technology Curiosity's big discovery on Mars

[RBDash 176]

http://news.yahoo.com/mars-mystery-curiosity-rover-made-big-discovery-183538041.html

 

NASA apparently found a groundbreaking discovery on Mars from Curiosity's chemistry lab, but they're waiting till December in case it turns out to be false (probably not to make a repeat of the FTL neutrinos incident). But since evidence of water has been found on Mars, what else could the chemistry lab find?

 

Obligatory:

[khaine21x3 789]

Even alex jones have more credibility than the history channel, the history channel should probably rename itself the alternate history channel.

[Dusty Soul 2,611]

This is interesting I want to know what they found. From the way they are hyping it up, it must be insanely big. I'm excited about this.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Tormented Dusty Soul

[null1 606]

If it isn't Prothean ruins discovered, then I have no interest. jk

 

We'll just have to wait and see, if it is life, then... hot salts it'll be big news.

[XrosOver 613]

Funny thing about other life...who ever said that they are friendly? For all we know they could have some super disease that could make us all sterile or dead.

[Rainbow Skywalker 642]

Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of the water on other planets thing until they actually find some organisms that are worthwhile.

I can only beg to celestia that they found Ponyville...

[khaine21x3 789]

Tho they already discovered planets on other solar system with what looks like plant and water so I'm not too surprised about the alien lifeforms, INTELLIGENT lifeform is another subject however.

[Lost 1,409]

There are billions of planets out there, statistically it's early impossible for us to be the only life in the universe, what is unlikely is us finding other intelligent beings.

 

It is a little known fact that the actual reason for hostess going into liquidation is actually because they spent their budget on a rocket to send twinkies to mars, I bet that's what NASA actually found... Either that or it's one of the decepticons on their way over here to find the all spark.

[Evilshy 5,089]

Even alex jones have more credibility than the history channel, the history channel should probably rename itself the alternate history channel.

 

What does History channel have to do with this?

 

 

Funny thing about other life...who ever said that they are friendly? For all we know they could have some super disease that could make us all sterile or dead.

 

Highly, highly unlikely. I'm talking damn near impossible.

Diseases work because they live in us and evolve to better do what they do. Without any humans around, a micro organism isn't going to evolve to live in and infect humans. In fact, whatever microorganism we might find on other planets probably couldn't even survive in the average Earth environment. Organisms evolve and adapt to fit their environment, and Earth is so vastly different from anywhere else we've ever found that it's highly unlikely that any space germs would be able to survive outside of a lab designed for them.

 

Now, if we find a planet with a similar atmosphere, with similar, carbon-based life, and they have some weird diseases, then we need to be worried about bringing them back

Edited November 22, 2012 by Evilshy

[khaine21x3 789]

What does History channel have to do with this?

 

 

Saw the caption and I thought that they had something to do with this but I guess not.I think that we should re legalize slavery if we ever find semi intelligent alien species so we could use them to colonize other planets.

[Commander Urdnot 2,680]

Aw, I thought you were going to say that they found Prothean ruins.

 

Interesting. I've always found space facinating, especially the possibility of alien life. I'm looking forward to seeing what this is all about.

[Starshine 16,330]

I'm still waiting for the imminent discovery of am advanced non-carbon-based organism on Mars, which turns out to be extremely deadly to human life. The dilemma of whether terraforming the planet or leaving the aliens alone would be quite fun to watch.

[RBDash 176]

Funny thing about other life...who ever said that they are friendly? For all we know they could have some super disease that could make us all sterile or dead.

 

Alien life will not hurt us, how many bacteria and viruses can harm humans? They need to be specialized for humans to do so. Aliens cannot give us diseases, if they are even carbon-based water-needing DNA & RNA-using lifeforms with left-handed proteins then there's the huge DNA difference that will occur. If we can't get plant diseases, of which we share ~1/3 of our DNA or even mollusk diseases, which we share like ~70% of our DNA with, then there's NO way that an alien lifeform with 0% shared DNA (due to a different progenitor of life). It's even worse in the movies or Doctor Who, when humans can even have children with aliens (we can't even have children with chimps!).

 

Although there is a negative side to finding life on Mars. It would probably mean no terraforming .

[Pulcinella 1,016]

I always believed in aliens. I mean, if Earth can support life, why can't other planets? Especially Mars, and a whole crapton of exoplanets.

[Nohbdy 4,108]

News about NASA always makes me excited, regardless of whether it's important or not. Even if life exists or has existed on Mars, it's unlikely that they were intelligent. At best, it could give us important information that we might use to eventually colonize the planet.

 

But, to get on the topic of intelligent life, extraterrestrial civilizations may very well pose a threat to the human race. For all we know, they could be violent. Their technology may seem magical to us (or, as Arthur C. Clarke said, "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). On the other hand, we might make them look like cavemen. Indeed, given the age of the universe, it's unlikely for civilizations to develop at the same time. One civilization may well be billions of years older than another. The technological disparity may be such that one civilization may look like gods. To them, we'd be less than ants--less than bacteria, even. And they may treat us as such. They can kill us casually, maybe without even realizing it. Hell, they might not even realize we're sapient. The disparity doesn't even need to be that big, either, for us to be threatened. Even Stephen Hawking has warned about the potential ramifications of contacting aliens.

