So NASA believes there is strong evidence of flowing water on Mars. Wow.
I’m not really up on the science. I recommend heading here for a better understanding. But the consequences are enormous. Could there be life on Mars? How would you react if there was life on Mars.
It’s crazy. But I’m honestly starting to believe we’ll find life somewhere in space in my lifetime.
Am I crazy?
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32 responses to “Off Topic: Life On Mars”
Yes
Also No, ive been a firm believer that there is microbial life somewhere out there my whole life. intelligent life i don’t think we will find, but microscopic or building block life… for sure.
Nice Schroedinger answer man lol 😉
Hands up those who hear David Bowie when they read this.
Jokes aside
No, you are not crazy.
I personally think that the possibility is very real. Even on Earth we find new forms of life (in the jungles and in the depth of the oceans) so why not too in space where it is far more vast?
Didn’t think of Bowie, but this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfn5b_a5gLM
Yes Its Bowie. Watch this
It’s entirely probable but it’s not going to be the common perception of “life” that we hold of green humanoids and creatures that inhabit the open plains of fiction. It will more be microbes, bacteria and other single cell organisms.
You never know, maybe we’ll have a Star Ocean style scenario where we do find life but they ironically have kept their distance to not disturb the natural flow of our own history.
They’re waiting for us to develop warp drive 😛
Beyond very simple organisms, I don’t see there being huge potential for martian life- the temperatures and freeze/thaw cycles would be tough on anything multicellular
I liked that show.
I knew there’d be one.
It’s the Cabal.
It depends what you mean by life. Will we find little green men in our lifetime? No. We probably won’t find it in the lifetime of our species.
Are there single cell type organisms on Mars? Probably. There’s evidence that there is also single cell life on one of the moons of Jupiter called Europa.
I’ve always been of the opinion that it is inifinitely more likely that there is other life around. “Earth is the only home to any sort of life” just seems too far fetched, and in fact to me, far less likely than life being fairly common.
Given the vast scale of this whole universe malarky, and the sheer diversity of planets/moons/systems, it seems infinitely more likely that there is a tonne of life scattered around.
Just look at how much our view of our own solar system has changed recently with all the discoveries of the huge variety of moons for example, and how we are now realising that there is actually quite a lot of water scattered throughout the solar system, where as not long ago it was assumed all moons were pretty much the same as our moon; dull lifeless rocks pocketed with meteor impact craters.
As for Intelligent Life, that’s a whole different story. Of the 4.5bill years of Earth existence, and billions (trillions?) of different creatures that have come and gone, only one single species, us, has reached our level of ‘intelligence’, by which I mean able to build things that go into space for example.
Sure you have other ‘low level’ intelligence such as dolphins, octopus, crows, great apes etc, but they are still no where even close to making a space rocket for example, let alone even understanding for example what ‘gravity’ might be.
So yeah, my opinion, life is likely very widely spread in various simplistic single/multi-cell forms.
‘Intelligent’ life, able to make space rockets and telescopes, is much less widespread, maybe one set per sun system, likely much, much less.
The key factor for me for developing ‘intelligent’ life such as ourselves is something that cannot be very much controlled at all, that being the TIME and LUCK needed to evolve to this point.
Just think, for example if that asteroid/comet that finished off the dinosaurs had missed, who knows what would have happened. Our deep past ancestors would likely still be scurrying around, no bigger than a door mouse.
I’m a bit of a space buff, I think about these things frequently and could go on and on 😉
Whatever they find, it’ll at least be better than what’s on Earth…
🙁
ILY. <3
There’s definitely life out there. It is utterly inconceivable to me that, in the vast infinity of space, we’re on our own.
I used to lie back and stare at the stars a lot. I used to imagine that on one of those glittery lights was another dude lying back, looking at the stars, thinking about me lying there looking at him. I’d feel close to them in that moment. I would hope that they were as baked as I was.
you never know man, they might be, like, MORE baked because they have like, man, some sort of like ULTRA weed thats like totes legal man! Like WOAH……! i better go lie down 😉
I think the same things man, hence why i never telescope while naked. They might have better scopes heheh
Doesn’t this also drastically increase the chances of colonising Mars? They described the water as ‘briney’ but it certainly doesn’t seem too far of a stretch now for humans to tap and filter it?
Theres two sides to it. One say ‘good, life there’, others say ‘bad, life there’
Good, life there- because it means two lots of life in solar system.
Bad, life there- because it would mean if we did decide to do something there, there is a lot more to consider regarding introducing earth life to a foreign ecosystem, and also mean things like astronaunt decomtamination etc.
It’ll be life, Mark, but not as we know it.
Also, there’ll be Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard…
You cannot change the script, Mark.
Ock, and Marky!
Knowing our luck they’ll come in peace, shoot to kill.
Scrape ’em off Jim! (ok, I’m late to the party – I’m busy and important!)
Due to the vastness of space I would say there is likely other intelligent life forms out there. But also due to the vastness of space we will probably never know about them.
For sure. Either microbial, or beings of pure energy that will consume us in our sleep.
I’ve said too much.
Ironic if they do find microbial life on Mars, the astronauts go in, it INFECTS THEM, and they bring it back to earth and kill us all. Maybe that ‘MarsOne’ one-way trip thing ain’t such a bad idea after all …
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
If they find what they’re lookin’ for out there, that mean we get full shares?
Good AMA from the Mars science dudes on Reddit btw
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3mq1wl/were_nasa_mars_scientists_ask_us_anything_about/
Funny enough many scientists are almost certain there is life on Mars… Because we would have brought it there, whether on an asteroid breaking off of Earth and hitting Mars carrying resilient bacteria/viruses or even on one of our probes or rovers which we can only sterilise so well.
Finding foreign life, of any form, in space may still be some way off… We’re not even sure how life began on Earth yet.