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Life on Mars Likely, Scientist ClaimsFollow

#1 Aug 03 2004 at 7:35 PM Rating: Excellent
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i got this from www.space.com,
it looked so intresting i thought i'd share it with you.


Squeezed out of the soil

In perusing rover imagery, Levin reports there is clear
evidence for liquid water existing under Martian environmental conditions. "The images should be reviewed against the background of surface temperatures as varying from below to above freezing reported by both Spirit and Opportunity," he explained.

Levin points to the potential for mud puddles on Mars, showing an image of clearly disturbed martian soil after rover airbags bounced across Mars’ surface. Possible standing water and sinkholes can also be seen in rover imagery, according to his analysis. In some pictures, the often-discussed "blueberries, " tiny spheres of material, disappear as if submerged underneath mud-like surroundings, he added.

Then there are tracks left by the machines as they roll across the martian terrain. Self-taken shots by the robots show what Levin said appears to be water squeezed out of the soil which then freezes into a whitish residue left in embedded tread marks.

Similarly, Levin added, are images taken by Opportunity of the results from an operation of the robot’s Rock Abrasion Tool, or RAT. The center of that particular RAT hole is largely white, possibly indicating the formation of frost since the hole was drilled, he noted.

Organisms there now?

"The evidence presented strongly indicates the presence of liquid water or moisture at the Mars Exploration Rover sites," Levin reported at the SPIE meeting. "Mars today could support many forms of terrestrial microbial life."

Other scientists are cautious to point out that the presence of water does not guarantee life. Rather, it means one crucial ingredient exists.

There is clear evidence for frost or ice on Mars, the former Viking experimenter stated. At some point of the day -- when temperatures climb above freezing -- there’s going to be moisture…"and that’s enough to support microorganisms," he said.

None of the many new findings about Mars revealed by Spirit and Opportunity, Levin concluded, conflict with, or render untenable, his long-held belief that the Viking Labeled Release experiment in 1976 detected living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.

"I contend that today you could take a great many Earth microorganisms, put them on Mars, and they’d grow," Levin said. "And I think there are organisms there now. They may have come from Earth. They may have originated on Mars. They may have come from a third place that populated both Mars and Earth."

Rocks can be kicked up from one planet by an asteroid impact, drift through space for eons, then land on the other. Other studies have shown that these rocks could potentially transport life, in a dormant phase, from one planet to the other.

Levin said that he thinks the "greatest speculation" would be to say there can be no life on Mars.

#2 Aug 03 2004 at 7:37 PM Rating: Default
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There's no life on Mars, he's a whack-job.
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#3 Aug 03 2004 at 7:43 PM Rating: Decent
Hey smash, organisms can live on mars. If Kerry actually thinks he can win , organisms can live on Mars. I mean hell you think you know politics. Everythings possible.
#4 Aug 03 2004 at 7:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Yes, that's a good point. It's about as likely that there's life on Mars that Bush will win the coming election.
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#5 Aug 03 2004 at 7:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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actually there also claiming that recent evidence found on a meteor in Antartica that our first organisms came from mars and were shuttled here on a space ferry, well, actually thats not quite right, they claim that a chunk broke of mara and drifted around the solar system until it eventually hit earth, bringing all it's nasty little germs (our ancestors) with it. Or so they say...
#6 Aug 03 2004 at 8:01 PM Rating: Decent
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actually there also claiming that recent evidence found on a meteor in Antartica that our first organisms came from mars and were shuttled here on a space ferry, well, actually thats not quite right, they claim that a chunk broke of mara and drifted around the solar system until it eventually hit earth, bringing all it's nasty little germs (our ancestors) with it. Or so they say...


I think it's quite likely the other way around, honestly. If there's any evidence found of organisms on Mars, the first peer review will be if they could have broken free from Earth and gotten there.

Look, don't get me wrong, I don't think "life" is some particularly fascinating and unique to Earth thing. I just think it's unlikely that the conditions on Mars would have ever reached the point where it would have happened there.

I think you're more likely to find something in one of the larger moons of Jupiter or Saturn because of the more favorable conditions that would have existed.

