Ice on Mars

[Torben]

That just reminds me of "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there".


Torben

 

[jpanhalt]

I dont understand why we consider carbon, water etc. to be the basis of life. Why are we insane searching for 'earth-like' life. Life elsewhere can turn out to be uranium based, plutonium based, or what not.

Not if the elements have the same chemical properties on other planets as they do in our solar system. So far, there is not one shred of evidence that suggests that is not the case.

So, if you think you can build a uranium or plutonium based life form, you should look up the chemistry of those elements first. Fact is, life will most likely involve molecules with X-X-X bonds where X is an element.

Ask yourself how many elements can form stable double and single bonds with themselves and with other elements.

That defines some of the properties of carbon, and in addition to its abundance in the universe, is good reason to suspect that any life form will be carbon based. Carbon's closest cousin, silicon, just doesn't fit the bill; although, it is good fodder for science fiction. The same goes in large part for oxygen vs. sulfur and nitrogen vs. phosphorous. John

 

[HiTech]

That just reminds me of "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there".

Torben

Agreed- that movie line really spoke to me when it was scrolled across the screen. Sort of reminded me of God's command to Adam & Eve about enjoying everything in the Garden of Eden with the exception of not eating from the Tree of Life.

 

[audioguru]

They say that the white stuff on roads after a snow storm is ice. It is actually salt.
Maybe there is a lot of salt on Mars.

 

[HiTech]

I know for sure that there is a lot of salt on my truck during the winter and salt on my corn cobs during the summer.

 

[TRexall]

So the Roswell Incident was just a weather Balloon gone wild,I was hoping they were Martians who needed salt for their popcorn while they watched old "I love Lucy" re-runs

 

[rita.jones56]

I would think that if evidence of life was discovered that NASA would be very keen to go public to help justify funding, which seems to be a perpetual problem.

Europa excites me even more than Mars. I watched the moon landings as a kid, and I'd love to see video from an underwater probe finding marine life around black smokers at the bottom of the Europan ocean. I think I'll go and daydream for while...

Yeah I wish they would take a closer look there too, it is much more intriguing than Mars if you ask me.

 

[TRexall]

Europa is intriguing
But if the Mars lander had used Windows and it suddenly got a BSOD
we never would have got those fantastic pictures from the Martian Surface.