life on mars?
August 9, 2012 5:58 PM Subscribe
Watched the landing, live, in Times Square! I was thrilled, awed and inspired. Some great posts here, and lots of data on the NASA site. But 1. I'd like someone to explain the science better; what are we likely to find out? and how can that benefit the world? 2. The implications of actually finding signs of life, at whatever level.
"what are we likely to find out?"
No one has any idea. That's why we're looking. The planetary exploration program over the last 40 years has consistently shocked and amazed us; everything we look at turns out to be much different than we expected. That's also been the case with every robot we've put onto Mars, and it should be the same this time.
"what are we likely to find out?"
That question is misguided. This is "pure science"; it isn't something we're doing in hopes of getting immediately practical information from it.
Pure Science ain't very pure; it almost always eventually ends up being useful. But you can never tell ahead of time just how, or when, that will happen. And if you adopt too utilitarian an attitude about these kinds of programs, you can miss out on a lot of wonderful -- and ultimately valuable -- information.
Having said that, Mars is the only other body in the Solar System known to have had oceans of water. They're gone now, but it represents another example we can study, which may help us to understand whether Earth itself really is unique.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:53 PM on August 9, 2012
No one has any idea. That's why we're looking. The planetary exploration program over the last 40 years has consistently shocked and amazed us; everything we look at turns out to be much different than we expected. That's also been the case with every robot we've put onto Mars, and it should be the same this time.
"what are we likely to find out?"
That question is misguided. This is "pure science"; it isn't something we're doing in hopes of getting immediately practical information from it.
Pure Science ain't very pure; it almost always eventually ends up being useful. But you can never tell ahead of time just how, or when, that will happen. And if you adopt too utilitarian an attitude about these kinds of programs, you can miss out on a lot of wonderful -- and ultimately valuable -- information.
Having said that, Mars is the only other body in the Solar System known to have had oceans of water. They're gone now, but it represents another example we can study, which may help us to understand whether Earth itself really is unique.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:53 PM on August 9, 2012
I quoted the second question wrong. It should have been: "how can that benefit the world?"
That's the question that is misguided. sorry.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:56 PM on August 9, 2012
That's the question that is misguided. sorry.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:56 PM on August 9, 2012
The rover Curiosity is a mobile science laboratory sent to explore mars for a multitude of reasons. It is the most complex and expensive piece of equipment we have sent to another planet. It is nuclear powered with a host instruments meant to complete a 2 year mission plan.
It has several objectives which ill summarize : find out if life can or has exist on Mars, what is the soil made of, and to help plan future missions to Mars.
These things matter to us on Earth because we can better understand our own planet through the study of how other planets work (there were famous studies done on the Mars' weather patterns that helped us predict the unknown effects that could be caused by nuclear winter.)
The look for life elsewhere in the universe is also very important not just philosophically but medically. We can not imagine how other lifeforms could be formed cause we have no examples to judge from. As far as we know there is only one way to make life and that is the kind that developed on earth.
The rover is will also help plan future missions to mars by studying the surface so we can know what to expect when we send people/more robots to mars. Such as how much water is there (more than we thought) and other useful materials. It is expensive to send things into space from earth so it is more useful to harvest resources from where ever we are going to set up shop.
I agree with the question Choc Pick suggests but I believe it is the most important question put forth by the human species(not just atheists) to the cosmos! If life exists on Mars it will have profound impacts on Philosophy, Religion and Science. I don't think changes would happen over night but it will raise more questions and more incentive for us to explore the Cosmos.
posted by Fishstick3000 at 7:59 PM on August 9, 2012
It has several objectives which ill summarize : find out if life can or has exist on Mars, what is the soil made of, and to help plan future missions to Mars.
These things matter to us on Earth because we can better understand our own planet through the study of how other planets work (there were famous studies done on the Mars' weather patterns that helped us predict the unknown effects that could be caused by nuclear winter.)
The look for life elsewhere in the universe is also very important not just philosophically but medically. We can not imagine how other lifeforms could be formed cause we have no examples to judge from. As far as we know there is only one way to make life and that is the kind that developed on earth.
The rover is will also help plan future missions to mars by studying the surface so we can know what to expect when we send people/more robots to mars. Such as how much water is there (more than we thought) and other useful materials. It is expensive to send things into space from earth so it is more useful to harvest resources from where ever we are going to set up shop.
I agree with the question Choc Pick suggests but I believe it is the most important question put forth by the human species(not just atheists) to the cosmos! If life exists on Mars it will have profound impacts on Philosophy, Religion and Science. I don't think changes would happen over night but it will raise more questions and more incentive for us to explore the Cosmos.
posted by Fishstick3000 at 7:59 PM on August 9, 2012
That question is misguided. This is "pure science"; it isn't something we're doing in hopes of getting immediately practical information from it.