That's just me, though.
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#7 Aug 03 2004 at 8:04 PM Rating: Decent
Exactly

"Thats just me though"

Thats all your statements ever are. Just you and nothing else. You see Smasharoo there is this thing called a distant past which you weren't alive in. mars could of possibly been able to support life back then. Hard to imagine I know. The solar system is constantly changing everyday and wait...... isn't MARS part of the solar system? GOD IM SMART.
#8 Aug 03 2004 at 8:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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In a discovery that has scientists rethinking where they came from, a groundbreaking study has revealed that living organisms could emigrate through the solar system in the relatively cool womb of a space rock, spreading life with little more fanfare than the arrival of a shooting star.

The finding, hidden from scientists for more than 15 years in the magnetic structure of a well-studied meteorite found in Antarctica, presents a serious alternative to the idea that life on Earth arose spontaneously out of some primordial soup.

The bottom line: Our ancestors may have been Martians.

The study by researchers at Caltech, Vanderbildt and McGill universities reveals that a Mars rock known as Allan Hills, thought since 1996 to contain fossilized remains of Martian bacteria, remained cool enough to sustain embedded microbial life during its violent ejection from Mars and subsequent 16 million-year journey to Earth.

Amazingly, even during a fiery entry through Earth's atmosphere, the interior of the rock never got much hotter than a bad summer day in New York City -- 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).

Leading scientists from several fields said the research renews vigor in the idea that life on Earth could have come from somewhere else, part of a broader theory called panspermia.


Panspermia -- Monday on SPACE.com
Visit SPACE.com on Monday for a special report on panspermia, the theory that the seeds of life are everywhere. You might be surprised at the potential cousins in your celestial closet.


Are we all aliens?

"The study demonstrates clearly what we had previously only speculated about -- that the conditions of launch, space transit and reentry are not too harsh for dormant spores and other microorganisms to survive," said Jay Melosh, a geophysicist at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Melosh, who was not involved in the research but had previously shown that rocks could be ejected from planets without being overheated, says mounting evidence shows any life that might have existed millions of years ago on a wetter, warmer Mars could have traveled to Earth.

The long, rocky road to Earth

The Allan Hills meteorite, also called ALH84001, may be the most studied and debated rock in the universe. Made of stuff thought to be 4.5 billion years old, the object was carved from a half-mile (1 kilometer) under the Martian surface about 16 million years ago when an asteroid or comet hit the Red Planet.

After eons of wanderings, Earth's gravity finally got hold of the rock and reeled it in. That was sometime between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago.

Researchers found the meteorite in 1984, stuck in Antarctica's Allan Hills ice field. A 1996 study of the rock claimed to find fossilized trails of microbial life that originated on Mars. Many scientists doubted the finding, saying the features could have been created on Earth or might not have indicated microbial life at all.

Debate has swirled around the rock ever since.

But even if Allan Hills is dead as a doornail -- the meteorite does not contain actual life, only the apparent signatures of life -- the new study demonstrates that space rocks are capable of acting as vessels for the transport of organisms around the solar system.

Like an interplanetary shuttle service for life as we know it.

And there seems to no shortage of shuttles: Experts estimate that roughly a ton of Martian rocks fall on Earth every year. More than a dozen have been found, while others bury themselves in sand or ice, or disappear into the seas.

"Our findings give a boost to panspermia, since they are the first experimental evidence that a rock could be transferred from one planet to another without being heat sterilized," said Benjamin Weiss of the California Institute of Technology and lead author of the study.

The study is published in the October 27 issue of the journal Science.

How about interstellar seeding?

The panspermia theory holds that the seeds of life are everywhere, and that life on Earth could be the result of germs or other dormant organisms that traveled here from another star system, then evolved into spiders and lizards, Labradors and lawyers.

Researchers familiar with the new Allan Hills study said it does lend support to the idea of interstellar seeding.

However, a rock spending millions of years in interstellar space would face doses of cosmic rays that would likely destroy any genetic material inside a live or dormant creature, said astronomer Donald Brownlee, coauthor of the book Rare Earth.

In an interview, Brownlee characterized a trip from Mars to Earth as much less hazardous, pointing out that for some rocks it takes less than a year.

"I think this is a marvelous interplanetary transportation system, but a transportation system between stars is highly questionable," Brownlee said.

Questionable, but not impossible, others said.


sorry for all the writing but it's a big article and theres a page two... That must show that scientist's are taking this seriously

Also conditions on mars are actually one of the most favourable to support life in our solar syatem, it all to do with the climate.
#9 Aug 03 2004 at 9:03 PM Rating: Decent
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Why do people think that all forms of life require the same conditions as we do to exist?

Oxegen, Nitrogen, CO2... really...
so we notice that places all over the place that have none of these. No life...

Why do we assume that any alien must be so similar to us.
Probably because anything else is beyond the scope of our collective understanding.

Every form of life percieves the universe in a very specific way.
We are a microcosm in ourselves. We are looking in one direction and in one direction only.
Aliens, Spirit, Faeries, Gods, Daemons..
They are all the same thing.
WAY Different than Us.
in a nutshell ^~
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#10 Aug 03 2004 at 9:38 PM Rating: Good
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What's funny is that I've seen Levin enough on the History and Discovery channels, that when I was reading the quotes, I was hearing them in his voice... ;)

The guy's a bit over ambitious, but not too out of it. He strikes me as the kind of guy who just gets really excited about the work, and will tend to exagerate things a bit to make it more interesting seeming to others. He's big into mars exploration, so he highlights anything that makes that more promising. If getting people excited about life on mars gets priority to NASA for a mars mission, that's what he'll do.

I agree with many of his ideas about the importance of space exporation, and even perhaps of mars exploration. I happen to disagree almost completely with him on how to go about it though. The guy wants to focus on single-shot "groundbreaking" missions to mars, with the idea of generating the same level of excitement that the moonlandings generated, whereas I favor a gradual build up of technology and capability in near earth (Earth and moon), leading to sustainable missions to mars in actual reusable spacecraft.

I think that singleshot missions are a mistake, especially to someplace as far as mars. Even if successful, you don't get much out of it, they cost a lot, and you haven't made the next one any easier. And the longer a mission, especially when everything about the mission (ship, crew, gear, everthing) is custom made for that mission and untested, your odds of failure start to skyrocket. This was a harsh enough reality with moonshots where we were only traveling about a week round trip. No way in hell will that sort of approach work with a marsshot that'll take upwards to 2 years to complete. The sheer number of things that would have to not fail successively for 2 years straight is way too high.


As far as approaches to space go, we'd be far better off focusing on near earth. Finish the space station. Work on better and more efficient earth to station orbiters (shuttle replacement). Design simple "space box" type ships that can be assembled in space for travel around purely in space. These could literaly be boxes, with nothing but some attitude jets, a couple universal airlock module connector thingies (just like what we use to connect parts of the station), and a couple of reusable/refuelable rocket motors strapped to the back. Once you've got a station, and a ship, you can literally travel to the moon for the cost of the fuel alone (all other supplies would cost the same docked in the station.

Build standard modules designed to attach to the sides of the thing via the airlock connector thingies. These can be anything. Extra space. Extra supplies. Labs. Landing modules. You name it. Now you've got something that can tool around near earth, very cheaply, carry a large number of people (half dozen for a moon trip easily), capture and release satelites if needed, dock with the station (or another ship if needed), and land people on the moon.

Don't think in terms of building single "big" things. Do it in steps. Build a cheap way to get mass up to the station. Then build the cheapest way to get that mass around in space. Test it. Work out the bugs. Then build a bigger version of what you've already got as your mars ship. The result will be a ship that will be much more efficient for a mars mission, since the ship itself will never have to withstand launch from earth (except when packaged in bits). It can have a much lighter mass to thrust ratio since it doesn't have to be built sturdily enough to handle a gravity well. If you've been working on refuelable motors, you can work up one that will be efficient and reusable. You can also refuel it in orbit. This would allow you to do something as simple as a shakedown cruise to work out any bugs in the thing before you're a few million miles away from earth and traveling too fast to turn around. And when you're done, you still have your mars ship, ready to be refueled, re-outfitted, and repaired and sent on another mission.


