# Life on Mars **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698 "2012-11-21T07:25:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/1 "2012-11-21T07:25:47Z")
Boy does this look interesting: > [@](#): > > NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery “for the history books,” but we’ll have to wait a few weeks to find out what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest. > The discovery was made by Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported Tuesday. SAM is the rover’s onboard chemistry lab, and it’s capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. > SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity’s huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently. > “This data is gonna be one for the history books,” Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, told NPR. “It’s looking really good.” > Grotzinger said the rover team won’t be ready to announce just what SAM found for several weeks yet, NPR reported. The scientists want to check and double-check the results, to make sure they’re for real. I’m assuming it’s some sort of support for the idea that Mars once had life. Could it be more than that? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/2 "2012-11-21T07:55:16Z")
I’ve maintaining a state of skepticism until they come out with actual information; I don’t want to get my hopes up. Personally I wish they’d have just kept things quiet until they verified whatever it is they are verifying, and revealed the details once they were sure instead of taunting us like this. And of course it could be something more than evidence of life; an alien artifact would be an obvious example of “something more”, and certainly one “for the history books”. It just isn’t at all likely that it’ll be something that impressive. A more plausible (but also unlikely) example of “something more” would be a fossil that shows evidence that there was large, complex life there at one time. But unless whatever-it-is is pretty impressive it’ll be considered a disappointment by many after they build it up like this as something “historic”. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/3 "2012-11-21T08:11:27Z")
I thought it was already understood it had life on the basis it had water, and that Mars somehow lost its atmosphere (and therefore its life)? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/4 "2012-11-21T08:27:18Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > I thought it was already understood it had life on the basis it had water, and that Mars somehow lost its atmosphere (and therefore its life)? No; water is needed for our kind of life, but can exist without life just fine. And there’s speculation that there may still be some hardy forms of bacterial life left on Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/5 "2012-11-21T08:28:39Z")
It won’t be evidence of life, because that’s not what Curiosity is looking for. If Curiosity found evidence of life completely by accident, it would have to be something macroscopic - bigger than an ant. - and this would be such massive news, there wouldn’t be teasers. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/6 "2012-11-21T08:29:45Z")
Well yeah, the OP is talking about life in the past tense. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/7 "2012-11-21T09:18:20Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Well yeah, the OP is talking about life in the past tense. So was I. It won’t be an organism, it won’t be a fossil either, for the same reasons. It’s going to be a milestone activity or some such. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/8 "2012-11-21T10:07:50Z")
I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much, this isn’t the first time NASA has made a teaser announcement. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/9 "2012-11-21T10:11:23Z")
There is no link in the OP, but how is this different from what we’ve already found on asteroids and/or comets? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/10 "2012-11-21T11:24:37Z")
Sounds like this has been blown out of all proportion I’m afraid. From [here](http://science.time.com/2012/11/20/a-mars-announcement-for-the-history-books/): > [@](#): > > JPL spokesman Guy Webster made just this point today in an e-mail to TIME: “As for history books, the whole mission is for the history books,” he wrote. That’s not to say he rules out the possibility of truly big news. **“It won’t be earthshaking,”** he said in a later phone call, **“but it will be interesting.”** > > And as for the scoop the NPR reporter and HuffPo announced? “John was excited about the quality and range of information coming in from SAM during the day a reporter happened to be sitting in John’s office last week,” Webster wrote. “He has been similarly excited by results at other points during the mission so far.” Bolding mine. That rules out an announcement that life has been discovered, which would indeed be earthshaking. Please bear in mind, as **Mangetout** pointed out, the Curiosity Rover’s mission isn’t to look for life. It’s to help determine whether Mars could have supported life. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/11 "2012-11-21T14:20:55Z")
There’s a good chance there _is_ life on Mars \*today \*- bacteria from Earth, carried aboard one of the dozens of objects we humans have hit it with. No matter how cautiously we’ve tried to keep them sterile, we can’t say we’ve always succeeded. I wouldn’t be shocked at discovering some. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/12 "2012-11-21T14:31:20Z")
Similar discussion [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=672984) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/13 "2012-11-21T15:28:19Z")
In all fairness, NASA doesn’t want to get burned like they did the last time they discovered “life” on Mars. So, if they _had_ found something, they’d shut the fuck up about it until they had independent verification. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/14 "2012-11-21T15:52:40Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In all fairness, NASA doesn’t want to get burned like they did the last time they discovered “life” on Mars. So, if they _had_ found something, they’d shut the fuck up about it until they had independent verification. Alternatively, there could be little green men with a ray gun held to the head of the Mars Rover as we speak! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/15 "2012-11-21T15:59:24Z")
A ray gun? You show too little awareness of the classics. An Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, if you please. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/16 "2012-11-21T16:00:29Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > I’m assuming it’s some sort of support for the idea that Mars once had life. Could it be more than that? Yes, but it’s going to be much less, I’m sure. Teasing NASA bastards… ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/17 "2012-11-21T16:07:44Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > I’m assuming it’s some sort of support for the idea that Mars once had life. Could it be more than that? When I read your question I asked myself: “What exactly does SAM do?”. [The Curiosity website](http://ssed.gsfc.nasa.gov/sam/samiam.html) says its job is to support the mission goal of “assess[ing] the biological potential of Gale crater”. SAM has with it a gas chromatograph, a mass spectrometer, and a laser spectrometer. The website describes their specific functions and how they work together, but it seems they are generally for separating out the chemical composition of a sample. So that is all that instrument could ever detect. The scientist who is apparently the source of the excitement could be excited only over the chemical composition of a sample they collected. Whatever it is, it’s hopefully at least organic or this guy has too low of a threshold for excitement. On the other hand, he could be excited that one of the experiments even worked. I take that as a possibility because I remember how excited I would get when a new assay worked and these scientists and engineers designed experiments that would work nearly independently on another planet. So I don’t think it could be more than evidence supporting the hypothesis that Mars has or once had an environment suitable for life, because that’s all that the instrument is able to detect. Developing more data that supports the hypothesis instead of refutes or provides no evidence one way or another is pretty awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/18 "2012-11-21T16:44:25Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > Boy does this look interesting: > > I’m assuming it’s some sort of support for the idea that Mars once had life. Could it be more than that? I’m betting the announcement is that Curiousity was never real and the whole thing was the imaginings of a NASA engineer in a coma. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/19 "2012-11-21T17:05:14Z")
Maybe they found a metorite from earth that didn’t contain evidence of microbial action. That would indicate there is no life on this planet. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698/20 "2012-11-21T17:09:37Z")
Wild speculation - they found some sort of methane clathrate Sober rational speculation - they caught a whiff of methane in some dirt. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/life-on-mars/641698.md?page=2)