Pure Science ain't very pure; it almost always eventually ends up being useful. But you can never tell ahead of time just how, or when, that will happen. And if you adopt too utilitarian an attitude about these kinds of programs, you can miss out on a lot of wonderful -- and ultimately valuable -- information.
To go with this, remember that scientific discovery isn't usually noted with "Eureka!" It's usually, "Hmm, that's odd..."
The search for life on Mars is part of one of humanity's greatest questions. Is there life out there? How did it form? What environment did it survive in? Did this same kind of life make its way to Earth, or did life here evolve on its own? Is there a possibility that extraterrestrial life could end up on Earth someday, and survive and maybe even grow?
Mars does not look conducive to life now, but we also never know. Certain life forms on Earth known as extremophiles live in areas that we would think are completely uninhabitable by anything. Who's to say there's not a type of plant somewhere on Mars that is getting water from moist soil, photo synthesizing in very weak light, and feeding off the atmosphere? Maybe there's microbes that are nourished by soil minerals. We don't know. If we didn't look, we'd be betraying our human curiosity.
posted by azpenguin at 10:27 PM on August 9, 2012
Pure Science ain't very pure; it almost always eventually ends up being useful. But you can never tell ahead of time just how, or when, that will happen. And if you adopt too utilitarian an attitude about these kinds of programs, you can miss out on a lot of wonderful -- and ultimately valuable -- information.
To go with this, remember that scientific discovery isn't usually noted with "Eureka!" It's usually, "Hmm, that's odd..."
The search for life on Mars is part of one of humanity's greatest questions. Is there life out there? How did it form? What environment did it survive in? Did this same kind of life make its way to Earth, or did life here evolve on its own? Is there a possibility that extraterrestrial life could end up on Earth someday, and survive and maybe even grow?
Mars does not look conducive to life now, but we also never know. Certain life forms on Earth known as extremophiles live in areas that we would think are completely uninhabitable by anything. Who's to say there's not a type of plant somewhere on Mars that is getting water from moist soil, photo synthesizing in very weak light, and feeding off the atmosphere? Maybe there's microbes that are nourished by soil minerals. We don't know. If we didn't look, we'd be betraying our human curiosity.
posted by azpenguin at 10:27 PM on August 9, 2012
With regard to the second question - how can that benefit the world? - I would refer you to this recent post on Letters of Note. Essentially, the benefits of missions like this are largely intangible when viewed in isolation but, by pushing ourselves to do things like this, we discover things about ourselves that shape our world view, with the added bonus of scientific breakthroughs that have wider, more practical (in a day-to-day sense) applications.
If a curious child looks under a stone, it has no real practical value; to a parent they are playing in the mud and a rebuke may follow. For the child, the discovery of a bug may trigger a flash of insight about the world around it and go on to inspire a life of study that has unforeseeable benefits for the people around them. Personally, I would prefer to live in the muddy, bug filled world of as yet unknown discoveries rather than the pristine, anodyne world of certainty.
posted by oclipa at 1:33 AM on August 10, 2012
If a curious child looks under a stone, it has no real practical value; to a parent they are playing in the mud and a rebuke may follow. For the child, the discovery of a bug may trigger a flash of insight about the world around it and go on to inspire a life of study that has unforeseeable benefits for the people around them. Personally, I would prefer to live in the muddy, bug filled world of as yet unknown discoveries rather than the pristine, anodyne world of certainty.
posted by oclipa at 1:33 AM on August 10, 2012
and how can that benefit the world?
We developed a system to automatically, with little human intervention, drop a ton of delicate equipment on another planet. I suspect that'll be hugely useful somewhere down the line. The sky crane looked crazy and far fetched 4 days ago. Now it can become a routine.
Thousands of people were put to work developing that system.
I've seen a lot of news reports and comments stating how awesome America can be when it's focused on doing something good, in the name of science.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:54 AM on August 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
We developed a system to automatically, with little human intervention, drop a ton of delicate equipment on another planet. I suspect that'll be hugely useful somewhere down the line. The sky crane looked crazy and far fetched 4 days ago. Now it can become a routine.
Thousands of people were put to work developing that system.
I've seen a lot of news reports and comments stating how awesome America can be when it's focused on doing something good, in the name of science.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:54 AM on August 10, 2012 [1 favorite]
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At one extreme, this may be the only planet in the universe which has developed life, let alone intelligent tool-using life. At a different extreme, there may be life, including tool users, all over the place.
We can't easily judge how typical or unusual Earth may be, because we only have the one sample we can look at.
If we find life elsewhere in the solar system, and can prove that it developed from scratch twice in just this solar system, then it means the universe is teeming with life. We may never find it, but it's out there.
The odds are that there's no life now on Mars. But our best information is that in the first few hundred million years after Mars formed, conditions there were such that life could have formed based on our current models of how that happens. So Mars is the primary target for the moment for extraterrestrial life search.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:22 PM on August 9, 2012 [1 favorite]