Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

Sandaan · 2007-06-21 13:04:40

Did Mars finally have life in its surface when we sent all those space probes/rovers/whatever to Mars? I think bacterias from Earth came to Mars along with the space probes that landed there

SpaceNut · 2012-05-05 20:07:54

Impact transfer of crustal material from Mars to Earth:

It's estimated that around 1 billion tonnes of Martian rocks have reached Earth over the eons and we know they're still arriving at the rate of about 500 kg a year.

According to THIS REPORT, some scientists have been doing some new research on the opposite - how much of Earth's crust can make it to other worlds during impact events.

When comets and asteroids impact Earth, we’re usually most concerned with how the impact events have affected life here. But scientists have pointed out that these impact events can eject pieces of Earth’s crust containing biological organisms into space, and if ejected at the right velocities from the right location on Earth, the ejected material could collide with another planet and seed life elsewhere in the Solar System. By using new simulations to analyze the dynamics of these ejected particles, and by tripling the number of particles compared with previous studies to improve the statistics, researchers have found that particles could not only reach Venus, the Moon, and Mars, but for the first time they show that particles from Earth could also reach Jupiter.

It's estimated that organisms can remain viable in crustal material in outer space for up to 30,000 years, so they gathered data based on this interval of time.
Any material ejected into orbits calculated to take longer than 30,000 years to reach a particular destination were not included in the outcome.

They selected 3 different impact ejection velocities: 11.22 km/sec, 12.7 km/sec, and 16.4 km/sec.
They then presented the data in graphical form, showing the number of particles at each energy which reached the surface of the Earth (i.e. fell back onto our own planet), the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.

I tend to think that any microbes reaching the Moon or Jupiter are unlikely to stay alive for long.
However, I suppose those reaching the upper atmosphere of Venus, if they can avoid falling down into the hot lower atmosphere with its sulphuric acid vapour, or onto the scorching surface itself, might conceivably survive.
In the relatively benign upper regions of the Venusian atmosphere, where temperatures of around 40-50 deg.C and pressures of 1 bar are found, there's a band of UV-absorbing material scientists have yet to identify. Some have speculated it could possibly be photosynthesising bacteria. :huh:
Maybe it's from Earth.

The place where terrestrial bacteria are most likely to survive, of course, is Mars. And this is what they had to say about that:

In addition to showing that particles ejected from Earth could reach Jupiter, their simulations also showed that the number of particles ejected from Earth that collide with Mars is two orders of magnitude greater than previous studies have found. The researchers explain that both results have astrobiological significance, especially due to the evidence for life-sustaining environments on early Mars and on Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede.

The part I've made bold in the above quote indicates that around 100 times as much crustal material containing viable microbes has reached Mars than we used to think. :blink:
This makes the idea that Mars is harbouring, and has always harboured, the same DNA-based life as we find here much more likely than we thought.

In other words, we now have even more evidence that the inner planets and moons of our solar system, even out as far as the moons of Jupiter, are NOT quarantined from one another and have almost certainly been capable of exchanging life forms, if any, for eons.
This is important when it comes to environmental concerns about interfering with indigenous Martian life forms, as and when we get around to sending humans there. (Don't hold your breath, by the way. )

I think the comment about Europa and Ganymede is a little bit optimistic though: " .. the evidence for life-sustaining environments ... on Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede."
The radiation environment around Europa is ferociously hostile and all the Jovian moons, including Ganymede, have negligible atmospheres with surface temperatures of about 110K ( -160 deg.C).
I suppose it's possible life may have evolved in the inky-black tidally-heated depths of their subsurface oceans but it's difficult to see how terrestrial microbes landing on their frozen surfaces would gain access to those oceans before succumbing to one of a range of lethal eventualities. :ph43r:

This research bolsters my long-held opinion that Mars life is Earth life (or vice versa) and that Mars definitely harbours life to this day.
As I've said before, it beggars belief that Mars has managed to avoid being inoculated with Earthly bacteria throughout most of its history. And once life gets a hold anywhere, it takes an awful lot to get rid of it!

Void · 2012-05-06 07:22:32

I choose to reserve my opinion, because there are too many unknowns to say.

