Imminent Discovery of Life On Mars?

by Tammy Plotner on May 13, 2008

Life on Mars?Do you think there is life on Mars? Do you think Phoenix will find evidence of it? Now there’s a blog that’s trying to collect a snapshot of the opinions of scientists, amateurs, and everyday people. “Imminent Discovery” thinks Phoenix may find simple life. Finding this evidence will definitely become headlines… If it happens. Is it possible it might have originated from earth? Perhaps from space, like the famous Antarctica meteorite which was believed to contain evidence of life transported here from Mars?

According to Richard Trentman, a Minor Planet Coordinator at Powell Observatory, “The idea of life in some form on other planets, I believe is highly probable. I have studied about the extreme places on this planet where life has been found and many are far more extreme than may be found on Mars and other planets or moons in our solar system. I believe that anyone that thinks life cannot be “out there” has their eyes closed and blinders on.”

Over time, many astronomers have spent a lifetime dreaming of life and formations on Mars like the misguided Slipher: “Some form of vegetation exists. …The evidence is in the blue-green areas and the changes in their appearance. Vegetation would present exactly the appearance shown, and nothing we know of but vegetation could. The season change that sweeps over them is metabolic…” And yet others take more pragmatic views like astronaut Pete Conrad who commented on bacteria surviving on retrieved Surveyor III remains: “The most significant thing we ever found on the whole Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived an nobody ever said (anything) about it.”

What’s your opinion? Help to update the book “Imminent Discovery, NASA’s Phoenix and the Secret of Life on Mars” in a post-discovery edition with some of these inputs. Please feel free to Post Your Thoughts On The Imminent Discovery of Life On Mars. Responses may be anonymous or you may use initials if you prefer. To make it more interesting, there is a random drawing of all individuals who enter comments to give away one copy of the classic 1962 book by Earl Slipher “Mars, the Photographic Story”, and a competition between astronomy clubs. Have fun!

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  • alexis.serrano

    I know i hope there is life on mars but in reallity i think its more likely that there WAS life on mars. As for the universe you’d have to be a very closed mind individual to think that in this vast universe we are alone. What worries me is if we eventually to find some kind of proof on mars or anywhere for that matter. I have a very very very good feeling that some government, agency, or religion will do every thing in its power to make sure no one else finds out. I hope that those in charge have a very good plan for dissemenation if evidence is found

  • alexis.serrano

    have you ever thought of the idea that life doesnt even exist on a planet, but space it self….perhaps an astroid…

  • Carlos

    What If…? Life came from Mars? are we are forgetting something here, How did It get to Mars? or Earth, if we seeded Mars. These are important questions to be sure. If Life is transported from elsewhere then we are looking at the arrival point of life not the origin or departure point. Life is out there somewhere in this vast universe of ours, I am sure of it. If we stood upon our solar system as giants and looked outward, outside our small confines, we would see it. We are looking downward through a microscope of life, let’s look upward and outward. The discovery of life on Mars will prove Life is abundant in the Universe; the lack of proof on Mars will turn our eyes outward.

  • Bob

    All this discussion fails to bring up the rather important point that Phoenix is not able to discover life on Mars: its instruments can, at best, detect organic materials that are the elemental building blocks of life, but are themselves not necessarily evidence of past or present life. This “Imminent Discovery” site is nothing but an effort by a crank to sell copies of his book. It’s surprising and disappointing that Universe Today didn’t see through this and examine it all a little more critically.

  • http://www.casasdobarlavento.blogspot.com/ casasbarlavento

    I think through time we are question our parameters to define life and witch conditions can it exist.

    In the end I just hope that what ever they find or discover doesn’t bring more damage then good to our planet and to us

  • Andy

    I think sometimes we mislead ourselves. The fact that we see life everywhere on Earth does not mean that its origins were easy or inevitable. It only means that, once started, it’s nearly impossible to stop. Even the simplest cell has a complex structure and biochemistry. If we were to find evidence of DNA on Mars, that’s not life. If we find RNA, that’s not life. If we find amino acids and proteins, they’re not life. Finding the building blocks would certainly be promising but it’s a quantum leap from building blocks to a living organism.
    It’s not about ingredients; it’s about organization.

  • Chris

    Wait a few years and there will be life on Mars. What’s the buzz?