That method is literally 100 times better and safer then what Levin wants to do. It'll take longer is all. But every single thing I listed up there is something we can do technologically today (as well as a few other things I didn't add that could be done like spinning sections for artificial gravity for the trip). And we'd also be able to work on moon bases along the way, instead of just focusing on mars. But Levin is a pretty focused guy, and all he cars about is mars (and I suspect proving that his experiment way back then really did prove that life existed on mars).
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#11 Aug 03 2004 at 9:48 PM Rating: Excellent
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Gbaji, you made a nice point about focusing our efforts closer to the earth to begin with which i wholeheartedly agree with. I think the next step should be a space elevator, a space elevator is basically a geostationary satellite in orbit above the earth with a very long cable attatched to it, this cable can be used to transport matter into space at a fraction of the energy. Once this is in place it would be possible to build a secure moon base from which more missions could be based. I know this sounds like science fiction but it is actually possible, a guy on the space website did some calculations and reckopns it could be st-up by 2015 if the goverment begin to act now.
#12 Aug 03 2004 at 10:27 PM Rating: Good
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I've always been leary of the apparent simplicity of a space elevator though. I've not done the math myself, nor am I a physicist by trade, but something in my brain says that there will be forces involved that people are missing that will cause problems.

First off, a geostationary orbit works because an object at exactly that height requires exactly that the right orbital velocity to stay in orbit equal to the relative rotational speed of the earth (one rotation every 24 hours). Obviously, an object on the ground, or near the ground can't stay in "orbit" at the same velocity though, or you could just float in air at any time (we all rotate around the earth's diameter once per day even if we can't feel it).

So the problem is all the areas in between. You have to have a cable between the top and bottom, right? And that cable must have mass. How heavy is 23,000 miles worth of cable strong enough to hold its own "weight"? That mass wont be accounted for. The mass of cable say at 10,000 feet, would need to rotate around the earth at a much faster speed then the mass at the top in order to stay in "orbit". Since it *can't* move that fast (it's fixed to an object that's rotating around the earth at one orbit per 24 hours), it's orbit will "decay". That's a complex way of saying that the entire mass of the cable will continually be falling toward earth (in exactly the way every other object not moving at orbital speeds will).

What's keeping it up? The end point is at exactly the height and speed to keep *its* mass stable in that orbit. But every foot of the cable between it and the ground is moving too slow to stay where it is. It's all going to fall. More correctly, it's going to constantly pull downward at the mass at the top. The mass at the top isn't pulling away at an equal force (it's balanced all by itself before accounting for any other forces). It will be pulled downward. Once that happens, it will also be too low for that speed to keep it in orbit, and the whole mess will come crashing down.


The only way to correct for that is to have it stationed in a higher orbit, but still moving at 1 orbit per day. Normally, that rate would cause it to fly away from the earth, but if you place it correctly, you should be able to position it such that the downward pull of the cable's weight perfectly balances the desire for the top to fly away. It could be done. I don't know how to do the math to calculate how high it would need to be, but there should be a point at which the whole thing would balance out.


But there are still problems. The effective "pull" of the cable will vary based on the height of any particular section. Essentially, the cable will get heavier at the bottom, and lighter at the top (it will seem to get lighter as it approaches the orbital velocity for its height above the ground). This would cause tremendous stresses on the cable itself. Some folks have this view that the cable would just hang there, but it's really the equivalent of a string being swung around in a circle. It's being pulled tight in order to keep it grom being drawn back in by gravity. I think we have materials that can handle that stress, but I'm not sure.