For instance this about Venus:

http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/4188/ … ne-planets-

Desert planets strikingly like the world depicted in the science fiction classic "Dune" might be the more common type of habitable planet in the galaxy, rather than watery planets such as Earth, researchers suggest.
Their findings also hint that Venus might have been a habitable desert world as recently as 1 billion years ago.

So, the evidence is that there were three fully habitable (For Microbes) in our inner solar system in the first billion years of the life of the solar system. Possibly there are still two barely habitible and one fully habitible planets now. (Upper Atmophere of Venus, and Sub surface Mars, Earth).

The Asteroid belt it appears was very snowy and wet at that time, and the cores of the asteroids, particularly the large ones contained melt water. If they were alive, then any disturbance in the solar system would allow some of them to impact Europa, Ganymede, and Titan.

What about IO in it's early life. It has boiled off it's water at least nearly all of it, but very early in it's life did it have an ice shell and an ocean?

Various moons in the outer solar system, had underground water, and some apparently still do.

Very early in the time of the solar system, the comets are thought to have had melt water in them.

Our solar system most likely ejected many planets, and Asteroids and Comets during its evolution.

Speculating that this is normal, it is very certain in my mind that some objects ejected from previous formation of other solar systems, got incorporated into the gas cloud that eventually became our solar system. Some larger objects could still have viable biospheres under their surfaces.

This ignors the possiblity of intellegent intention as well. (God, Angels, Aliens). (Don't say no, without evidence, that is not science).

So, our solar system seems to be dying. It has lived about 1/2 of it's life as a solar system with a star with Fusion.

What about 1/4 of it's life span, lets say 2.25 billion years ago? Possibly Venus still had seas at it's poles. Mars, was dying, but perhaps there were still some pockets of surface life. I expect that the Asteroids were all stone cold by then, but there is some speculation that Ceres may have a sea under it's crust, but I don't expect that it does. Some of the Moons of the outer solar system would still have life in them at that point.

What about 1/8 of its life span, lets say 1. 125 billion years into the process? Maybe still an ocean under Ceres, and maybe some suface habitats on Mars? Venus alive. Earth Alive.

Rocks flying about in the solar system.

We will have to have a lot of evidence to be sure, and we also cannot be sure that it will be presented to us honestly by those who make the stories of reality for us.

So, I don't know, and likely can't know.

I would speculate that if a object from Earth could impact a location where there was burried ice, then it might lie dormant until the polar tilt of Mars favored a thicker atmosphere, as is supposed by some to happen every 100,000 years or so. In that climate it is thought by some that a atmosphere of perhaps 11 Millibars average could exist, and snow falls, and ice sheets on the surface. Also some optimistically think that temporary ponds and small streams are possible then. If something from Earth dumped into that, and it liked living in mud, then I think yes, Mars can have Earth life.

Last edited by Void (2012-05-06 12:27:09)

Void · 2012-05-06 12:34:26

You see I think that solar systems start out lumpy, with collections of Ateroids, comets, and planets, in them. If a small star were to embed itself, I think that that would stop the cloud from condensing.

So, if an Earth ejected, and with life were to wander into such a cloud, it might become the point of nucleation for a star. Before it got too hot however, objects might splash into it and eject life.

Earths wandering in space very likely would have life underground even in interstellar space.

Or an alternate notion is that an Earth enters a cloud, and is slowed down by friction and collection of gass and dust, enough that it begins to orbit the cloud in an eliptical orbit. Eventually it's orbit might circularize, due to dipping repeatedly into the cloud. So then it might nucleate something.

Perhaps asteroid newly formed and liquid inside gets infected by the captured planet. And then that asteroid gets ejected from it's solar system and enters into a sibling domain in a stellar nursery, and infects it and so on.

If that were the case, then we might want to identify our sibling stars, the stars that were born with our star. Could this be done by spectrometry?

Oh well, then perhaps only life on Earth.

I am not making claims I am just speaking of possibilities.

Last edited by Void (2012-05-06 12:42:42)

SpaceNut · 2012-05-06 16:00:16

Once we have a mars sample to date the planets with as a means to compare the age to the remaining solar system then we can likely dismiss the roving rogue planet as being the means for life entering the solar system...

