Nasa Mars rover finds organic matter in ancient lake bed

Started by Solar, June 07, 2018, 04:23:33 PM

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Solar

Sooo, there is, or rather, was life beyond Earth. But, there's no reason to consider this life dead, merely waiting for a time to come back to life, assuming there is spore material still abundant.

Curiosity digs up carbon compounds that could be food for life in sediments that formed 3bn years ago



Nasa's veteran Curiosity rover has found complex organic matter buried and preserved in ancient sediments that formed a vast lake bed on Mars more than 3bn years ago.

The discovery is the most compelling evidence yet that long before the planet became the parched world it is today, Martian lakes were a rich soup of carbon-based compounds that are necessary for life, at least as we know it.

Researchers cannot tell how the organic material formed and so leave open the crucial question: are the compounds remnants of past organisms; the product of chemical reactions with rocks; or were they brought to Mars in comets or other falling debris that slammed into the surface? All look the same in the tests performed.

But whatever the ultimate source of the material, if microbial life did find a foothold on Mars, the presence of organics meant it would not have gone hungry. "We know that on Earth microorganisms eat all sorts of organics. It's a valuable food source for them," said Jennifer Eigenbrode, a biogeochemist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

"While we don't know the source of the material, the amazing consistency of the results makes me think we have a slam-dunk signal for organics on Mars," Eigenbrode added. "It is not telling us that life was there, but it is saying that everything organisms really needed to live in that kind of environment, all of that was there."

The car-sized rover, which has trundled a careful 12 miles (19.3km) since it landed in the planet's Gale crater nearly six years ago, detected a slew of organic molecules in pieces of Martian mudstone it drilled from the ancient lake bed and heated in its onboard oven. When the samples reached 500 to 820C, the rover's instruments detected a range of so-called aromatic, aliphatic and thiophenic vapours. The science team believes these are breakdown products of even larger organic molecules, similar to those found in coal, which were trapped in the Martian rocks in the distant past.

"To me it is amazing that we can show we have organic matter preserved for more than 3bn years in these rocks," said Kirsten Siebach, a planetary geologist who was not involved in the work at Rice University in Houston, Texas. "This is very promising for the preservation of potential ancient life on the planet."

"These molecules could have been part of life, but they could also have been food for life," Siebach added. "To know that the water really was full of organic molecules really opens up the different ways that life could have existed on Mars."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/07/nasa-mars-rover-finds-organic-matter-in-ancient-lake-bed#img-1
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taxed

I thought we were conspiracy theorists for being open to this?  This is what annoys me about people who are not open minded.  For years I've seen people just poo-poo this like we (people like myself) were just crazy.  The universe is pretty big.
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Solar

Quote from: taxed on June 07, 2018, 04:25:33 PM
I thought we were conspiracy theorists for being open to this?  This is what annoys me about people who are not open minded.  For years I've seen people just poo-poo this like we (people like myself) were just crazy.  The universe is pretty big.
I know what you mean. I never once in my entire life thought we were the center of the universe, like so many out there.
To think, at one time it was heresy to say the earth revolved around the sun.
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Possum

Quote from: Solar on June 07, 2018, 04:28:14 PM
I know what you mean. I never once in my entire life thought we were the center of the universe, like so many out there.
To think, at one time it was heresy to say the earth revolved around the sun.
I believe this sums it up. 
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in
the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Written by Bill  Watterson

Solar

Quote from: s3779m on June 08, 2018, 04:55:14 AM
I believe this sums it up. 
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in
the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Written by Bill  Watterson
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

He is spot on! If you had the intellect to travel faster than light speed, why in the Hell would you want to waste your time dealing with people that are sooo stupid as to believe they are powerful enough, that they can change their own climate by killing off the one thing that supports life on the planet?
That would be like wales trying to do away with water because they think it's killing the ocean.

A process so complex, that even the planet is in constant flux trying to find a Utopian balance.
If Earth can't do it, what makes man so arrogant to think he is stronger than the sun, the earth and the moon?

Yes, people of earth really are this stupid, which also proves they're equally as dangerous, and no one in the known universe would ever want us to advance beyond our own solar system.
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Rotwang

Quote from: Solar on June 07, 2018, 04:23:33 PM
Sooo, there is, or rather, was life beyond Earth. But, there's no reason to consider this life dead, merely waiting for a time to come back to life, assuming there is spore material still abundant.

Curiosity digs up carbon compounds that could be food for life in sediments that formed 3bn years ago



Nasa's veteran Curiosity rover has found complex organic matter buried and preserved in ancient sediments that formed a vast lake bed on Mars more than 3bn years ago.

The discovery is the most compelling evidence yet that long before the planet became the parched world it is today, Martian lakes were a rich soup of carbon-based compounds that are necessary for life, at least as we know it.

Researchers cannot tell how the organic material formed and so leave open the crucial question: are the compounds remnants of past organisms; the product of chemical reactions with rocks; or were they brought to Mars in comets or other falling debris that slammed into the surface? All look the same in the tests performed.

But whatever the ultimate source of the material, if microbial life did find a foothold on Mars, the presence of organics meant it would not have gone hungry. "We know that on Earth microorganisms eat all sorts of organics. It's a valuable food source for them," said Jennifer Eigenbrode, a biogeochemist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

"While we don't know the source of the material, the amazing consistency of the results makes me think we have a slam-dunk signal for organics on Mars," Eigenbrode added. "It is not telling us that life was there, but it is saying that everything organisms really needed to live in that kind of environment, all of that was there."

The car-sized rover, which has trundled a careful 12 miles (19.3km) since it landed in the planet's Gale crater nearly six years ago, detected a slew of organic molecules in pieces of Martian mudstone it drilled from the ancient lake bed and heated in its onboard oven. When the samples reached 500 to 820C, the rover's instruments detected a range of so-called aromatic, aliphatic and thiophenic vapours. The science team believes these are breakdown products of even larger organic molecules, similar to those found in coal, which were trapped in the Martian rocks in the distant past.

"To me it is amazing that we can show we have organic matter preserved for more than 3bn years in these rocks," said Kirsten Siebach, a planetary geologist who was not involved in the work at Rice University in Houston, Texas. "This is very promising for the preservation of potential ancient life on the planet."

"These molecules could have been part of life, but they could also have been food for life," Siebach added. "To know that the water really was full of organic molecules really opens up the different ways that life could have existed on Mars."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/07/nasa-mars-rover-finds-organic-matter-in-ancient-lake-bed#img-1


Clearly this ancient life leaned DEMOCRAT.


And their idiotic policies killed them all off.

Solar

Quote from: Rotwang on June 08, 2018, 08:40:04 PM

Clearly this ancient life leaned DEMOCRAT.


And their idiotic policies killed them all off.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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