The Waters of Mars

[Kobold King]

No, this isn't about the spectacular Doctor Who episode. I'm talking about what I can't believe no one else is talking about here...

 

The discovery of liquid water on the surface of Mars.

 

 

For the first time, we know that there are streams of fluid saltwater flowing across another planet. Moreover, a planet that's right next door to us in the Solar System.

 

The implications of this are breathtaking--could we build a functioning colony there? Could there be microbes lurking in the streams, or in aquifers underneath? If conditions for life are feasible on so many hotspots throughout our solar system, could we be on the brink of finding single-celled life that is not of this world?

[Eerongal]

 

But, no, really, this is actually really awesome news.

[Alfa]

Microbic life on Mars would be damnation-storming cool, even if I have no idea, how microbs could survive without a magnetic field around their planet. As far as i read, this water dissolves after some minutes, so I will stay "carefully optimistic".

In my opinion the "hottest" candidate for life in our solar systems is one of the bigger moons of Jupiter (Io, IIRC); because it has fluid water inside protected by around 10 kilometers of ice; secure from UV and radioctive radiation; only there is not much of an energy source in this case. Hopefully they will show results in our lifetime.

[Mestiv]

Microbic life on Mars would be damnation-storming cool, even if I have no idea, how microbs could survive without a magnetic field around their planet. As far as i read, this water dissolves after some minutes, so I will stay "carefully optimistic".

In my opinion the "hottest" candidate for life in our solar systems is one of the bigger moons of Jupiter (Io, IIRC); because it has fluid water inside protected by around 10 kilometers of ice; secure from UV and radioctive radiation; only there is not much of an energy source in this case. Hopefully they will show results in our lifetime.

 

That would be Europa with all the ice and liquid water underneath. Io is much less pleasant place with strong volcanic activity and a lot of sulfur on the surface. 

[Alfa]

On the other hand, there really are some weird microbs that live on H2S instead of H2O. Volcanic activity can even provide energy for life. I'll say the odds are 1:1 if there is life outside of earth in the solar system.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Alfa

[RippleGylf]

I'm still a little hesitant about the water on Mars, mostly because of how the Doctor Who episode turned out.  It's still pretty cool, though. 

[Shrike76]

That would be Europa with all the ice and liquid water underneath. Io is much less pleasant place with strong volcanic activity and a lot of sulfur on the surface. 

 

I thought Enceladus had recently taken the crown as most likely candidate? Either way, there are quite a few potential spots to look for some basic form of life. 

Finding liquid water on Mars is very exciting, for sure. I was watching the livecast with my son this morning, because he's just completely hooked on everything science (but mainly space). We might find some life there (or the dead remains of some) but what I find more exciting is that having more water there than we expected makes it easier to put humans on the surface.

[Mashadar Mistborn]

Why do I miss all the interesting sciencey news? All the news I ever hear is politics, which maddens me(I don't have the head for human systems). This is very, very cool. Thanks for making this topic, Kobold.

[Mistrunner]

WATER ON MARS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

I'm sorry, I find it hard to discuss these things seriously in the first few hours/days/sometimes weeks after the fact. It's just so amazing.

 

But really. Its implications are enormous. I forget how long ago it was, but there was evidence from Curiosity that pointed to the possibility of bacteria having lived on Mars in water. Is there still be bacteria on the surface? What about below? Will I be geeking out again, but for months instead of weeks with the discovery of non-terrestrial life?

 

Just don't drink the water. It won't turn out well.

[Briar King]

Yeah how cool is that this news was dropped on the same day as the Supermoon eclipse(that I couldn't even see....stupid clouds)!

[king of nowhere]

I am less excited than most because I somewhat expected it. I mean, those dark seasonal lines on slopes had been known for a few years, and water had always been the main explanation proposed. So, we got a confirmation of something we already strongly suspected, which is good, but not a world-changing news.

