"Stowaways" could survive on Mars

Palomar · 2005-05-31 05:07:56

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … 978]Traces of stowaway algae could survive on Mars

Some hardy Earth microbes could survive long enough on Mars to complicate the search for alien life, according to a new study co-authored by University of Florida researchers...
To test the limits of the algae's endurance, the researchers subjected it to a simulated Martian atmosphere, re-created within a 5-foot-long stainless steel barrel-shaped chamber...
The researchers found that when exposed to the full spectrum of these rays, 99.9 percent of the algae in the chamber died within five minutes - significant when compared with the survival time of other microbes exposed to the same conditions: 15 seconds. However, the algae also left chemical traces of their existence that were detectable for several more hours. Those "biosignatures" included component molecules such as chlorophyll and the measured activity of enzymes involved in cell membrane formation. Enzyme activity persisted for an hour, while traces of chlorophyll remained for up to four hours.

However, though buried microbes may survive for some period of time, they are still subject to Mars' low atmospheric pressure, high aridity and temperature extremes. Under those conditions, they wouldn't necessarily grow or reproduce and are therefore unlikely to pose an ongoing contamination threat, he added.
Rummel agreed. "You might have a very lonely cyanobacterium waiting for something to happen."

Sorry for all the copy and paste, but I'm currently rushed for time. Those are the salient points, IMO.

--Cindy

Edit seeing if the mysql error in spacing is fixed by an edit.

Rxke · 2005-05-31 06:08:51

Dupe!

Though I'm too lazy to search for the other thread....

SpaceNut · 2005-05-31 10:04:43

yup you are right posted it in this thread haven seen it on the Marsnews site with regards to hiding.

Designer Plants on Mars

Does seem very possible that under the right conditions, that life could survive the journey to mars and even begin to grow if it has a safe haven to thrive within.

Palomar · 2005-05-31 10:58:54

*Awww! ::slaps own hand::

Big mistake, completely unintentional. I'd forgotten SpaceNut had posted it previously and -- yes -- GASP! I forgot to search before posting. ::slaps hand again::

Sometimes I post too early in the morning. ::sigh::

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2005-05-31 11:57:30

Sort of deserves its own topic anyway since algea are not bacteria, which has previously been a topic of sterilizing of space crafts.
Algea thou I think need lots of water or can they grow with less?
Next is how is the lower gravity effect this would be my question for growth?

SpaceNut · 2005-06-02 11:11:18

Earth microbes may survive on Mars

The team found that dormant spores of the bacterium had mostly died after five minutes of Martian UV exposure.
However, the bacteria were able to stay alive if they were shielded by just 1 millimetre of soil during the tests, which ran for up to 24 hours.

Wow that little..

Tholzel · 2006-10-08 18:04:01

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<<Earth microbes may survive on Mars

Quote:
The team found that dormant spores of the bacterium had mostly died after five minutes of Martian UV exposure.

However, the bacteria were able to stay alive if they were shielded by just 1 millimetre of soil during the tests, which ran for up to 24 hours. >>

The whole issue of microbes on Mars or anywhere else in the galaxy is really moot. Microbial life is probably everywhere in the galaxy. They are incredibly hardy, able to exist under water at greater than boiling water temperatures, etc. The cosmic issue is, what happens next? Darwin's magic wand does not work until the conditions for life are very narrowly controlled. Thus, if you think (as all astronomers assume) that microbes + one billion years = animal life, you are very badly mistaken.

I am re-reading "Rare Earth: Why complex life is rare in the universe" by Ward & Brownlee. This book should really be required reading by everyone on this forum. It points out the extremely tortuous route the creation of animal life took on Earth, guided along by an incredible series of accidents that are so unlikely to have occurred in just the sequence needed, that the Drake Equation (and Carl Sagan's million sentient civilizations in our galaxy) goes right out the widow.

This series of coincidenes is so incredible, it might even resusitate the religious arguement--although to be credible, it would have to be made by an atheist.

cIclops · 2006-10-11 13:47:59

Audio interview with Steve Benner about investigating forms of life that do not require water or carbon: Life on Mars, Venus, and Titan? Maybe.

SpaceNut · 2006-11-30 21:43:36

It is possible that life was seeded but may have not had much of a chance to get a foot hold. The possibility of meteorites as the means to seed is not new and one of interest is this one with Primordial Organic Matter in Meteorite

Organic matter in meteorites is a subject of intense interest because this material formed at the dawn of the Solar System and may have seeded the early Earth with the building blocks of life. The study was performed on the Tagish Lake carbonaceous chondrite, a rare type of meteorite that is rich in organic (carbon-bearing) compounds.