Void · 2012-05-21 13:03:35

I think that rogue planets are a certainty, and evidence suggests that they are common, and it is likely that many may have subsurface habitats suitable for life.
It might be necessary to go down 10 miles for that, but also if it is a planet with volcanism, then closer to the surface is likely. I really expect that more likely there were comets and asteroids expelled from other solar systems incorporated into the gas cloud prior to condensation. However, for a whole nursery of stars a rogue planet with a habitat? I think it could happen.

But why I really came back to post.

I read an article posted here, and cannot find it again, however the person posting that put a link such as these in it, and it has really caused me to ponder what I think I know, and what could be. If you can identify it, I will let that person know that I have pirated their information, and thank them.

http://www.criticalmass.uk.com/index.ph … vironment/

http://spacecoalition.com/blog/life-on- … ng_wp_cron

http://www.skymania.com/wp/2012/04/lich … html/5806/

http://www.mendeley.com/research/surviv … y-study-7/

One thing I have realized is that I have to appologize to the people at Red Colony. I thought it was perposterous that Mars could be seeded with Lichen, since I have always been told that the UV flux on the surface of Mars is lethal to all life. I believe that in these experiments or similar ones CyanoBacteria also survived similarly. Again, if there are any persons from Red Colony here, I appologize for the non-belief. (I did not express it much, but I was very negitive in my thinking).

So, to be done with it I will express what I have thought about, search for and also my conclusions and speculations.

The Lichen is part fungus, and then part CyanoBacteria or Algae.

Fungus loves to inhabit the places between my toes, because I go to the gym. I take great measures to stop it.

So, as expressed in the articles, a crack in a rock is a great improvement beyond the general Martian environment, having some resemblance to the gap between my toes.

I did some checking on Lichen, and discovered that in addition to producing acids to break down rock, they with that process produce salts, organic salts I guess it said. So, this I think could have big implications as to how the crack in the rock could be moisturized, and how liquid water could exist below 0 Degrees C in that crack.

I also speculate that even without the production of salts by Lichen, salts should collect inside cracks anyway, since if there are wind born dusts with salt in them, and if there are temporary dews in the cracks of the rocks, then some brine should result.

In either case, brine tends to attract moisture into itself, and of course serves as an antifreeze.

Brine can be so concentrated that it poisons life, but during the day night freeze thaw cycle, brine should separate into a less briny part of ice and a more briny part of liquid. Then during the morining warm up, the ice might melt, at lets say -15 Degrees C to 0 Degrees C, and be available as a life giving drink to a life form.

Sea ice has a habitat that may have parallels:
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_krembsdeming.html

Life within the briny habitat of sea ice is intricately linked to physical processes. Temperature controls every physical and chemical aspect of ice, including availability of light. The most notable effect of decreasing temperature, as winter progresses and the ice solidifies, is the reduction of pore space within the ice and the concurrent increase in the salinity of the brine. Sea ice, especially during the sunlit seasons, serves as habitat for an ice-specific food web (sympagic foodweb) [1] that includes bacteria, viruses, unicellular algae, which often form chains and filaments, and invertebrates sufficiently small to traverse the brine network. The brine network is comprised of passages in the ice, with diameters ranging from micrometers to several centimeters when the temperature remains above -5°C.

So in the morning the lichen might get a drink of water at perhaps -5 Degrees C. Then perhaps it has to behave like a cactus. I beleive that Lichens are in fact very much like that, since they grow in deserts also. I read an article about Lichens in Antarctica, which said that the reason they were not more prevalent over the land surfaces was not the cold, but rather the lack of moisture on those land surfaces.

I have also surmised that the "Toes" shall we prefer to say, that is the rock on either side of the "Crack" will have accelerated cooling at night and will then draw heat out of the crack, and prepair it to condense water vapor when it becomes available in the early morning. I am not sure which will heat the more duing the day, the "Toes" or the "Crack". I expect it would be variable according to the angle of the sun to the structure, and that structures themselves will be variable.

What I have read and already knew was that water expands and contracts with heat and freezing/thaw. Salt also expands and contracts in accordance with moisture content and heat I think. And so do Lichens. This along with the acids and salts tends to break down the rock and provide nutirients. On Mars, I am sure dust conveyance from the wind would also provide nutrients, and perahaps also hostile factors.