I also strongly suspected that was the new discovery when on friday nasa announced that they'd make a big reveal on monday. When they say "mars mistery solved", it could either mean that they found liquid water or that they found life, and the instruments we have there aren't capable of unequivocally detect life, so liquid water it must have been.

As for supporting life, that's a question we are not able to answer. Oh, life can exist on mars, that's for sure. They found bacteria in a gold mine four kilometers deep, they survived by oxidizing ores. such bacteria could easily survive deep underground on mars; the ground would protect them from the harsh environment at the surface, and geothermical heat means there would be liquid water available.

No, the real question is whether life arose on mars on its own. Right now we have some fairly good ideas on how complex molecules may have gradually evolved from simple ones under the effects of ligthing and cosmic rays, and for every step along the sequence that goes from simple inorganic compounds to simple organics, to complex organics, to biomolecules, to life, we have some plausible explanations for how that could have happpened. The question is, how likely is that? Is it likely enough that iff you take a planet with the right conditions, the evolution of life within a few hundred million years is virtually a certainty? or it is still something extremely unlikely, so that even on a whole planet there is still one chance in a billion of life ever appearing? or what if life requires stricter conditions than we think? sure, bacteria on earth are adapted to live mostly everywhere, but they are the descendant of survivors that resisted at everything the world threw at them. The first bacteria were much less well adapted, so maybe they could only form in very specific environment. So, whether we find life elsewhere in the solar system or not will help us understand how likely is life to form. For the moment, we are not capable of answering the question.

As for how people hadn't been talking about it, well, that's the forum of a fantasy writer. People will generally talk about his books.

 

EDIT: I forgot to add, but we aren't even sure of exactly what life requires. We think it needs water, because water has a lot of properties that make it the ideal solvent for life (mostly ebcause it is better than other solvents to support complex organized structures), but I wouldn't be surprised if it was discovered that properly adapted bacteria, with a completely different biochemistry than the one we know, could live in liquid ammonia, using that as a solvent. I'd be more surprised for liquid methane, because it cannot form hydrogen bonds, and its low temperature would stop most chemical processes, buut still I wouldn't rule it out completely. The only certainty I have about life is that it requires carbon and hydrogen, and probably oxygen and nitrogen as well. That says nothing on how those atoms would be arranged, or what other elements may be associated with them.

Edited September 29, 2015 by king of nowhere

[Blaze1616]

That would be Europa with all the ice and liquid water underneath. Io is much less pleasant place with strong volcanic activity and a lot of sulfur on the surface. 

 

I still like Titan for having life. It'll just be methane based life, not water. Gotta love that CH4!

[Pestis the Spider]

Microbic life on Mars would be damnation-storming cool, even if I have no idea, how microbs could survive without a magnetic field around their planet. As far as i read, this water dissolves after some minutes, so I will stay "carefully optimistic".

In my opinion the "hottest" candidate for life in our solar systems is one of the bigger moons of Jupiter (Io, IIRC); because it has fluid water inside protected by around 10 kilometers of ice; secure from UV and radioctive radiation; only there is not much of an energy source in this case. Hopefully they will show results in our lifetime.

I don't think that lack of magnetic field would be that much of the problem to potential microbes on Mars. Microbes are extremely variable and can be found in basically every environment, even the most deadly one. And even on Earth we have animals (not microbes, but much complicated organisms for which ot is much more difficult to adapt or acllimatise. I mean, obviously, tardigrades which were tested and confirmed to survive even floating in space... Of course, they wouldn't be able to actually live there, only survive, but I think microbes should be able to accomplish that. 

 

 

The only certainty I have about life is that it requires carbon and hydrogen, and probably oxygen and nitrogen as well. That says nothing on how those atoms would be arranged, or what other elements may be associated with them.

We don't even know that. It was suggested and discussed many, many times that life could be, for example, silicon-based, not carbon-based. 

[king of nowhere]

We don't even know that. It was suggested and discussed many, many times that life could be, for example, silicon-based, not carbon-based. 