SpaceNut · 2006-12-17 20:42:37

Well here is a test to see how radiation will effect
Stanford University Puts E. Coli In Orbit

If scientists determine which E. coli genes are impacted by radiation in outer space, they may be one step closer to determining a proper course of action to protect astronauts.
In order to determine which genes are impacted when E. coli endure microgravity and radiation, scientists have fused fluorescence on to the E. coli genes, causing them to glow if they are impacted by outer space radiation. "If you do this you can make an organism be a living radiation meter," said Stanford electrical engineering professor Gregory Kovacs.
Since E. coli's genome is well known to scientists and since the bacteria can grow many generations over a short time, it was a natural candidate for this experiment, according to scientists.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 05:29:45

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<<Earth microbes may survive on Mars
Quote:
The team found that dormant spores of the bacterium had mostly died after five minutes of Martian UV exposure.
However, the bacteria were able to stay alive if they were shielded by just 1 millimetre of soil during the tests, which ran for up to 24 hours. >>
The whole issue of microbes on Mars or anywhere else in the galaxy is really moot. Microbial life is probably everywhere in the galaxy. They are incredibly hardy, able to exist under water at greater than boiling water temperatures, etc. The cosmic issue is, what happens next? Darwin's magic wand does not work until the conditions for life are very narrowly controlled. Thus, if you think (as all astronomers assume) that microbes + one billion years = animal life, you are very badly mistaken.
I am re-reading "Rare Earth: Why complex life is rare in the universe" by Ward & Brownlee. This book should really be required reading by everyone on this forum. It points out the extremely tortuous route the creation of animal life took on Earth, guided along by an incredible series of accidents that are so unlikely to have occurred in just the sequence needed, that the Drake Equation (and Carl Sagan's million sentient civilizations in our galaxy) goes right out the widow.
This series of coincidenes is so incredible, it might even resusitate the religious arguement--although to be credible, it would have to be made by an atheist.

Nonsense.
Type "planetocopia" to google...

SpaceNut · 2015-02-21 17:32:32

The stoways could have already been there depending on when life could have started. With there being 3 bacterial paths here on earth the chances are that when meteros came from earth to mars they contained the traces of the same life that we think could have survives the journey. So when did that life start?

On Earth it appears to heve been Ancient rocks show life could have flourished on Earth 3.2 billion years ago

The oldest rock samples, from 3.2 billion years ago, were collected in the desert in northwestern Australia.
These samples, 3.2 billion years old - three-quarters of the way back to the birth of the planet - showed chemical evidence that life was pulling nitrogen out of the air.

Was mars always where it is as far as planetary alignment or was it closer than it is now? How quickly did it loses its atmosphere? These areall answer that the rovers are trying to find.

SpaceNut · 2015-02-22 18:59:01

This post sums up the processes tht spark life:

GW Johnson wrote:

Copied off MSNBC news on the internet, from their “Science” section:
Curiosity's experiments on Martian soil may be inadvertently eliminating traces of organics, British researchers reported this week. One of the compounds the rover is on the lookout for is jarosite, a mineral associated with conditions potentially suitable for life. Curiosity tests for jarosite and other interesting substances by flash-heating soil samples, watching for telltale signs of certain elements.
Tests conducted by a team at Imperial College London show that this heating process may cause the jarosite to break up and give off free oxygen — which can then destroy organic compounds in the soil. Essentially, the testing method could eliminate what it's looking for in the process.

RobertDyck wrote:

I did a quick Google, and found the paper that GW Johnson talked about. The original on the website for Imperial College London.
Scientists identify mineral that destroys organic compounds
This is highly important. When Opportunity examined Meridiani Planum, they found jarosite. That's important because it's a sedimentary mineral that only forms in mildly acidic water. Dr. Carol Stoker studied the possibility that life could have arisen there. So I looked at this myself. Scientists can trace how life evolved from simpler forms, and DNA could have evolved from RNA, but how did RNA first form? The steps to form RNA are complex, and some require conflicting conditions. Some require acid, others require alkali. But I pointed out jarosite demonstrates there was acidic water, and Meridiani Planum is surrounded by normal Mars dust, which is dominated by plagioclase feldspar, which is alkali. Wind would blow dust into the water, so this alkali dust could change the pH. Meridiani Planum has hematite concretions, which are the catalyst for fischer tropsch catalysis, which combines small simple hydrocarbons to form large complex ones. And sediment in some areas is finely layered clay, which is the catalyst to combine phosphate and ribose sugar with pyrimidine and purine to form nucleotides. Meridiani Planum has borite, which is the catalyst that preferentially forms ribose sugar. And phosphate is simple phosphorus oxide, which is present there. It's an evaporite plane, so changing solute concentration. Ribose sugar requires water without any nitrogen, but pyrimidine and purine require nitrogen. I could go on, but all the conditions for genesis of RNA world are (were) present at Meridiani Planum. And at the 2005 Lunar and Planetary Science Syposium, geologists reported an imbalance between bromine salts vs other salts. Dr. Carol Stoker pointed out astrobiologists like herself look for exactly that type of imbalance to indicate past action of single cell organisms.
Dr. Carol Stoker told me that the source of sulphur at Meridiani Planum is believed to be a hot spring. She was studying a hot spring at Rio Tinto in Spain as a comparison. Is there anything like that where Curiosity is located?