The final problem is payload. Sure. You can easily counterweight whatever you are lifting by dropping load from the top. This would seem to be extremely energy efficient (and it would be). However, remember that weights are heaver at the bottom then the top. So when you add payload to the bottom to pull it up, the counterweight at the top wont effectively weigh *anything* (it's balanced and "floating" right? If it had downward "weight", it would fall all by itself). It's pure lift for quite some bit. Also, as the payload moves up, the total pull on the whole structure will change. This would require that the orbital height of the mass at the end point be changed. You'd have to increase its orbit in order to allow for the extra mass being lifted by the cable (or the whole mess will come crashing down). Either that, or you'd need to put rockets on your end point to keep it floating in place (which would cut out alot of your "free" energy costs). It wouldn't take as much thrust as that to lift it on a rocket normally, but the only thing you aren't paying for is wind resistance. Everything else is still there. And if it's a slow trip, it might take *more* rocket fuel to get something to the top, then via a conventional rocket.

Um. And you've have to continually adjust either the height of the top mass (length of the elevator), or adjust the rockets firing in order to keep it at the same spot for both the mass coming up *and* the counterweight. I suppose theoretically, as one increases in weight the other will decrease (but I'm not actually sure if that's the same amount by raw distance, since gravity equations are square functions IIRC). It would be a mess to calculate and adjust for though.

Again. I haven't done the math, and I'm no more then an amateur in terms of the physics, so I can't say how significant those problems would be and how much cheaper the end result might be in relation to a standard rocket. However, I do know enough to know that you can't just put an object in geostationary orbit and hang a rope down and expect it to work. It's a heck of a lot more complex then that. It may end up being too complex to make it feasible. I tend to think that more efficient rockets, and/or magnetic railgun type systems might work better in the long run. You also avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. The space elevator would be a considerable expense and a major engineering accomplishment. However, the entire structure is vulnerable to failure. If something goes wrong, and the weights aren't balanced, you lose the whole thing. With rockets and other single payload based systems, if something fails once, you lose that payload. Yeah. That sucks and all (especially if there's people involved), but you can move on. You get one similar level failure on a space elevator, and you've lost your entire system. It's just gone. That seems really really risky to me.

My whole approach is to work with simple things that we know how to do, and build them gradually in steps into a process that becomes more efficient with use. We have a lot of experience with rockets. We can make them better and more efficient as time goes by. We've got the whole X-prize thing going on, and it looks like there are several viable contenders, with ideas that are much cheaper then currently used methods for putting people into orbit (gogo private industry). Build each piece for what it needs to do. Build craft desgned to do nothing more then travel in and out of orbit. Make them as efficient as possible at that task. Build a station that does nothing but sit in orbit to be a destination point for those first craft. Build ships that are designed to do nothing but move from point to point in orbit and beyond (near earth). Build landers and equipment designed to do nothing but hitch rides on those craft and be used for satellite work, and or moon missions. From that base, build ships designed for interplanetary missions, now complete with the ability to set satellites in orbit around other planets easily, and land people and material to the surface of that planet (presumably mars in this case). Each step is relatively easy, and builds up a body of knowledge and ability that makes the next step easy as well.

Sending one shot probes and such to other planets, while not wasteful, should take a backseat to building up our process and capabilities in the near earth environment. That's our wading pool. That's where we'll learn how to operate in space. We need to concentrate on mastering that environment so that the next stage seems easy.

Edited, Tue Aug 3 23:31:38 2004 by gbaji
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#13 Aug 04 2004 at 7:13 AM Rating: Excellent
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the counterweight at the top wont effectively weigh *anything*


I am in no way qualifyed to answer any technical questions but i do remember a few things, onw would be that

Weight=Mass*Gravity

Basically what this would mean in a situation involving a space elevator that objects at the bottom would be ten times heavier than objects at the top (since earths gravity is about 10 for simplicities sake). Anyway i agree with you, shooting for the stars is fine by itself but we should be focusing on strengthening our resources before that time.
#14 Aug 04 2004 at 11:52 PM Rating: Decent
the way i understand is that enough methane has been found on the planet to suggest that some kind of life may exist, or that volcanic activity has placed it there.

problem is that methane needs to be replenished in order to stay in the atmosphere, and considering that mars is geologicaly dead insofar as volcanic activity, so the later of the two explanations seems more unlikely than the life on mars thingy...

