Fossil Discovery Indicates Life on Mars is Possible

[heffeque]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]I don't quite understand why this is on Toms but it's definitely a cool story. Interesting that life can exist without oxygen. Maybe it'll change scientists' definition of what exactly a "habitable world" is for other forms of life.[/citation]
Anaerobic organisms? Anyone? Are you stupid?
There's tons of microorganisms that live without oxygen.

What's more complicated is to see multicellular organisms that live without oxygen and... they actually do exist on planet Earth too, so nothing new about that either.

And yes, the volcano stuff is about organisms that live without the sun, but there are quite a few more examples out there.

 

[duffymoon]

The Tom's article is quite poor. The source clearly states the fossil evidence is 3.4 billion years old - the 10 million years is not the age but the uncertainty in the age, i.e 3.4 billion +/- 10m years.

The fact that bacteria could survive without oxygen appears to be added to try to link the story to the search for life on Mars - as has been said, there are plently of organisms that do not need oxygen to live so this is not interesting.

The findings are interesting because the fossils are very old and give further evidence about early life on Earth - there are theories about early life, but only more evidence realy helps us improve our understanding.

 

[CaedenV]

This just in: Unicorns have been proven to not require oxygen, Scientists now theorize that unicorns live on Mars...

Give me a break!

 

[BSMonitor]

Simmer down donkeys. Wikipedia is not fact. The exact nature of the evolution of life is NOT known. No matter the evidence you claim to KNOW, to make any assumption that X led to Y led to Z and claim it as fact is simply overstating conclusions from what little evidence there is. A fossil record points to clues about what early Earth was like. It is not facts, but theory only. And any new evidence to confirm or deny other evidence is welcome.

It was just 10 years ago, when we claimed we knew from a rock found in Antarctica that life on earth originated from Mars.

 

[Guest]

So, if we find something that supposedly can survive without oxygen.....how they know that is beyond me.....when you find a fossil, all you know beyond the shadow of a doubt is that it is dead......thats it.

anyhow, back to my original point, if we find something that can survive without oxygen ON EARTH.....the conclusion is that life can form on mars???? Yeah lets throw logic out the window...........just how does one reach THAT conclusion? I like the comment above about the unicorns..........point well made. I mean if we are gonna go on logic like that.....why not....maybe bigfoot and Elvis are up there too.....

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Perhaps it should have been "possible but not probable".

 

[NightLight]

sounds like about time the uac started digging for artifacts

 

[jecastej]

To add something to the discussion the microorganism who live here in earth in extreme conditions are the extremophiles, but the term itself is not accurate enough to describe all these microorganisms.

As for the controversy here I think you need to read again the final paragraph:
"...The obvious question was whether such cells and bacteria could exist on Mars. Brasier believes so: "Could these sorts of things exist on Mars? It's just about conceivable. This evidence is certainly encouraging and lack of oxygen on Mars is not a problem."

So the introduction is not the news.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Scientists already knew that. In the mexican golf they've discovered lifeforms that aren't based on oxygen near some vulcanic something that emits immense amounts of heat. And that was some 10 years ago.[/citation]

That was Sulphur (also spelled: Sulfur) i think.

 

[glass330]

This is 900x times cooler than any freakin Apple story that gets repeated every week which no ones gives an F about.

 

[dextermat]

I think that

Fossil Discovery Indicates Life on Mars is Possible

should be

Fossil Discovery Indicates Life on Mars "WAS" Possible

It would definitively be more accurate therefore not misleading!

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

That's good,that means that life probably came from mars to earth to warm up. Since our sun is gradually getting cooler,the next planet to go to is Venus.

 

[CPU666d1]

It'll be too cold on mars now for life to occur,but maybe in the past there could of been.

 

[eddieroolz]

This is a no-brainer. There were no oxygen in our atmosphere in the beginning - creatures that did not need oxygen created it as a byproduct.

 

[GeoMan]

You describe the fossil ages to be “estimated” at tens of millions of years (that’s much younger an oxygen rich atmosphere, or indeed the dinosaurs), the rocks to be 3.4 Billion years old and then go on to describe the Hadean (earth circa 4.6 - 3.8 billion). But best of all you make the jump that anoxic bacteria in the fossil record show life could exist on Mars. Forget that anoxic bacteria STILL EXIST TODAY and they’re what gave us an oxygen rich atmosphere in the first place. Go back to the research paper that you sourced this article from, read the bit at the end that is titled “Conclusions” and if you vaguely understand that bit, then try science reporting. Don’t just make up links you think sound cool and dump your ignorance of the implications of these discoveries on the scientists. This is really bad science reporting it’s factually incorrect and wholly misleading to an audience that’s already horribly undereducated in science.

 

[demonhorde665]

actaully all this talk of oxegen , is kind of stupid and uneducated. sure our body's make use of oxegen , but teh most prevalent gas in our atmosphere is really nitrogen not oxegen ,

the actually ingrident list of earth air from highest ammount to lowest , is nitrogen , oxegen , hydrogen , then trace chemicals of other gases.

 

[technogiant]

The comparisons to Mars are rather silly to say the least.

Firstly the comparisons could like wise be made to any planet lacking oxygen in its atmosphere, so why Mars?

Secondly there is little or no comparison of the early Earth environment to that of present day Mars even if they both lack Oxygen.
Early Earth was a cauldron of warm water and a heavy atmosphere laden with water vapor and volcanic gases ripe for the production more complex molecules.
Present day Mars while it may also lack much atmospheric Oxygen has none of these other conditions its atmosphere being sparse and environment arid, hardly a likely place for life to initiate.
Personally I think if Mars ever did have and environment which could have supported life then the most we can hope for now are the vestiges of that life hanging on perhaps in caves cracks and crevices, as life once it has started is very tenacious. But to hope that a Mars currently devoid of life will some how now initiate it in its present inhospitable state is unlikely.