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February 18, 2005
Life on Mars Today?
The perspective image above was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. It shows the central part of the Valles Marineris canyon on Mars, which is several times wider and deeper than the Grand Canyon, and a couple of thousand miles long. This canyon is so big, that it can be seen by telescopes from Earth.
According to this story:
A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.What [the pair] found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, which took place Sunday, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth... Researchers have long theorized that the Martian subsurface could harbor biological organisms that have developed unusual strategies for existing in extreme environments.
All one needs to do is look at the surface of Mars, the Valles Marineris canyon, to see that water once flowed there. Do we know of any canyons carved like the Grand Canyon or Valles Marineris that were formed without water? Nope.
Now think about how same conditions that brought life to Earth once existed on Mars, and it is easy to see that life on mars is not so far fetched. Now consider that life has now been found in every nook and cranny of Earth's crust - in superheated boiling water at the bottom of the ocean, to microorganisms living in solid rock, miles below the antartic ice shelf. So when then would not life still exist on Mars today if it once did long ago? Life has shown that is can adapt to virtually any environment.
How long then before the official announcement is made that there is life on mars?
Posted by paul at February 18, 2005 12:36 PMOne of my longstanding unsupported beliefs (approximately... hwo about extremely strong suspicion?) has been "anywhere that life _can_ exist, it _will_ exist". I think this because I think that life is an emergent phenomena.
And some biologists are beginning to believe that water isn't actually necessary for life -- other solvents could be used instead.
Paradigm shifts are everywhere I look.
I agree. I think that built into the way our universe works is this drive towards complexity. Entropy and Extropy are two sides of the equation. This is basically the idea behind Stephen Wolfram's work and that of Stuart Kauffman at the Santa Fe Institute.
Posted by: Paul Hughes at February 18, 2005 09:27 PMDo we know of any canyons carved like the Grand Canyon or Valles Marineris that were formed without water? Nope.
Well, not on Earth. There are other planets in our solar system, though, where elements that would be gasses or solids on Earth are liquids on those planets, and they have carved out canyons and rivers on the surfaces of those planets.
That's not to say these couldn't be carved by water, but it seems to me that since we know Earth used to be alot like Venus is now and Earth might one day be like Mars is now, there's no reason to think Mars wasn't once like Venus.
Posted by: george at February 19, 2005 07:41 AM..the only true problem with the theory of life on mars and other planets lies within the basic quagmire that many s0-called 'mainstream scientists' are willfully afraid to admit first and foremost that the development of life never ever matches nor meets the 'theories' poisted by 'mainstream science' -
that 'mainstream science' suffers from dumbing down their theories in two fundamental manner - by creating 'theories' that seem 'too complicated' for the average mind to comprehend and therefore rendering them 'experts in the field of _______': and by creating 'theories' that are to be taught in the schools (..such as darwin's theory of 'evolution' or newtonian physics only ...) that no longer 'answers' the obvious contradictions as in the recent photos from mars continues to show and reveal to the curious and knowing eye:
..therefore can we all begin to embrace the basic thought-process that we have remained under the veil of denial regarding life on 'other planets' and perhaps what needs to truly be grasped would be the fundamental 'fact' that the creative intelligence of the 'known' universe does not care to match 'theories' from s0-called 'experts' but continues to match with our true common sense collective conscious willing to embrace how the intelligence of the universe continues to un-fold and create and reveal itself to the collective mind-realm of humanity and reality....
reality remains an ongoing verb - and not a noun-thing or a subject-thing or an adjective-thing but reality itself reflects the ongoing evolution that embraces our collective consciousness that knows what we now must learn to know or remain trapped within the constant collective un-consciousness of ignorance...
Apropos of this, I heard today that yet another extra-solar planetary system had been found (bringing the total to 140 according to the radio voice) and this latstet one consisted of at least 4 planets with orbits roughly corresponding to mercury, venus, earth and mars.
So where the hell is everyone?
Speaking of which, I understand the ABC ran a 2 hour expose on UFO's tonight. Synchronistic, I'd say.
Posted by: MrNeutron at February 24, 2005 10:36 PMMr Neutron,
I think there are many possibilities about why we haven't seen any advanced civiliations. I think that if they do exist, they are so far advanced beyond us that they are unrecognizable (i.e outside of our ontological domain). I detailed this idea here:
Exotic Civilizations: Beyond Kardaschev
Posted by: Paul Hughes at February 24, 2005 11:11 PMthere maybe a process whereby once we advance enough,technologically or otherwise,we spiritually,physically or in some other form,leave.the culture that built the pyramids isn`t here to tell tales.there are those who ache to download themselves into some digital universe where they are mentally pointing and clicking all day.maybe our inquiries will take us in that direction.
all of our presuppositions shatter,sooner or later.that`s why old scienists look like fools.not because they become senile but they outlive thier discoveries and refuse to accept the new.
it is important to remain flexible in one`s thinking,to not become ego bound to theories.even einstien will be proven wrong eventually.we don`t even know what light is,how can we put limits on it?maybe distance is an illusion?maybe the concept of space and distance are based on our need for privacy borne of the 500 year urbanisation of our culture?maybe everything is actually right here,now.
and the ufo special with peter jennings?disinformation and debunking.very frustrating to watch considering the real reports that are coming from real people every day about ufos,abductions,cattle mutilations and mothman type oddities.
the media insists on cartooning the experiences and conditioning culture to laughing at the reports of real people struggling to come to terms with really odd things happening in thier lives.
it is not a matter of belief.that is religion.i don`t believe in these phenomina.i recognise that people are actually experiencing things that defy answers.i have never seen lights,disks or creatures but i have had anomilous experiences that defy rational explaination that allow me to realise that we are not just carniverous predators eating and fighting until we die.
something is attempting to shatter our semantic presuppositions about our existance.
are we brave enough to go with it?