5 Reasons Mars May Have Never Seen Life

Forbes ^ | 11/15/12 | Bruce Dorminey

[LibWhacker]

On Aug. 28, 2012, during the 22nd Martian day, or sol, after landing on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover drove about 52 feet (16 meters) eastward. The drive imprinted the wheel tracks visible in this image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

After decades of following the water, the reality that “life as we know it” may never have gotten a foothold on Mars’ surface, at least, has arguably taken root within the planetary science community.

If life ever was or is lurking on the Red planet, it’s been extremely coy about revealing itself.

The recent news that the Mars Curiosity rover has thus far detected no Methane is reminiscent of the frustration that followed the still contentious 1996 announcement that the Alan Hills Mars meteorite (ALH 84001) showed evidence of microfossils.

Thus, in the spirit of proving the negative, here are five reasons why Mars may have always been barren.

1. No evidence of organic molecules on Mars

“Barring methane [which is a hydrocarbon], there’s never been a single organic molecule found on Mars,” said David Catling, a planetary scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who stresses that he remains scientifically agnostic about the whole Mars life issue. “If life had been present, you would expect something to be left behind. If you put a bag of coal out in the rain, even in our oxygen-rich atmosphere, it’s still going to stick around quite a while.”

2. Too much Carbon Monoxide (CO) — hundreds of parts per million in the Martian atmosphere

“I have to work hard to invent stories where life can be on Mars and not eat that Carbon Monoxide (CO),” said...

[oh8eleven]

5 Reasons Mars May Have Never Seen Life
There's probably 105 reasons ... but that won't stop NASA from spending - i.e. wasting - billions more taxpayer dollars to prove nothing.

[kjam22]

#1 reason..... God didn’t create life there. Life doesn’t start from dead stuff, by its self.

[freedumb2003]

Lack of an illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator

[shibumi]

There’s life there even now.

I know it’s true because Art Bell and Giorgio Tsukahairballos told me so.

So there.

[LibWhacker]

6. Mars doesn’t have eyeballs.

[shibumi]

[rovenstinez]

Life...on Mars. Darwin’s creatures never got around to spawning in the elements there. Interesting.

[knarf]

I'm not sure NASA is the culprit.

IMO, NASA is primarilly an organization of curious scientists/craftsmen and I wonder ifs .... and a LOT has come from space exploration, not the least has been Teflon.

Not the exploration itself, but the "neccesity-is-the-mother-of-all-invention" efforts

I think we've pretty well established that we're all alone here and that there is God and He formed us ... but I have no problem at all exploring His creation ... much the same as we've explored our deep oceans.

I don't think we'll ever exhaust ourselves from being curious.

[TruthWillWin]

Reason number one: Democrats are not rushing there to give them stuff so they can buy votes.

[TomasUSMC]

LIFE WAS ALREADY DISCOVERED BY THE VIKING CRAFTS IN THE 70S AND THEY CALLED IT EXOTIC CHEMISTRY.

[MtnMan101]

"Where's the BOOM?"

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LibWhacker.

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LibWhacker.

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[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks LibWhacker. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks LibWhacker. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[SunkenCiv]

/bingo

http://mars.spherix.com/spie/spiehtml.htm

http://mars.spherix.com/mars.html

This system duplication of my pings is getting to be annoying.

[BenLurkin]

Astronauts could survive radiation on Mars, scientists say
By Monte Morin
November 17, 2012, 8:56 a.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-mars-radiation-20121116,0,1001455.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

Astronauts on a future mission to Mars could survive radiation levels on the Red Planet’s surface, according to a NASA expert.

At a recent press briefing, the scientist in charge of monitoring radiation data collected by the Curiosity Mars rover said energy levels on the planet’s surface fluctuate with time of day and the season but are roughly equivalent to what astronauts experience now in the International Space Station.

“Absolutely, astronauts can live in this environment,” said Don Hassler, of Boulder, Colo.’s, Southwest Research Institute. Hassler is the principal investigator for Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD.

“It’s never really been a question of if we can go to Mars, it’s a matter of when we go, how do we best protect our astronauts,” Hassler said.

On Earth, life is shielded from powerful radiation emitted by the sun and other cosmic sources by a thick atmosphere and a magnetic field. Mars however lacks those qualities, and visiting astronauts would be exposed to far higher levels of radiation.

Hassler said that even though the RAD has yet to experience a solar flare or storm — an event that would greatly increase radiation levels — it should be possible to manage the overall dosage of radiation that astronauts will sustain during a two-year mission to Mars.

[Carl Vehse]

"There's probably 105 reasons ... but that won't stop NASA from spending - i.e. wasting - billions more taxpayer dollars to prove nothing."

The five reasons Mars may have never seen life has broader implications. The "snake oil" about life on Mars, or our solar system or even in our galaxy, is getting harder and harder to sell.

Even simple life forms, like bacteria or algae, are not likely to exist elsewhere than Earth. What is minimized, if not ignored, by SETI enthusiasts are the significant features of Earth and our solar system important to life which suggest that the probability of life elsewhere in our galaxy is extremely small, if not basically zero.

Besides the size of the Earth and a habitable distance from the Sun, these features include its elemental composition, a sufficiently large amount of liquid water, the composition and thickness of Earth's atmosphere, the rate of rotation on its axis, the strength of the magnetic field, the amount of radioactive elements, the movement of the tectonic plates, the thickness of Earth's crust, the size, density, orbital distance and tidal action of Earth's moon, the nearly circular orbit of the Earth around the sun, the tilt of Earth's axis, the ratio of land-to-ocean surface area, the arrangement of continents relative to the slight eccentricity of the Earth's orbit and axis, the orbital plane of Earth and the other planets around the sun, the size and relative position of the large gaseous planets, like Jupiter and Saturn relative to that of the Earth and the inner planets, the orbital locations of asteroid and planetoid groups, the lack of large planets inside the Earth's orbit, the elemental composition of our sun, the age and size of our sun, the heliosphere of the sun, the position of our solar system with respect to the galactic arms, the relative position of our solar system from any supernovas, the location of our solar system relative to the galactic center, and the size and shape of our galaxy. No doubt more could be listed.

For each one of these features, (sometimes even small) changes one way or the other would result in conditions where maintaining life (or intelligent life) on Earth would be impossible or unlikely.

[Salamander]