NEWS: NASA Scientists: "There is (Probably) Life on Mars"

GEEK: NASA Scientists: "There is (Probably) Life on Mars"

It may not be little green men or grey aliens with almond-shaped eyes, but NASA scientists Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke have found strong evidence of the possibility of life on Mars.

Stoker and Lemke hope to move Martian exploration underground and into caves in search for microbial or other life forms in the future. Their current research has been submitted for publication in the scientific journal Nature.

man imagine going into one of those caves and suddenly finding a whole ecosystem of life in one of those caves on a planet always thought to be dead.
if earth can hold that many suprises of that sort maybe mars has one for us too.

I for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.

I wish NASA had about 12 times its current budget.

hey, there's an idea. fuck the war, fuck democracy forced down the throats of brown people. let's look at the bigger picture and the things that matter more than guns or politics. like how insignificant we really are in the grand scheme of the universe.

Speak for yourself.

We are all doomed

James Lovelock still disagrees with them though.

Maybe we should just send something that can give us a definitive answer and settle it once and for all.

or send them Big Macs and Fries.

I'm with him dude. I'm not special. I am not a beautiful snowflake. I realize this. There are insects and bacteria, if they went extinct, ecosystems would crumble. Can't say the same for humans.

I am special. I am a very special snowflake.

I think they should make a group of robots powered on solar cells that can fix each other. Then equip them with drills and chem labs. That would be awesome. Especially if we could watch them on a website with ads that could help fund the project. They could also sell merchandise featuring the robot posse. "NASA has a robot posse" would be a high seller in deed.

Didn't you ever see terminator!!

I read that 'they' are quite pleased about the performance of the solar cells on the Mars rovers. 'they' were expecting them to get covered in dust and have reduced efficiency, but that seems to have not happened, so the rovers have had a longer than expected life span.

Life on Mars is just a theory...

what are the theological implications of this?

If there is life found on different two planets in one solar system then the probability of life on other planets in the countless other solar systems is very very high, and the liklyhood of other intelligent life on some other planets is immense.
Religions on this planet assume that God created the earth for the benefit of man, that's slightly ludicrous to extend 'god made life on omega xxvviii 30 lightyears away for the benefit of man"

next news story about mars.."president bush announced today that he believes the martians are capable of wmd so we must send a "peacekeeping" mission to allow them free elections spreading democracy through the galaxy "..."we've seen the pictures and firmly believe they are capable of producing nuculer bombs that would threaten our democracy lovin' ways"..."watch this drive...does anybody have any pretzels??"...

[Edited on Feb 16, 2005 by razorbladesonata]

The idea that God created Earth for man falls down way before that on the point of "Why did He create other planets at all?"

However the idea that God created Earth AND man as part of a larger for a universe would not struggle with the idea of life on other planets.

If there is life, I can guarantee it's no older than 5,000 years old.

That was one hell of an ark.

I say we go to Mars and give them anal probes. PAY BACK!!!

Martians don't have anuses. Duh, If they did, they wouldn't be so fascinated with ours

"I like to dig in the dirt... For bugs..."

What a guy.

Given that we've found life in the most hostile of places on earth; bacteria growing in the tundra, inside nuclear reactors, even in the upper atmosphere, laying dormant, it has seemed a safe but unscientific bet that there is a similar likelihood for life on Mars. I'd be surprised if Mars is as dead biologically as has been thought in past decades. I'd be surprised if such life was not plentiful in the universe. Even so, there's still a great leap from finding bacteria thriving under a shallow layer of soil to presuming that intelligent life would be as plentiful. But even an alien flatworm would be an important and momentous discovery.

I don't think they'd look good in those short little Star Trek skirts though. Dammit...

"Hey, it don't matter when it's Arcturan, baby..."