So, I am guessing that for Lichen on Mars, the two factors that would be major is sunlight sometimes, and moisture. Sunlight is ubiquitous across Mars, with approximately similar amounts of it during a Martial year. It might be modified by terrain, such as a shady canyon, or perhaps a mountain exposed to the maximum.

I cannot say where the best dews are, but I could speculate that the Equator is not unfavored. It has comparitively frequent and regularized day night cycles as opposed to the poles. So I would look to Hellas in the summer, and the Marriner Rift Valley system more parts of the year.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar … 3309002323

PIC:
1-s2.0-S0032063309002323-gr1.sml

Ice fogs then, as a favorable factor. The moisture decends from the atmospheric column at night, and sometimes makes a fog in night in low places. Therefore concentrating mositure. In the very early morning the fog dissapears, but I would presume that at that point the atmosphere has a high humidity at a low elivation.
It is also at that point that the crack in the rock where lichen might live, would be at it's coldest temperature. If the relative humidity of the air is at 50%, and the crack has a temperature 20 degrees Fahrenheight below that air temperature then condensation will occur. Likely the air might be even more saturated with mosture, and likely the temperature differential may be greater as the morning progresses.

I am still concerned about the Ultra Violet light, but the experimenters said the lichen put up with it for more than a month, so I am more inclined to think that Lichen may have endured periods in history on Earth where Ultra Violet flux was very high, and it still carries this ability. I will presume this until shown otherwise.

So, I think that apparently surface or near surface (Crack) life is possible on Mars, and I think that whereever life originated in the solar system, it has been shared.
Lichen is ancient on Earth, so the probability of it on Mars increases. Or perhaps something like it.

If I were to look for life on Mars now, it would be either in freshly exposed subsurface ice, or somehow fly a probe into the rift valley, and take a cotton swab, and take samples out of the cracks in rocks where some salt is likely to be present to allow tiny amount of temporary brine.

The sooner known the better, for planning purposes.

Last edited by Void (2012-05-21 13:55:26)

SpaceNut · 2012-05-21 20:08:42

I would not worry much about Red Colony as I was there for a period but you have changed and this was an excellent post...

GW Johnson · 2012-05-22 08:10:10

Cotton swabs and bacterial cultures sounds like an astronaut in a supple mechanical-counterpressure suit, poking around in holes, caves, and cracks, looking for likely places. The sorts of things and places we cannot program robots for.

GW

Void · 2012-05-22 14:51:30

Most likely I won't even be around to agree or dissagree. Normal life span but.......RIP

Yes, that would make the most sense, except for contamination. I don't think that it would be permitted, until other methods were exhausted.

This is why I have become interested in Lunar Telerobotics. I am afraid that the best case that I hope for is a mission which includes close up human examination of Phobos and Demos, and perhaps leaving some sonar devices on them to "Sound" them to figure out what kind of hollow spaces they have. In addition to that some intense telerobotics to look for life, and perhaps even samples to orbit, and maybe even samples to a near Earth location.

If something like that turned up negitive for life, then I would think the case could be made to allow the next mission to involve landeing people on Mars.

For telerobotics, I would presume a rover on the bottom of the rift, and I speculate on a "Sky Crane" with a nail gun, hovering at a rift wall, and nailing an anchor, and then letting loose a probe on a tether. Perhaps something like fishing line and a small robot that has a motorized pully, and some wheels it can contact the wall with. Otherwise, perhaps the sky crane could spew some micro probes into a potential habitat. That is before the crane crashed. Of course the sky crane would be taking pictures as well. Perhaps it could swab a crack or two, and then fly down to a crash landing at the valley floor, and eject the swabs before impact. Perhaps a rover could retrieve them. After all I believe that worms survived the space shuttle crash?

It would be an interesting set of data. Perhaps the crane could take a picture strip of the wall as it went down in a controlled crash.

Last edited by Void (2012-05-22 15:01:03)

SpaceNut · 2012-05-24 20:33:40

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/ma … arbon.html

Mars 'has life's building blocks'

New evidence from meteorites suggests that the basic building blocks of life are present on Mars.