  • http://www.legionsix.org FlaviusCrispus

    <>

    Typical conspiratorial mindset crap. If there’s any hint of possible life on Mars, past or present, NASA will TRUMPET it to all corners of the world. They did that in 1996, when they only had a Martian meteorite to go by. It would not only justify the billions spent on Mars exploration so far, it would probably guarantee funding for more robotic and human exploration.

  • Chris

    Read deeper Flavius. When mankind finally reaches Mars we will find life there –(ourselves).

  • RobbiNewman

    Chances are… life on other planets will discover us before we discover them.

  • spheros

    This topic is not about Man walking on Mars. It’s about the possibility of abiotic or panspermatic life. Bob has the only rational comment on here. And regardless of your opinions on Richard Hoagland, NASA will tell us what they WANT to tell us. Let’s not forget that NASA is first and foremost a department of defense organization. Emotional opinions are moot until NASA decides the time is right to tell us anything.

  • geokstr

    I hope someone at NASA has considered that the Earth may have seeded life on Mars, but not aeons ago, perhaps as recently as the 1970′s, when the first landings were made. How long might it take Earth microbes to mutate and spread from all the various landing/impact sites to the Phoenix landing site?

  • http://www.askthescienceguru.com Ian Maclean

    I hope this is the case, that life will be found.
    Much of the evidence coming out of the Mars missions lately have not been in favor of life being found. This is in spite of the obvious presence of liquid water on the Martian surface in the past.
    Worthy of further investigation to be sure !

  • Chris

    Right on, Robbi. There’s star stuff out in the Universe put together alot earlier than us, any telescope on Earth will show this. They already had Uranium while we were still messing around with Lithium. What is really fascinating is that there is a good chance that there are more neuron cells in our brains than there are stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The future destiny of Mankind is far more precious than where he travels and what he meets. Good thinking, Robbi

  • http://www.marssociety.org Steven

    # RobbiNewman Says:
    May 15th, 2008 at 12:47 am

    Chances are… life on other planets will discover us before we discover them.

    Yeap I agree and that already happened with the ALH 84001 find, life on Mars came to us, and we just looked the other way.

    Very rude we are. :)

  • http://cheatbuzz.com/ CyclonusRIP

    At the end of the day one has to realize that life on earth is just one example of how life can evolve. Life on other planets could have followed a completely different path and not be subject to any of the conditions that need to be present for earth based lifeforms. The reality of it is that as science progresses, even on our planet, we are finding new forms of metabolism we never imagined would exist, and we are finding them because we finally bothered to look in places that people nearly universally believed it couldn’t 50 years ago.

  • EaB

    Life exsits everywhere even in space itself. We must change our narrow concept of what life is and can be. Life always finds a way thats the point of being here. Every planet even the sun has life on it, life is amazing and very resilient and can adapt to survive anywhere.

  • http://www.spacebull.com Eric Conrad

    The question should never be how life got to Earth. The question should be how life formed from non-living matter.

  • Bill

    I predict no life or indications thereof from Phoenix or MSL. Also Phoenix will not find permafrost with its digging arm.
    I also am pessimistic that the true cause of its predecessor’s demise is not known and there is a chance Phoenix may suffer the same glitch, which may be akin to auroral activity near the poles, i.e. charged particle flux affecting vehicle electronics adversely after a charge buildup on the vehicle’s surface. I hope things work.

  • Charles

    A few years ago, Looking at Infrared spectra of Mars from the European Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) CAM CVF I noticed features absorption corresponding to the “Sinton bands” cited as evidence of extraterrestrial chlorophyll back in the 1960s. The evidence was rejected when some of the bands were attributed to water (?) in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Well, I doubt the bands in Mars’ spectrum are chlorophyll (maybe something organic though), but the ISO was above earth’s atmosphere so they are certainly on Mars whatever they are. Much evidence of this sort may have been rejected early on as soon as a plausible alternative was suggested (extrordinary demands require extraordinary proof, etc.). When in fact, because of the importance of the possible, if extraordinary, original suggestion, follow ups should have been pursued. No one need account something as ‘proof’ of life in order to find it intriguing enough to investigate. The Viking chemistry has not been revisited with newly designed experiments capable of checking the hypotheses generated for over 30 years!

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