Scientist Sees Possible Signs Of Ancient Life On Mars In Rover Photos

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Huffington Post

By Jacqueline Howard

Evidence that Mars once harbored alien life continues to mount.

Just weeks after NASA's Curiosity rover detected spikes of methane in the Martian atmosphere--possible evidence of biological activity--a prominent geobiologist says she sees possible signs of past life in photos of the Martian landscape taken by the rover.

"We can detect sedimentary structures in rocks on Mars using the rover images," Dr. Nora Noffke, an associate professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., told The Huffington Post in an email. "The structures I describe belong to a group of microbial structures that form by the interaction of benthic (living on the ground) microbes with sediment dynamics (erosion) in clastic deposits such as sand."

In other words, if such structures do exist on Mars, that suggests the planet may have once harbored microbial life. The microbes would have existed on Mars less than 3.7 billion years ago, Noffke said.

FULL story at link.



This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation. The scene has the Sheepbed mudstone in the foreground and rises up through Gillespie Lake member to the Point Lake outcrop. | NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/08/life-on-mars-photos-scientist_n_6425392.html

[TexasProgresive]

1. Thanks, Steve

That's interesting. Being the nitpicker I am do they think the microbial life on Mars is alien to Mars. Perhaps they meant to use extraterrestrial and not alien.

[librechik]

12. It's possible we brought microbes with us to Mars decades ago

maybe that's the methane source.

[greiner3]

20. "... maybe that's the methane source...."

Or maybe the Rover had gas?

[Frank Cannon]

31. Those spacecraft were all assembled in clean rooms.

Precisely so they didn't screw up the tests for life (microbial or otherwise) they were designed to perform.

Plus, it would be very highly unlikely for any errant, hitchhiking microbes to have survived and propagated on the Martian surface to any detectable extent in just a few decades. Maybe a few million, or even billion, years.

But who knows? As they say in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way."

[librechik]

35. I'm referring to the Russian astronaut who found microbes on the outside of the ISSL

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/21/nasa-organisms-iss-discovery_n_5697123.html

clean rooms aren't perfect. or maybe they got picked up in space?

we know so little….

[Botany]

2. We have known about life on Mars for years

[gelsdorf]

13. Now to find the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator n/t

[chrisa]

3. What would be weird is, imagine if life on earth originated from Mars.

Let's say an asteroid hit the planet, or something, and if such a thing is even possible, collided with earth. That would be crazy.

[RKP5637]

5. Same thought just crossed my mind too! n/t

[certainot]

7. or.... something...... like a rocket from mars!

[exboyfil]

9. That is an active line of inquiry

It may turn out that the Earth/Mars share the same biosphere with life potentially originating on either planet. Until we can get more sophisticated and flexible robots on Mars (or ideally humans) it will remain an unanswered question. Finding actual microbial life that can be sequenced - that would be like hitting the lottery in life sciences. Even if the life shares a common ancestor the opportunity to study the direction that evolution took with that microbial life would be amazing. Even fossilized remains of microbial life would be a historic find.

[belzabubba333]

14. the life on mars may have come from earth

[Frank Cannon]

32. That's not crazy. That's very possible!

It's something that these missions to Mars are hoping to help resolve.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Clarification: "Benthic" refers to living on the seabed, not dry ground. nt

[elias49]

6. Very interesting. Thanks for the post.

If I'm lucky, I have 15 years left on this rock we call home. I'd love to learn of something dramatic from the cosmos before that.

[Spooky69]

8. If not for the church . . .

NASA would have announced life on mars and elsewhere decades ago .

[exboyfil]

10. Your proof?

We already had one ambiguous announcement (the Mars meteorite). Also some questions still remain about the Viking results. The church is not holding back this line of inquiry. Scientists will publish as soon as it is confirmed (or even suspected).

[MisterP]

15. link?

[Botany]

17. Please

My SIL works for NASA and people there and at various places around the
world have spent billions of dollars and God only knows how much time looking
for life someplace besides earth. Do you really think they would hold back
information about other forms of life if they found it?

[Nitram]

18. Spooky no scientist would avoid a Nobel Prize to keep the church happy

It has never been announced because there is not conclusive scientific evidence. Yet.

[arcane1]

29. Good grief

[librechik]

11. so, still no clue about the source of the current methane?

at least, none that they'll admit to. 3 billion years ago is a pretty safe assertion.

[exboyfil]

19. Some chemical processes can lead to methane production

Scientists will exclude every possible option prior to concluding that it a sure sign of life. Science deals with what is most probable. Simpler chemical reactions are more probable than organized chemistry called life. It is the responsible approach. Until we examine the microorganisms directly or see unequivocal signs of life existing, no responsible scientist is going to conclude that life is present. The story around the Martian meteorite is a a good example. I suspect most scientists in the field wanted it to be true, but instead they developed compelling scenarios as to why the presented evidence had a simpler explanation than life. That is good science.

[trumad]

16. Well no duh!

[Sunlei]

21. Award worthy also is how the Team keeps that Curiosity Rover chugging along, collecting information!

[Adrahil]

22. The engineers who designed and built it...

Deserve a medal!

[Sunlei]

23. It's a huge team effort. I know an Astrophysicist who works on the rovers solar power team.

They all seem excited one of the rovers still brings home the science data and recharges!!

[Snow Leopard]

24. as long as they

wear the right shirts! ;^)

[Adrahil]

27. LOL!

I'd be fired if I wore a shirt like that to work.

[closeupready]

25. If life existed once on Mars, then likely it still does.

Particularly when you consider how abundant life is on Earth, even in the most harsh environments. That is, life seems to be very adaptable once established.

[Adrahil]

28. That's the hope, I think.

If life ever flourished there, it very likely exists somewhere on that planet, I think.

[NickB79]

34. Considering what we now know about "deep life" on Earth, yep

http://earthsky.org/earth/stephen-giovannoni-discovers-deepest-yet-underground-life

[underpants]

26. Probably just an old RON PAUL sign

[Kablooie]

30. Pretty thin evidence so far.

Just because some formations look similar to earth formations doesn't mean they were created in the same manner.

Certainly it merits more investigation but the press is always too quick to start throwing around the word "life" long before the data actually indicates it.

[LongTomH]

33. The Curiosity rover team disagrees

Mars Microbe Traces Spotted by Rover? Probably Not, Curiosity Team says:

An outside researcher recently analyzed photos Curiosity took of an ancient sedimentary outcrop called Gillespie Lake, and noted some similarities to "microbially induced sedimentary structures" (MISS) here on Earth. Study author Nora Noffke, a geobiologist who is not a member of the Curiosity team, said the Gillespie Lake features could be consistent with a biological origin, but stressed repeatedly that this was just a hypothesis, and that she didn't regard the structures as proof of past Mars life.

Curiosity team members also noticed the Gillespie Lake structures (which include domes, cracks and pockets, among other shapes), said mission project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. But the rover team arrived at a different interpretation.

"We really didn't see anything that can't be explained by natural processes of transporting that sand in water, and the nature of the rocks suggested that it was just a fluvial sandstone," Vasavada told Space.com.

"We do have several members of our team who are always keen to look out for things that might be caused by biological processes, but there was no reason, we felt, to explore that [option] at that site," he added. "It came down to nothing exceptional, from our point of view, that wasn't just a consequence of erosion of this sandstone."

I expect this to remain as a controversy for awhile.

The Curiosity team does have the option of drilling for mudstone samples at the Gillespie Lake site for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument.