That's certainly more encouraging... but will that water on mars be consumable? like not filled with microbs that would really fuck you up, as per al them mars-gone-bad movies?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Err, isn't that what we have water purifiers for?
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Kinda hard to screen for bugs you haven't encountered yet...
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
quote:"A key question is 'How did the ice get there in the first place?'" said James W. Head of Brown University.
I actually corresponded with this fellow while researching a paper/presentation on extraterrestrial glaciation... so needless to say, this is right up my alley. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean: Kinda hard to screen for bugs you haven't encountered yet...
Then boil it. I doubt Martian microbes would be any more capable of withstanding high temperatures than terrestrial bugs.
The true is that if there is microbial life on Mars, we'll most likely be more of a threat to it than it to us.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
If there are microbes on Mars, they'll most likely resemble archaea, so they'll be cold adapted, anerobic lithotropes or organotropes (getting energy from rocks or organic molecules).
Boiling them might not work, and they may be resistant, or at least less susceptable to radiaton etc. The only way to know would be to find them and study them.
Filtration would probably be effective, but you'd need to make sure it's just water, and that there's nothing nasty in there too. I've used filters that go down to a small number of micrometers in labs (small bacteria can be 0.1 micrometers wide though). I suppose reverse osmosis would work. Suffice to say, the boffins at NASA probably allready have a plan.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
So we need to build something that can go to Mars, Land in the right place, take a core sample and return to Earth.
I think I had something like that in the garage.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
The microbes might make toxins, too, so that killing them doesn't purify the water. If there are even microbes *there.* I highly doubt there's any life currently on Mars; there doesn't seem to be an ecosystem anywhere near the surface at least, which would be the most logical place - the most abundant energy source (the sun). I suppose they could exist deep down somewhere, but I wonder what they're eating that provides enough energy - how much do we know about the interior composition of Mars, anyway? We should plant some seismographs and drop a couple of really big bombs (not nukes, don't want to dirty up a pristine environment with radioactive fallout...).
And what if they weren't even carbon-based? All chemical methods might be completely ineffective, and who knows about heat and radiation tolerances in that case? Whatever they are, though, I'm sure they're susceptible to being studied and figured out.
So, in short, ... yeah. We need a core sample.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well apparently "the right place" is an area several times larger than LA, so that shouldn't be too difficult. As for the core drill an return, aren't they working on something similar for a future Europa mission anyway? Still, I think the more likely scenario would involve an in situ robot with core drill and remote lab. After that it'd make more sense for the next step to be a manned expedition.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
A Mars Sample Return mission has been in the works for years. I would imagine that this would help get that on the fast track.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
What about that meteor that feel to Earth and was discovered to be from Mars? Did they ever determine if there were truly microbes in it?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Now that just need to locate that alien reactor to thicken the atmosphere. "Start the reaction, Quaid".
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: What about that meteor that feel to Earth and was discovered to be from Mars? Did they ever determine if there were truly microbes in it?
AFAIK, there was never enough evidence either way.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
ALH84001? I think that the jury is still out.
The bugs in question are possible fossils of very small microbe like life. Perhaps. There is no real way of proving one way or the other AFAIK.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Supposedly the Viking data contained circadian rhythms that a researcher spotted recently. Or evidence of them, anyway, maybe. And we know there's water there and there might be fossils of microbes. We also know there are silicates and I think carbonates. Does that about sum up the sketchy evidence for current Martian life, or does anybody know any other tidbits?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kosh: So we need to build something that can go to Mars, Land in the right place, take a core sample and return to Earth.
I think I had something like that in the garage.
I sentence you to watch The Andromeda Strain. (or read the book, which is, of course, far superior)
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote:Originally posted by Sean: Kinda hard to screen for bugs you haven't encountered yet...
Then boil it. I doubt Martian microbes would be any more capable of withstanding high temperatures than terrestrial bugs.
The true is that if there is microbial life on Mars, we'll most likely be more of a threat to it than it to us.
Plenty of bugs live in the earth's deep sea thermal vents- heat is no sure way to kill microbes- cold either for that matter: there are colonies of bacteria living a few inches beow the surface in Antarctica (though it's even colder on Mars, of course).
The big threat might be one of mutation via contamination- our bugs plus their bugs (or heaven forbid- viruses). Or some jolly researcher decides to inject a test animal with Mars bacteria just for giggles and we get something twisted and impossible to define. Like Daniel here. Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
My origins were more sinister than foolhardy, I assure you. Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I've always thought of you as some kind of evil mollusk- a Stebeos-like cuttlefish with a tenticle on each key....
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
More of a Dr Zoidberg, but with a beard so you can tell he's evil. That's what I visualise him as.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I kind of envisioned him as a "ReAnimator" creation Mature Content Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
What's a Stebeos? :-/
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Now there's me thinking he was the spawn of Yog-Sothoth and a Shu'ulathoi.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
If he's a product from the Old Ones, then I am from the Young Ones. :.)
Oh, and "Herb Alpert - ReAnimator" brightens any party. Vorta Combs for the win!
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
*folds his hands quietly and waits beneath the sea*
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: What's a Stebeos? :-/
An odd reference to the creature Caliban's father/master in the Robert Browning poem Caliban (taking up Shakespeare's character from The Tempest). Recently, writer Dan Simmons used the characters from The tempest in his amazing books Illium and Olympos wherein Stebeos' horrific nature is nicely expressed.
Kinda a giant evil telepathic vampiric brain thingie with many appendeges that tranverses alternate realities wreaking wholesale destruction and feeding off the psychic trauma of it's victims 9and their flesh to reproduce asexually). So, of course, I thought of you.
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