The study found that carbon present in 10 meteorites, spanning more than four billion years of Martian history, came from the planet and was not the result of contamination on Earth

Last edited by SpaceNut (2012-05-24 20:51:44)

JonClarke · 2012-05-26 05:12:51

20 ppm reduced carbon is at the lower end of the range found in magmatic rocks on the Moon and Earth

Void · 2012-05-26 09:50:25

So,
Mars is sterile, but had life before. A likely possibility.
Mars is not sterile, but the life on it is mostly or completely related to Earth life due to Transspermia/Panspermia. I think that this is likely.

Mars is sterile, and never had life. I think that this is unlikely, since apparently Mars even now has places where Earth organisms could make a living.

Because of what has been presented about the infectuous nature of Earth life and any life like it that may have lived previously on Venus and Mars, I have a great deal of trouble entertaining the notion that Mars is a place where you could find clear evidence of the emergence of life from non-life, unless Mars was the original source of life in our solar system.

However, since doing the level of research necessary to determine that all life originated on Mars is likely to be too hard, I guess that I think the effort is not likely to pay off.

I also bring up the Social implications. I think that there has been a relegious and political need to find a second genesis, the orginination of life from non-life, to justify social movements which have caused the human race a large amount of grief. Communism, Nasi, genocides. Things that can occur within Abrahamic relegions also, but I am afraid that in the quest to get rid of God, the human race has found that Men or Women as Gods is even worse.

I do not object to the science, but I make what I think is a valid point that efforts sould be made to make sure that the space science effort is not about validating a social agenda which trivializes the worth of common people, and promotes the capable to a position of unquestioned power of life and death over the common people.

However common we may be, it is also our future, and we want our time in the sun without elitist nin-com-poopery.

Science, fine. Social nin-com-poopery not allowed.

And I am not criticising anyone posting here.

I just want to point out that Mars is a poor place to look for life not related to Earth life. A poor place to look for evidence of life from non-life. And I don't want my tax money spent to promote a social/socialist agenda to justify the modification of how we live with social experiments.

I just want the human race to extend it's reach into outer space further.

falkor · 2012-10-13 04:26:31

I just want to point out that Mars is a poor place to look for life not related to Earth life. AGREED

A poor place to look for evidence of life from non-life. AGREED

And I don't want my tax money spent to promote a social/socialist agenda to justify the modification of how we live with social experiments. DEFINITELY

I am passionate about colonising Mars and am at the front of the queue to see a manned mission land on Mars (finally) but we are in a world austerity crisis right now, can we afford it?

going back to the original post

Did Mars finally have life in its surface when we sent all those space probes/rovers/whatever to Mars? I think bacterias from Earth came to Mars along with the space probes that landed there

yes as reported in the press NASA cocked up and if any of these Rovers hit water, Earth Bacteria will be deposited more than likely (if it hasn't been already)

GW Johnson · 2012-10-13 08:44:23

Question: Does it really matter in the long term, if some Earth bacteria got to Mars on these probes? Because, in the long term, men are going to go, and maybe even stay. That will introduce Earth organisms to Mars, even if nothing else before did.

GW

Vincent · 2012-10-13 09:30:13

GW is correct. We must burry our steaming piles somewhere. Mars is next, a great litter box for sure. When the sun gets real hot, Titan should be coming around. It's all good.

Titan, I'm looking at you! Yea you, out there beyond the wall breaking bubbles in the hall, can you help me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83AylhRtQgs

Vincent

titan_haze by dfrank39, on Flickr

Last edited by Vincent (2012-10-13 10:36:55)

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#1 2007-06-21 13:04:40

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#2 2012-05-05 20:07:54

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#3 2012-05-06 07:22:32

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#4 2012-05-06 12:34:26

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#5 2012-05-06 16:00:16

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#6 2012-05-21 13:03:35

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#7 2012-05-21 20:08:42

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#8 2012-05-22 08:10:10

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#9 2012-05-22 14:51:30

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#10 2012-05-24 20:33:40

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#11 2012-05-26 05:12:51

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#12 2012-05-26 09:50:25

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#13 2012-10-13 04:26:31

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#14 2012-10-13 08:44:23

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

#15 2012-10-13 09:30:13

Re: Did we introduce life to Mars via space probes?

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