I see that as very unlikely. a huge difference between carbon and silicon is that silicon-based macromolecules are much less stable. As an example, you can make hydrocarbons that are indefinitely long, but their silicon-based equivalents spontaneously decompose for a chain length over a couple dozen atoms. Another limitation is that silicon has a very hard time forming double bonds, which dramatically reduce the number of different functional groups you can make with them. Silicon just doesn't have the flexibility of carbon to support differentiated macromolecules. Also the fact that our planet is full of silicon, and yet life doesn't use it at all, is a strong hint against it.

 

That doesn't mean that silicon could not be an important component of alien life; simply, I don't think it could skip carbon entirely. for example the silicones are silicon-based molecules that can be highly differentiated, and they are composed of a main chain of Si-O-Si-O, with minor carbon-based branching chains departing from the silicon atoms. That could be the model of a siicon-based molecule that could support life, but it requires carbon in it.

In general, do not confuse "using an element" with "being based on it": I read somewhere someone claim that we discovered "arsenic-based life" in some of the salt lakes, because of a controversial experiment supporting the conclusion that those bacteria iincorporated arsenic in their dna; putting aside that that discovery was eventually debunked, but even had it been confirmed, it would have been carbon-based life that used arsenic.

[Pestis the Spider]

I see that as very unlikely. a huge difference between carbon and silicon is that silicon-based macromolecules are much less stable. As an example, you can make hydrocarbons that are indefinitely long, but their silicon-based equivalents spontaneously decompose for a chain length over a couple dozen atoms. Another limitation is that silicon has a very hard time forming double bonds, which dramatically reduce the number of different functional groups you can make with them. Silicon just doesn't have the flexibility of carbon to support differentiated macromolecules. Also the fact that our planet is full of silicon, and yet life doesn't use it at all, is a strong hint against it.

 

That doesn't mean that silicon could not be an important component of alien life; simply, I don't think it could skip carbon entirely. for example the silicones are silicon-based molecules that can be highly differentiated, and they are composed of a main chain of Si-O-Si-O, with minor carbon-based branching chains departing from the silicon atoms. That could be the model of a siicon-based molecule that could support life, but it requires carbon in it.

In general, do not confuse "using an element" with "being based on it": I read somewhere someone claim that we discovered "arsenic-based life" in some of the salt lakes, because of a controversial experiment supporting the conclusion that those bacteria iincorporated arsenic in their dna; putting aside that that discovery was eventually debunked, but even had it been confirmed, it would have been carbon-based life that used arsenic.

Maybe it is unlikely, but it does not make it impossible. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about complex life forms, but the simplest of the simplest microorganisms possible, simpler than the bacteria we know now. Of course the cons of silicone as a base of life would not only limit the complexity of life but also it's adaptability, which could very well make it limited to the one single acid-pond (or something) in a middle of nowhere on some far-far forgotten by God planet. 

 

Of course, you're probably right that life needs carbon, but that is only because we are strictly limited by the definition of life as we know it. Even our Earthly viruses are not considered life, according to that definition. I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm saying that what viruses do is clearly distinctive from what other not-alive organic particles do, and so I think it might be possible that we will never find life as we know it in space, as definition of life is just so long and complicated that forming such life may simply require too many coincidences for it to happen twice in this universe. But maybe will find something that vaguely resembles life and has some of it's characteristics, but not all of them. Who knows?

 

Also, saying that silicon is not used by life on Earth at all is not precise. Sure, it's not really majorly incorporated into organic compounds that life is based on, but silica is an essential nutrient to huge amounts of organisms, especially in the sea environment. 

[+Slowswift]

As fascinating as the ramifications are...

...am I the only one who thinks the Google Doodle is super cute?

[Seonid]

This might be germane to the discussion. Scroll down to the section on Alien biology, which lists possible protein analogues and solvents they could work with. This is extremely speculative, and well out of my expertise, so there may be significant issues with it, but the site has generally been accurate within my areas of expertise, so I feel comfortable recommending it.

