Mars Landing, Tonight at 8...

[MPJ]

Damn their success. Now I\'m out $5 from betting on a crash and burn. :drunk:

Must admit to being disappointed in watching the full 2 hour broadcast and not getting a single picture from the lander. Previous landing thingies started sending back pictures within a minute of being on the surface. Thanks for posting some, I\'ll watch the news later.

 

[freakinacage]

PHOTOSHOP!! lol. i have no reason to disbelieve them but those pics could be of anywhere

 

[Infidel Castro]

Aye, it\'s a close-up of the road outside my house

 

[Sauce Devil]

Originally posted by mattsterbenz


You second statement is true in some degree. The discovery of organisms living under those conditions is very unique, and does change our views slightly of where life might exist elsewhere. They still need water though. Looking for signs of water is the first step. Not all astronomers have ignored that. In fact, I think very few actually have, if any.

I\'ve never heard of any astronomer mentioning the underwater volcano discoveries in relation to the odds of finding life on other Planets, which they should.

We\'ve moved on from an assumption that a temperate Earth-like environment is needed (almost exactly like Earth in fact) to a new realization that life can exist very happily in environments previously considered to be absolutely hostile - fish weren\'t supposed to live in boiling water!

Liquid water does still seem to be a requirement but I\'d not be surprised if even that turned out to be a false assumption; there doesn\'t seem to be a place left on Earth that is too harsh to support life and I can only wonder what environment is
too harsh.. Could life establish itself in any environment?

 

[mattsterbenz]

Originally posted by Sauce Devil

We\'ve moved on from an assumption that a temperate Earth-like environment is needed (almost exactly like Earth in fact) to a new realization that life can exist very happily in environments previously considered to be absolutely hostile - fish weren\'t supposed to live in boiling water!

Exactly, but take a look at what I said in the previous post about the planned mission to Europa. I sort of already said what you just did. =)

Jupiter\'s moon Europa is thought to have oceans of liquid water underneath several miles of ice. Normally we wouldn\'t expect life to exist under these conditions but because of some unique organisms on Earth that prove just how versatile life is, we can justify a possible mission.

We can only make assumptions for life based on what we observe on Earth. Sure, life on Earth can exist under pretty rough conditions by our standards, but that doesn\'t mean that we will find some organism on Titan that lives in liquid methane and eats rocks.

-Matt

 

[treide]

Hooray for science!

As far as water being required for life, take any number of science fiction stories out there with alternate life forms - offhand I recall a book I read ages ago about a planet with silica-based life forms, but can\'t remember the title.

Anyway, I think that a liquid environment is felt to be helpful for originating life - it allows simple molecules to diffuse around and interact with one another to eventually form more complex molecules. I suppose other liquids could function like water that way - IIRC one of the moons in our solar system is felt to have seas of liquid methane, for example. Not sure I would want to go swimming there...