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NYT article speculating about life on Mars



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 7th 04, 04:42 AM
Kenneth Chiu
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars

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http://nytimes.com/2004/03/07/weekinreview/07mars.html

Now that there's conclusive evidence that at least part
of Mars was once a water-soaked place where living
things could have wriggled, swam or slithered, it takes
only a few more leaps of speculation to wonder how they
might have died.

....

In a Martian rock that originally carried a few million
microbes, a 10 percent survival rate would still leave a few
hundred thousand Martian microbes to populate Earth.

Or maybe there never were native Martians or Earthlings at
all, and life originated from a third planet.

"We can always blame it on Venus,'' Dr. Jakosky said.
  #2  
Old March 7th 04, 11:02 AM
Rick Sobie
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars


"Kenneth Chiu" wrote in message ...
Requires free registration:

http://nytimes.com/2004/03/07/weekinreview/07mars.html

Now that there's conclusive evidence that at least part
of Mars was once a water-soaked place where living
things could have wriggled, swam or slithered, it takes
only a few more leaps of speculation to wonder how they
might have died.

....

In a Martian rock that originally carried a few million
microbes, a 10 percent survival rate would still leave a few
hundred thousand Martian microbes to populate Earth.

Or maybe there never were native Martians or Earthlings at
all, and life originated from a third planet.

"We can always blame it on Venus,'' Dr. Jakosky said.


Well first there was panspermia, where spores travelled through the
cosmos in comets or on the solar wind etc, and tocuhed down
in suitable environments and began to generate a heat signature,
then the colonizers go out and and look for planets with that heat
signature, and then probes are dispatched and more seeding takes place,
then further crews go out and examine the environment and design
life forms suitable for those environments, guys like this...

http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientastronauts.jpg

go out and genetic engineer some species based on future
needs and an ecosystem is designed.

Then eventually a moonship is dispatched with natives in the
terraformed interior and they are deposited on the planet.

As far as they are concerned, when they are finally deposited,
it looks like a new earth and sky, and now there are rainbows,
when before there weren't any.

Then, the slave masters arrive when enough building has taken pace,
and live like kings and queens and get as fat as hippos,
and never work a day in their lives.

Sound familiar?


  #3  
Old March 8th 04, 03:43 AM
!p^&c88%B!
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars


"Rick Sobie" wrote in message
news:arC2c.729794$X%5.144532@pd7tw2no...

"Kenneth Chiu" wrote in message

...
Requires free registration:

http://nytimes.com/2004/03/07/weekinreview/07mars.html

Now that there's conclusive evidence that at least part
of Mars was once a water-soaked place where living
things could have wriggled, swam or slithered, it takes
only a few more leaps of speculation to wonder how they
might have died.

....

In a Martian rock that originally carried a few million
microbes, a 10 percent survival rate would still leave a few
hundred thousand Martian microbes to populate Earth.

Or maybe there never were native Martians or Earthlings at
all, and life originated from a third planet.

"We can always blame it on Venus,'' Dr. Jakosky said.


Well first there was panspermia, where spores travelled through the
cosmos in comets or on the solar wind etc, and tocuhed down
in suitable environments and began to generate a heat signature,
then the colonizers go out and and look for planets with that heat
signature, and then probes are dispatched and more seeding takes place,
then further crews go out and examine the environment and design
life forms suitable for those environments, guys like this...

http://www.crystalinks.com/ancientastronauts.jpg

go out and genetic engineer some species based on future
needs and an ecosystem is designed.

Then eventually a moonship is dispatched with natives in the
terraformed interior and they are deposited on the planet.

As far as they are concerned, when they are finally deposited,
it looks like a new earth and sky, and now there are rainbows,
when before there weren't any.

Then, the slave masters arrive when enough building has taken pace,
and live like kings and queens and get as fat as hippos,
and never work a day in their lives.

Sound familiar?


Actually ------- no.


  #4  
Old March 8th 04, 05:30 PM
rick++
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars

Thats been mentioned several times in this newsgroup:

(1) If life arises somewhere in the Solar System,
it is likely to infect all other hospitable planets through
meteor transfer. Hospitable planets may include Earth, old Mars,
Europa, the upper clouds of Jupiter, Ganymede, Titan ...

(2) Due to its smaller size, the surface of Mars may have become geologically
stable a 10s or 100s of millions of years before Earth. Life could have
arisen there first and infected Earth.
  #5  
Old March 8th 04, 06:02 PM
randyj
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars


"rick++" wrote in message
m...
Thats been mentioned several times in this newsgroup:

(1) If life arises somewhere in the Solar System,
it is likely to infect all other hospitable planets through
meteor transfer. Hospitable planets may include Earth, old Mars,
Europa, the upper clouds of Jupiter, Ganymede, Titan ...

(2) Due to its smaller size, the surface of Mars may have become

geologically
stable a 10s or 100s of millions of years before Earth. Life could have
arisen there first and infected Earth.


Wouldn't that be more likely, rather than earth infecting Mars,
or is it possible for meteor transfer to go outward in the solar
system?

rj


  #6  
Old March 8th 04, 07:50 PM
Henry Spencer
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Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars

In article ,
randyj wrote:
...the surface of Mars may have become geologically
stable a 10s or 100s of millions of years before Earth. Life could have
arisen there first and infected Earth.


Wouldn't that be more likely, rather than earth infecting Mars,
or is it possible for meteor transfer to go outward in the solar system?


There's no particular inward/outward bias -- one direction is pretty much
as easy as the other. What does matter is that it's much easier to get
rocks *off* a small planet with weak gravity and a thin atmosphere.

Mars is a particularly favorable case. Getting a rock off Venus or Earth
is quite difficult, requiring a very large impact, something that happens
very seldom nowadays. Most of the rocks of planetary origin in the inner
solar system are from Mars or the Moon.

(Mercury is a minor contributor -- the problem there is not that outward
transfers are hard, but that a rock from Mercury has to get a *long way*
outward without encountering the Sun first. Mercury is very deep in the
Sun's gravity. We have one unusual meteorite which *might* be from
Mercury, but nobody can be sure -- we don't have surface data from Mercury
to compare it against.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |
  #7  
Old March 9th 04, 03:10 PM
randyj
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Posts: n/a
Default NYT article speculating about life on Mars


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
randyj wrote:
...the surface of Mars may have become geologically
stable a 10s or 100s of millions of years before Earth. Life could have
arisen there first and infected Earth.


Wouldn't that be more likely, rather than earth infecting Mars,
or is it possible for meteor transfer to go outward in the solar system?


There's no particular inward/outward bias -- one direction is pretty much
as easy as the other. What does matter is that it's much easier to get
rocks *off* a small planet with weak gravity and a thin atmosphere.

Mars is a particularly favorable case. Getting a rock off Venus or Earth
is quite difficult, requiring a very large impact, something that happens
very seldom nowadays. Most of the rocks of planetary origin in the inner
solar system are from Mars or the Moon.

(Mercury is a minor contributor -- the problem there is not that outward
transfers are hard, but that a rock from Mercury has to get a *long way*
outward without encountering the Sun first. Mercury is very deep in the
Sun's gravity. We have one unusual meteorite which *might* be from
Mercury, but nobody can be sure -- we don't have surface data from Mercury
to compare it against.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |



Thanks for that, very informative as always.
Very much appreciate your replys.

rj


 




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