 

You might say that an advanced civilization would likely to be peaceful. Maybe so, but is that worth risking everything for? An advanced civilization may or may not be peaceful.

 

Despite those concerns, however, I'm overwhelmingly pro-exploration. The continued existence of our species depends on us colonizing worlds beyond Earth. Leaving all the eggs in one basket is a sure way to go extinct. Of course, the simple reason is because I'm just fascinated with astronomy. It would be great to boldly go where no man has gone before.

 

Unfortunately, not many people give a damn about space exploration. It makes sense, though, since we have more immediate problems around. But it's sad, because NASA has received less funding in the past 50 years than the government spends on defense in one year. And it'll probably remain that way for the next few decades.

 

Unless they find oil. Then we'll have a colony there by next summer.

[khaine21x3 789]

Unfortunately, not many people give a damn about space exploration. It makes sense, though, since we have more immediate problems around. But it's sad, because NASA has received less funding in the past 50 years than the government spends on defense in one year. And it'll probably remain that way for the next few decades.

 

Unless they find oil. Then we'll have a colony there by next summer.

 

There's always the russians and chinese so I think that we might still be able to see space colonies in our lifetime and maybe even intelligent aliens.

[RBDash 176]

There's always the russians and chinese so I think that we might still be able to see space colonies in our lifetime and maybe even intelligent aliens.

 

SpaceX has plans for a martian colony by the 2030s I think. And compared to what NASA does (they seriously need new rocket designs) and what they've accomplished so far, I think they might pull it off.

[Marshmallow 1,134]

I don't know.. NASA's definition of a "big discovery" probably isn't the same as the general public's definition. I doubt they've found actual alien life forms. Perhaps fossils of bacterias, which wouldn't be so surprising since they've confirmed that there has been water on Mars at one point, but that's as far as I'd go..

 

There are billions of planets out there, statistically it's early impossible for us to be the only life in the universe, what is unlikely is us finding other intelligent beings.

 

Billions? More like thousands of billions... galaxies.. each containing hundreds of billions of stars. With dozens of planets and moons around each of them. The universe is pretty damn huge!

[Neikos 968]

(probably not to make a repeat of the FTL neutrinos incident).

 

Er, they never claimed there to be FTL particles, they pretty much crowd sourced their data while making new measurements to confirm the old. If the media is your only standard to go by you will be probably pretty disappointed by what they found/find as it is not going to be something as big as life or similar.

 

Chances are they just discovered there to be traces of an atmosphere similar to the earth's a few galactic decades back. ( Or anything having to do with an atmosphere. )

[Guest]

Er, they never claimed there to be FTL particles, they pretty much crowd sourced their data while making new measurements to confirm the old. If the media is your only standard to go by you will be probably pretty disappointed by what they found/find as it is not going to be something as big as life or similar.

 

Chances are they just discovered there to be traces of an atmosphere similar to the earth's a few galactic decades back. ( Or anything having to do with an atmosphere. )

 

Seeing as the discovery was made by the chemical lab on board of Curiosity that is capable of identifying organic parts, I doubt it will have to do with the atmosphere.

[Neikos 968]

Seeing as the discovery was made by the chemical lab on board of Curiosity that is capable of identifying organic parts, I doubt it will have to do with the atmosphere.

 

I think you misunderstood organic compounds. It doesn't mean that they are made from 'living' things but that they are made out of certain atoms like Carbon, Hidrogen.

 

In the article ( which you should have read ) they even say that SAM ( Sample Analysis at Mars ) is able to "to analyzing soil samples, SAM also takes the measure of Red Planet air."

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound

[Guest]

I think you misunderstood organic compounds. It doesn't mean that they are made from 'living' things but that they are made out of certain atoms like Carbon, Hidrogen.

 

In the article ( which you should have read ) they even say that SAM ( Sample Analysis at Mars ) is able to "to analyzing soil samples, SAM also takes the measure of Red Planet air."

 

 

http://en.wikipedia....rganic_compound

 

Just because something has carbon or hydrogen (or oxygen or nitrogen) in it doesn't make it an organic compound either though. I know organic compounds are not necessarily alive and I find it hard to believe that it actually found anything living up there.

 

I did read most of the article, though I must have missed that SAM also analyses the atmosphere.

 

Still though, I think it's more than just the atmosphere as they are hyping this up quite a bit. I don't think they would do that if they haven't found something a bit more interesting.

[Neikos 968]

Just because something has carbon or hydrogen (or oxygen or nitrogen) in it doesn't make it an organic compound either though. I know organic compounds are not necessarily alive and I find it hard to believe that it actually found anything living up there.

 

An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon.

First Line of the wikipedia article.

[I used to be a stranger 7,989]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Blue

[Sunbro 4 Lyfe 938]

I think i know what it will be. A discover larger than th efirst man on the moon. It will be a day better than the end of the war, and will change history forever. They found

ROCKS