quatrotritikali

This is a historical event, for certain! Us baby boomers remember the Apollo moon landings...and those were extraordiary events. For all you young'uns born after the 60s...well, you missed out. However, here's your chance to see mankind exploring and mapping Mars. Our return to the moon is scheduled before 2020.

I wish NASA the best.

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GarzaUK

Imagine what would happen if they found micro-organisms on Mars? Even fossilised or dormant ones. Would change are outlook of the universe completely. I'm hoping

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They tried like hell. They called him an élitist, a radical, a socialist, a Marxist, a Muslim, an Arab, an appeaser, a danger to the republic, a threat to small children, a friend of terrorists, an enemy of Israel, a vote thief, a non-citizen, an anti-American, and a celebrity. ~ George Packer

independent_thinker2002

What if we brought microorganisms to Mars?

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Tashah

Possible, but extremely unlikely.

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WI Crippler

I don't know that those microorganisms would survive in the Martian atmosphere or soil. We'd have to make them little microorganism spacesuits.

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"What Jesus fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."- Reg

independent_thinker2002

What have I started?

bub

yes but if they are Jewish.............

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GarzaUK

On one of the first Moon Landings the astronauts left microorganisms on one of the instruments by accident and left it on the moon. Years later on one of the later lunar landings for some reason they brought that instrument back. Once it got back to earth the microorganisms burst into life and started to reproduce after years of being in a place with no atmosphere or water. If microorganisms can remain dorment on the moon, they certainly can on Mars.

Maybe they is dormont bacteria on Mars just waiting for the conditions to be right to come to life again. If there was liquid water on Mars once, it is certainly possible.

WI Crippler

I'm always pumped for the possibility of discovering other life on other planets/moons. Even if its just dormant microorganisms. I think a discovery of that nature would give the human race the kick in the ass it needs to start thinking about our place in a universe that is most likely abundant with life. No longer would it just be the musings of scientists and sci-fi novelists. As a species I feel it is of uptmost importance that we bend our energies towards space exploration/colonization. If we are content to resign our fate to this planet alone, we are dooming ourselves.

tryreading

I think about this all the time. Considering the billions of stars in just our galaxy, and the likelihood that planets have formed around most of them, there really has to be other life, and a lot of it, in our galaxy. On our planet, life has formed everywhere that it can, from the Sahara, to the Antarctic, to the deepest ocean vents. Only makes sense that life has formed everywhere it can across the galaxy, too.

But the problem is, why aren't we aware of life existing other than on Earth? There should be signs, like radio waves, or funny lights out there that we can detect. We should be able to see 'them.' That's the basis of the Fermi Paradox. If life does exist, it should be everywhere. If its not everywhere, it doesn't exist, except for us.

But if life doesn't exist, except for us, there has to be an explanation. Do all civilizations eventually kill themselves off, like we are capable of doing today?



Or, maybe there are enough of these, often enough, to take sectors of the galaxy back to the drawing board every so often:

Binary 'deathstar' has Earth in its sights | COSMOS magazine