lander samples Mars water

[Wilse]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7536123.stm

Nasa's Phoenix lander spacecraft has for the first time identified water in a sample of soil collected from the planet's surface.
Scientists will now be able to begin studying the sample to see whether the planet was ever, or is, habitable.

[Karlos]

Yep, inferring the existence of water on mars spectroscopically is one thing, to get a lump of ice is quite another.

I'm eager to see the full analysis but it won't be available for weeks :-(

[motorollin]

What are the implications of liquid water on the surface? Will that actually tell us whether organic material has ever existed on the planet, or will it just give clues as to potential?

--
moto

[Turambar]

How long before coca-cola set up a springwater bottling plant there?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

AFAIK there were microbes which could survive a space flight. Who says it won't be contamined by such?

[Karlos]

Well, it's solid ice they found. Liquid water wouldn't last long on Mars today, it would either freeze, boil or more likely, both at once ;-)

However, direct confirmation of water ice carries increases the likelihood that the "ancient wet mars" theory holds water, if you pardon the awful pun. It also increases the probability that subsurface liquid water may still exist.

Since liquid water is a critical requirement for the development of life as we know it, finding it or evidence that it existed can only increase the probability that life exists or existed.

[blobrana]

Yeah,
exciting news, and one that has enormous implications for future missions.

[amigaksi]

>Since liquid water is a critical requirement for the development of life as we know it, finding it or evidence that it existed can only increase the probability that life exists or existed.

Unless, of course, if the liquid leaked from the NASA Phoenix lander itself (or someone else's mission).  (Just considering all possibilities.)

[amigaksi]

>by blobrana on 2008/8/1 11:26:50

>Yeah,
exciting news, and one that has enormous implications for future missions.

In which direction?  (Just joking).  

I always thought there could be life out there but may not be in the form we know it.  As Karlos prudently points out, we have not detected life "as we know it".

[motorollin]

Hopefully the findings might be relevant to this thread ;-)

--
moto

[Karlos]

amigaksi wrote:

I always thought there could be life out there but may not be in the form we know it.  As Karlos prudently points out, we have not detected life "as we know it".

It's a big universe. Abiogenesis here in our solar system, on this planet, has given rise to one principal set of common biochemistry. Given the limitless potential for carbon chemistry alone it makes me wonder if that set is is the only workable one or if there are others that work in conditions quite different from those we know. For instance, there could be life on Titan using radically unfamiliar biochemistry to that we are familiar with.

There's even the possibility that life based on elements other than carbon may exist but given what we know so far of other elements abilities to form large, thermodynamically and kinetically stable molecules of the sort of diversity we see for carbon it would appear unlikely.

[bloodline]

Karlos wrote:

amigaksi wrote:

I always thought there could be life out there but may not be in the form we know it.  As Karlos prudently points out, we have not detected life "as we know it".

It's a big universe. Abiogenesis here in our solar system, on this planet, has given rise to one principal set of common biochemistry. Given the limitless potential for carbon chemistry alone it makes me wonder if that set is is the only workable one or if there are others that work in conditions quite different from those we know. For instance, there could be life on Titan using radically unfamiliar biochemistry to that we are familiar with.

I agree, and that makes it hard to know what we want to look for...

There's even the possibility that life based on elements other than carbon may exist but given what we know so far of other elements abilities to form large, thermodynamically and kinetically stable molecules of the sort of diversity we see for carbon it would appear unlikely.

Again, I have to agree... but then again, a life form based not on Carbon, might not even be recognizable to us as a life form... in fact while we are at it we may need to redefine how we look at various objects that exist on earth... :-(

[Karlos]

I've occasionally mused that the entire biosphere or even the entire planet is a single organism with a metabolism comprised of the many intersecting and interdependent regulatory systems maintain life as we know it...

[bloodline]

Karlos wrote:
I've occasionally mused that the entire biosphere or even the entire planet is a single organism with a metabolism comprised of the many intersecting and interdependent regulatory systems maintain life as we know it...

Exactly!!! Let us not also forget the simulation theory of the universe...

[Karlos]

You have my ear, sir...