 

Also, Kobold, I thought you might like the site. I spent a lot more hours than I like to think about down the rabbit hole on that site. Worse than TV Tropes for me. Pretty much everything you need for true-to-modern-physics science fiction.

[Delightful]

As fascinating as the ramifications are...

...am I the only one who thinks the Google Doodle is super cute?

You are most definitely not the only one. She is adorabibble

[DreamEternal]

You are most definitely not the only one. She is adorabibble

She? Mars is a girl now?

And I think you mean adorbitable

(Obrigatory bad pun sound effects someone help why did I do this puns are bad help)

Edited September 29, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[DanTheSeamonster]

https://youtu.be/UsaJ7ZvCjmY

 

Squeeeee. Did anyone else catch the Martian potato reference?? 

 

But in all seriousness,  I still find it highly unlikely that there is sapient life on mars. I mean, not to burst anyone's bubble but I think we would have seen some sign of them. What with all the poking and prodding we've done up there. 

 

Still, my fingers are crossed for microbial life/semi-descent (relatively speaking) living conditions for humans!! 

[Briar King]

Ha that movie coming out in a few days just becomes that much funnier imo. The director was loln about it.

[Delightful]

She? Mars is a girl now?

And I think you mean adorbitable

(Obrigatory bad pun sound effects someone help why did I do this puns are bad help)

The Google doodle gave me a feminine impression. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

......adorbitable.....that took me a moment. And it doesn't sound as cute. But it was a worthy effort, and I will reward you with a *facepalm*.

[king of nowhere]

Of course, you're probably right that life needs carbon, but that is only because we are strictly limited by the definition of life as we know it. Even our Earthly viruses are not considered life, according to that definition.

actually, as far as i know, there is no accepted univocal definition of life. that's because there are many complex systems that can mimick some of its properties. heck, a few years ago they made a molecule capable of replicating itself from smaller chunks (the molecule was an RNA chain, and it was capable of copying itself by assembling smaller chains; it is considered strong supporting evidence for the RNA world hypothesis); does that count as life?

So yeah, I can agree that something like that may even eschew carbon.

 

 

But in all seriousness,  I still find it highly unlikely that there is sapient life on mars. I mean, not to burst anyone's bubble but I think we would have seen some sign of them. What with all the poking and prodding we've done up there. 

 

no one ever mentioned sapient life here. we're strictly talking about bacteria.

[Pestis the Spider]

actually, as far as i know, there is no accepted univocal definition of life. that's because there are many complex systems that can mimick some of its properties. heck, a few years ago they made a molecule capable of replicating itself from smaller chunks (the molecule was an RNA chain, and it was capable of copying itself by assembling smaller chains; it is considered strong supporting evidence for the RNA world hypothesis); does that count as life?

So yeah, I can agree that something like that may even eschew carbon..

Sorry, you're right of course. I oversimplified this. By "definition" I meant the set of traits that are generally considered to make a given "object" alive. I think that it is generally agreed that all living things should be clearly distinct from the environment, be able to metabolsie and reproduce in one way or another. Then comes growth, response to stimuli, and so on and so on. The list of "life's" characteristiscs changes depending on the scientist, but some things are almost always included, like for example metabolism. That's why viruses are not considered alive. 

 

 

no one ever mentioned sapient life here. we're strictly talking about bacteria.

 

Well. I would say we talk about microorganisms in general. Sure, from Earth organisms bacteria would be probably best suited to live on Mars, thanks to their huge, huge biochemical variations, but whatever we find there (if we find it at all) may be so completely different that it can't be classified into one group of Earthly organisms or the other. It's not like it couldn't be some kind of anaerobic eukaryote with bacterial biochemistry or something else that's completely weird. I just agree that it's probably going to be small and rather simple.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Pestis the Spider

[DanTheSeamonster]

I am aware that no one mentioned sapient life, I was just stating my full opinion.

Edited October 1, 2015 by The Crooked Warden