SpaceNut · 2015-02-22 19:18:03

The edit of the first post did change the page alignment for the mysql data base entry. The other life thread did not survive the crash so have been using this one.

Back to the life question:

Life on other planets: Alternative chemistries of life

Ideas about directing evolution of life forms on Earth and finding life on other planets are rapidly morphing from science-fiction fantasy into mainstream science, says David Lynn, a chemist at Emory University.
"These areas of science are rapidly coming of age because of our increasing knowledge and advancing technology. It's an exciting time. We're on the threshold of answering fundamental questions including: What is life? Are there forms of life that we haven't even yet imagined? Are we alone in the universe?"

Look out Jurasic Park....

So where is that boundary for the non-living to when life begins.

SpaceNut · 2016-01-29 21:51:44

Well I have learned some new tricks to fixing the artifacts and shifting issues in the converted topics....

Antarctic fungi survive Martian conditions on the International Space Station

Ya it does not look like much but if this is what starts for life we have a lot to learn....

rock-coloniszed-cryptoendolithic-microorganisms-and-cryomyces-fungi-in-quartz-crystals-lg.jpg

After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60% of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Austria) also travelled into space for the same experiment.
The tiny fungi were placed in cells (1.4 centimetres in diameter) on a platform for experiments known as EXPOSE-E, developed by the European Space Agency to withstand extreme environments.
For 18 months half of the Antarctic fungi were exposed to Mars-like conditions. More specifically, this is an atmosphere with 95% CO2, 1.6% argon, 0.15% oxygen, 2.7% nitrogen and 370 parts per million of H2O; and a pressure of 1,000 pascals. Through optical filters, samples were subjected to ultra-violet radiation as if on Mars (higher than 200 nanometres) and others to lower radiation, including separate control samples.
Also lichens from Gredos and the Alps
Researchers from the LIFE experiment, coordinated from Italy by Professor Silvano Onofri from the University of Tuscany, have also studied two species of lichens (Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans) which can withstand extreme high-mountain environments. These have been gathered from the Sierra de Gredos (Avila, Spain) and the Alps (Austria), with half of the specimens also being exposed to Martian conditions.
Another range of samples (both lichens and fungi) was subjected to an extreme space environment (with temperature fluctuations of between -21.5 and +59.6 + C, galactic-cosmic radiation of up to 190 megagrays, and a vacuum of between 10-7 to 10-4 pascals). The effect of the impact of ultra-violet extraterrestrial radiation on half of the samples was also examined.
After the year-and-a-half-long voyage, and the beginning of the experiment on Earth, the two species of lichens 'exposed to Mars' showed double the metabolic activity of those that had been subjected to space conditions, even reaching 80% more in the case of the species Xanthoria elegans.
The results showed subdued photosynthetic activity or viability in the lichens exposed to the harsh conditions of space (2.5% of samples), similar to that presented by the fungal cells (4.11%). In this space environment, 35% of fungal cells were also seen to have kept their membranes intact, a further sign of the resistance of Antarctic fungi.

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#1 2005-05-31 05:07:56

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#2 2005-05-31 06:08:51

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#3 2005-05-31 10:04:43

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#4 2005-05-31 10:58:54

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#5 2005-05-31 11:57:30

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#6 2005-06-02 11:11:18

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#7 2006-10-08 18:04:01

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#8 2006-10-11 13:47:59

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#9 2006-11-30 21:43:36

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#10 2006-12-17 20:42:37

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#11 2007-07-06 05:29:45

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#12 2015-02-21 17:32:32

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#13 2015-02-22 18:59:01

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#14 2015-02-22 19:18:03

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

#15 2016-01-29 21:51:44

Re: "Stowaways" could survive on Mars

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