if this interests you, you should look up richard c. hogland... i think his website is enterprisemission.com or something like that, and he has been talking alot about the life on mars thingy.. hes an ex-nasa employee, who many consider a quack, but only you can judge for yourself...

as for me.. im waiting for cassini to drop the probe into titan on x-mas eve.. thatll be cool
#15 Aug 06 2004 at 9:20 PM Rating: Good
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walkerscrisps wrote:
Quote:
the counterweight at the top wont effectively weigh *anything*


I am in no way qualifyed to answer any technical questions but i do remember a few things, onw would be that

Weight=Mass*Gravity

Basically what this would mean in a situation involving a space elevator that objects at the bottom would be ten times heavier than objects at the top (since earths gravity is about 10 for simplicities sake). Anyway i agree with you, shooting for the stars is fine by itself but we should be focusing on strengthening our resources before that time.


Remember, I said it wont "effectively" weigh anything. Lot's of folks get the concepts of weight and mass confused (I'm assuming you do understand it though based on your statement).

Mass is a measure of, well. Mass. An objects density times it's volume (which is circular too I suppose). It's just a measure of how much "stuff" is there.

Weight is a measure of force. The basic equation used is F=MA (force equals mass times acceleration). It's a parallel to your equation.

Gravity is an effect that applies acceleration to an object (it's actually a force, but we can assume you meant "accleration due to gravity" and everything's ok). So Weight = Masss * gravity is exactly the same formula as F=MA.

The gravitational force of an object is based on the Masses of the two objects, divided the square of the distance between them. Note, that this is a force. This force is applied to both objects equally. Um. But since F=MA, and you're applying it to a mass, the more massive the object you are applying it to, the lower the resulting acceleration on it (seems obvious. You have to push a lot harder to move a giant boulder, then a small stone, right?). So, your spaceship floating around the earth pulls on the earth just as hard as the earth pulls on it. But since your spaceship is vastly less massive, it'll move towards the earth much faster then the earth will move towards it.

We usually just talk about gravity as an acceleration, since that's ultimatly what it does. But it's important to note that the closer the two objects are, the more acceleration they'll have towards eachother.

Remember when I said that the object at the top "effectively" doesn't weigh anything? That's because the acceleration it gets as a result of gravity during each second exactly cancels out the outward movement it has due to its velocity. It still has "weight", but the result of that weight doesn't do anything. It just hangs there. It's a bit more complex then that, since velocity and acceleration are two different things. If your velocity was straight out, the acceleration from gravity would eventually eat it away and pull it back in. But if your velocity is tangental to the direction of the acceleration (like an orbit!), then the direction you are being pulled in from gravity changes constantly, keeping you spinning around the gravity well.


I'm hoping that wasn't too hard to follow (take a first year physics course, and you'll learn that much and more). My whole point though is that in order to have something "float" at any given altitude, its tangental velocity must be sufficient to keep it there. The closer any mass is to the mass of the Earth, the faster it has to be moving in that tangental direction to counter the pull of gravity. But the whole structure of a space elevator has to be rotating around the earth at the same speed. But different parts are at different distances from the earth, meaning that they wont "float". They'll fall. It's a nice idea at first view, but I just don't see it being feasible.
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#16 Aug 07 2004 at 7:27 AM Rating: Good
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i followed most of that but i'm still trying to think of a counter argument, if i think of something i'll post it ^^
#17 Aug 07 2004 at 7:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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yeh i followed most of that but i'm still thinking about it, well done.
#18 Aug 07 2004 at 9:26 AM Rating: Decent
O_O

*Grabs a dictionary and starts to read his way throught the novel that is this thread*
#19 Aug 07 2004 at 12:37 PM Rating: Excellent
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That methane link is really interesting me. with such a short atmospheric half life, it either has to come from something living, or from volcanoes, or I suppose from something we haven't discovered yet. They have found a few volcanoes, but not enough to account for the amount of Methane

I say there is a good chance that bacteria of some sort exist on mars, wether they come from here or not, who knows? but there is no chance of intelligent life developing under current conditions there.

Except for whatever keeps shooting down mars probes.
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