sept 11 happend and the war on terror began, 60 years ealier the second world war was underway, Maybe it wasnt a myth after all.

I have been tempted to look up what I can about history and wars and battles taking place within the times mars was close to earth, But I forgot to look, Maybe it would be worth looking into.

At least in another 60+ years they would expect something to happen if there was some link, Maybe its from whatever dusts from the mars serfice kicked up into space and and getting into the earths atmosphere and some how effecting people`s heads down here, After all was there a terrible storm on mars 60 years ago like there was as it was getting closer like it was last visit.

[Lakie]

"sometimes i think that the greatest piece of evidence that there is intelligent life on other planets is the fact that they havent tried to contact us"

Did you realise that NASA and the other world space agencies have worked out that the earth rotates on alot of axis', we all know that the earth roatates on an axis, but they recently discovered that that axis is rotating on another axis and so on, last i heard they knew of 6 and were working to find out if theres a 7th.

This is interesting when you start working backwards, alot of people have always suspected that the ancient cultures relied heavily on stars in their beliefs, but could never work some things out, they recently worked out for instance that the pyramids, when they were built were aligned with 3 certain stars, same with the mayans...

[BADDOG]

I think some research points to the fact that the great pyramids where aligned with the Orion star system some ten thousand years ago BB/Mike, as at that time Orion dominated the sky.

I'm not sure where I read or saw this but I do know it was quite recently.

Warm Regards