What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

Mad Grad Student · 2004-03-05 23:02:14

I was wondering earlier today what Opportunity would find at Endurance Crater and its large outcrop, and just wanted to see what you thought, too. In my opinion it will find evidence of an ocean or lake, there's no way Meridiani was dry and it's very doubtful she would find diatoms (Tiny plankton-like organisms) or will find seashells. Even if Meridiani was once some sort of delta feature it's unlikely Mars was a nice place to live for long enough to allow complex multicellular life to evolve. But anythings possible, I guess...

I'm certainly open to surprises!

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2004-03-07 02:22:26

I'm not saying anything, yet. It's too early. Theres still lots of work to do. I hope no disaster happends and everything goes well.
:up:

[http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opport … 01R0M1.JPG]http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars....0M1.JPG
[http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit … 61L0M1.JPG]http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars....0M1.JPG
[http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opport … 57M2M1.JPG]http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars....2M1.JPG

ERRORIST · 2004-03-09 08:12:22

Perhaps, living spheres???? Ones that are futher below the surface could still be living????

lunarmark · 2004-03-10 03:25:09

c'mon,

If there was large amounts of life on mars we would have seen it by now, enough photo's & microscope shots have been taken, to see any larger life forms.

The only (last) hope for life on Mars rests on finding 'tiny primitive bacterial life forms' for which you need a [much] better microscope.

They might concievably find fossilised bacteria, (maybe), but I'd say on balance (with all the availible evidence), Mars is very Sterile (minus earth-Mars contamination by Space probe that is!)

i'ts a very interesting geology mission, but the great Mars life hunt, is just a 'tactic' to get the probes there.

Call me a synic, but sometimes the truth hurts..

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-10 06:33:01

Hi Lunarmark!
I'm encouraged to read that you think the discovery by Opportunity of "fossilised bacteria" is a remote possibility. And I agree that if we are ever to see 'tiny primitive bacterial life forms', still living, we'll need better microscopes than those the two MERs are carrying.
Mind you, here on Earth, in marine environments of high salinity like Shark Bay in Western Australia, primitive cyano-bacteria, whose lineage dates back over 3 billion years, manage to produce eminently macroscopic evidence of their existence in the form of stromatolites. Stromatolites are rocky mounds of about a metre or two in diameter, rather like mushrooms in shape, created when successive generations of bacteria, which grow in layers like mats, cause minerals to precipitate out of the surrounding sea water. Their ancestors, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, have left behind identical mounds, fossilised in sediment, which are believed to be about 3.5 billion years old.
As I'm sure you're aware, just because bacteria are small, doesn't mean they can't leave behind them a characteristic macroscopic signature. Spirit and Opportunity's cameras would be perfectly capable of capturing indisputable evidence of fossilised stromatolites on Mars, if there were such things.

My opinion, in case you're interested, is that life on Mars today is a reality and has always been so. Due to impact transfer over the eons, RNA/DNA life forms have been exchanged frequently between Earth and Mars - more so 3.5 billion years ago than today because the bombardment rate was almost certainly higher then. And this period coincides with the era when most scientists tend to agree Mars was probably warmer and wetter than it is now. It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that bacteria, at least in the form of dormant spores, can easily survive being ejected from Mars by an impactor and deposited on Earth, and vice versa.
If Mars ever harboured life, and I'm practically sure it did, then that life will still be there somewhere - most likely underground in today's climatic conditions. It's very hard to sterilise anything completely, especially an entire planet, and unless you eliminate every last bacterium, they will re-establish themselves planetwide very quickly indeed.

Even if Mars never saw a stromatolite, there may still be chemical evidence of bacterial life in the sedimentary strata. Although I don't profess to be a paleo-biologist by any stretch of the imagination, I understand that life can leave behind distinctive mineral signatures in the rocks, easily recognised by the experts.
So, whether we see a fossilised martian stromatolite with our cameras, or detect the signature of bygone life with our spectrometers, Spirit and Opportunity have given us genuine and realistic hope that 2004 could be the year we find "Life on Mars" ... or its remnants.

[And, if you show me unambiguous fossilised martian life, my estimate of the chances of present-day life there will rise from 99% to 110%!!]

Mad Grad Student · 2004-03-10 20:55:08

Perhaps, living spheres???? Ones that are futher below the surface could still be living????

Only if limestone concretions count as life, man. Sorry, but though we'll probably find life (Or fossils of it) someday, with better equipment, the spherules are not it.

It seems to me very likely that Mars once harbored life. If the current theories are correct, than it was geologically active for at least 1.5 billion years after the hellish bombardment period ended. Being geologically active give the planet a chance to have big oceans and a nice, bacteria-friendly environment. So it doesn't seem too unreasonable that life would have formed there as well. Now, it's extremely difficult to find anywhere on Earth that isn't crawling with bacteria. There are types that certainly could survive the harsh Martian environment, the question is: did they? Unfortunately, we might have to wait until people arrive to find out.

SBird · 2004-03-16 15:41:27

Personally, I'm betting Opportunity runs across Marvin and his Illudium 232 Space demodulator - however, that wasn't an option on the poll....

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-16 20:42:04

Ha-ha!! :laugh:

Mad Grad Student · 2004-03-16 21:32:05

Personally, I'm betting Opportunity runs across Marvin and his Illudium 232 Space demodulator

huh

atomoid · 2004-03-30 19:08:08

Deep layers of sediment cover Eagle crater and the surrounding plains. There is bound to be a "bottom" to these sediments, and if Endurance crater is young and deep enough, its impact might have punched lower than this bottom level. revealing evidence of older rock formations that pre-date the sedimentary layers that may have been formed either slowly or relatively quickly by repeated catstrophic flooding.

The lack of rocks at Eagle crater and its general area is quite puzzling... If the crater were younger than the layers, there should be more crater ejecta rocks strewn about the surrounding plains. From what ive read, Meridiani has been undergoing a wholesale removal of topsoil by wind erosion so its not merely that the rocks are covered up, they should be concentrated at the surface like the pebbles and spherules are. It makes me think that the craters pre-date the layers and the sediments were deposited atop these features.

The [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1337 … 1.JPG.html]only only sizeable rock we see sitting on the surface at Opportunity is probably not crater ejecta, and preliminary spectra suggests it contains hematite, whatever this might mean... Perhaps this rock was dropped off by an ancient iceberg. Maybe the sediment layers are deeper than Endurance can reveal and well just see deeper layers of sediment. Im guessing that as we look deeper layers there will be less evidence supportive of life, given that life likely increases with time and the upper layers should prove more fruitful...

ERRORIST · 2004-03-30 20:04:36

A frozen pond in the bottom of the crater, lots of spheres, and lots of bedrock. More hematite, and possibly fossils or life under ground.

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#1 2004-03-05 23:02:14

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#2 2004-03-07 02:22:26

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#3 2004-03-09 08:12:22

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#4 2004-03-10 03:25:09

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#5 2004-03-10 06:33:01

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#6 2004-03-10 20:55:08

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#7 2004-03-16 15:41:27

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#8 2004-03-16 20:42:04

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#9 2004-03-16 21:32:05

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#10 2004-03-30 19:08:08

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

#11 2004-03-30 20:04:36

Re: What Will Opportunity Find at Endurance? - Place Your Bets Now!

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