Mars landing may have destroyed martian life forms by Siri

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Mars landing may have destroyed martian life forms

POSTED BY: SIRI
UPDATED: Thursday, January 11, 2007 04:01
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Monday, January 8, 2007 7:54 PM

"Did probes find Martian life ... or kill it off?
Researcher says spacecraft could have destroyed peroxide-based microbes

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I read a story yesterday about the Martian landing several years ago. The article reported that scientists now think there may be life forms that are based on hydrogen peroxide and not H2O. It went on to stay that it may be that water does still occasionally flows on Mars in very limited amounts. The earlier landing used water and in another experiement fire to test for lifeforms. But they were looking for lifeforms as they exist on Earth and the techniques that were used would have destroyed hydrogen peroxide based lifeforms.

I am not a scientist (obviously) and may be quoting inaccurately - but the gist of the story was that at the time of this landing we didn't have the same knowledge base and may have destroyed existing lifeforms. There are plans to try again with different techniques. I always find these stories fascinating even if they don't turn out as anticipated.

While I probably won't have an opportunity to do any space exploring during my lifetime - it's exciting to think of the possibilities. I'm assuming there are a few more space explorer wanabees out there.

Siri

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 12:55 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

I think I recall that there were 3 tests for life which the Viking craft used , and that 2 of the test provided a negative result. The 3rd test was 'inconclusive', and one of the origianl NASA engineers is convinced that had the last test been more accurate, it would have detected life.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 2:40 AM

PIRATECAT

Coast to Coast had their show on it you probably know that. Richard C Hoagland talked about it. I always like listening to him.

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 7:06 AM

SHINYED

Well...we must have done something real bad on Mars at some point. Why else would they have attacked Earth for the last 50 years?

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 2:26 PM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by ShinyEd:
Well...we must have done something real bad on Mars at some point. Why else would they have attacked Earth for the last 50 years?

Tell me about it. Those god damned Mars bars are killing us........we should have saw it coming. We could always just apologize to the little green men, shit we can send them Paris Hilton as a peace offering......Well, it might work......

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 3:56 PM

TRAVELER

Paris Hilton! We want to communicate, not make them fashion conscience. Please!

Traveler

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007 6:26 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I heard that we sent the Mars rovers with peace offering blankets for our little green friends that were soaked in smallpox.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 6:32 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by ShinyEd:
Well...we must have done something real bad on Mars at some point. Why else would they have attacked Earth for the last 50 years?

Marvin's been annoyed at us for a long time, because we're blocking his view of Venus, not because of anything we DID.

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:31 AM

SIRI

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I heard that we sent the Mars rovers with peace offering blankets for our little green friends that were soaked in smallpox.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

Hey there - I hadn't heard about that. I'll bet that's exactly what happened ... and they're trying to hide it from us. Maybe we can get Mr. Universe (or Mrs. Universe since the Mr. bit the dust) - to get the word out.

Siri

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:40 AM

SKYWALKEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Siri:
Researcher says spacecraft could have destroyed peroxide-based microbes

That'll teach Martian microbes not to mess with us. LOL

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:24 AM

PIRATECAT

Not to fear we have a secret weapon Its ITs called Slim Whitman's greatest hits. Yodel Leh Hey Ha. Little green men are going down. Gettem big Jim Brown. Bam.

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:46 PM

TRAVELER

No Martians shall survive the wrath of Zim.

Traveler

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:16 PM

VALERIEBEAN

Speaking as a professional astronomer, I don't think we've committed some heinous Martian crime by killing a few microbes. There's plenty more roadkill here on Earth. Also, if the is life on Mars, it is not likely that it was confined to the single location of the Mars landing... consider if an alien spacecraft crashed in the middle of the Saharah desert and, after finding nothing the first few miles, assumed there was no life in the desert (and no water). Life in the vicinity may simply not be detected because we don't have time to search the whole planet. But if you wander the Sahara long enough, you're bound to get bitten by something unpleasant.

Our greatest challenge in discovering other life will most certainly be our ability to recognize it. Our first test is usually carbon and water because we see those as building blocks. How broad should our view of life be? It gets tricky. I don't know if you played this experiment in high school biology, but fire meets the five basic criteria of life, yet we don't consider it alive... so if we find something that meets our "life" criteria, will we ever really know?

The other fun fact to consider is that it is possible to form amino acids on comets (I was surprised when I heard it too), so it could be possible that the building blocks of life began in the Black anyway! But then, an amino acid is not considered "life" either. It is simply a building block.

A colleague of mine took a survey of astronomers and non-astronomers about life in the universe... I thought it might be interesting to share:
http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~skane/survey/

Just as a disclaimer, my specialty is black holes, not missions to Mars, but if you have more astronomy questions, just ask! :)

valeriebean

"Just like handgrenades, you don't want to run into a horseshoe stake in the dark." -Gouda, FFF.net

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Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:01 AM

SIRI

Quote:
Originally posted by valeriebean:
Speaking as a professional astronomer, I don't think we've committed some heinous Martian crime by killing a few microbes. There's plenty more roadkill here on Earth......

Our greatest challenge in discovering other life will most certainly be our ability to recognize it......

Interesting comments - BTW in my original post, I wasn't necessarily saying that we had "committed some heinous Martian crime..." but rather the discovery that perhaps we didn't know what we were looking for which is useful for future endeavors of this nature. It's something that sci fi folks have frequently used as part of their storylines, i.e., life might look different in different parts of the 'verse - not Joss' verse but other writers.

I'm going to check out the site you listed.

"We're very much alone out here."

Siri

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