Will Perseverance Find Life On Mars?

[KMDPB]

I bet a brass eagle stingray and an er2 that we find aliens on mars.

[JonM]

I suppose that depends on your definition of finding life. I doubt they'll get footage of a Martian lifeform licking the camera lens, but it is entirely possible that they may find trace amounts of ancient organic compounds.

[KMDPB]

I suppose that depends on your definition of finding life. I doubt they'll get footage of a Martian lifeform licking the camera lens, but it is entirely possible that they may find trace amounts of ancient organic compounds.

I'm pretty sure there are snalagasters on mars...

[Spider!]

It's going to be hard to find John Carter somewhere on that planet.

[Rainmaker]

I'll take that bet, I've got an ER2s here that says Aint no life on that thar red ball o' dirt!

[KMDPB]

I'll take that bet, I've got an ER2s here that says Aint no life on that thar red ball o' dirt!

What about remnants of ancient life? Does that count?

[Seajay]

I bet a brass eagle stingray and an er2 that we find aliens on mars.

I mean, define aliens? Alien rock, alien sky, alien chemical compound? Mars itself is alien. 😋

[Rainmaker]

What about remnants of ancient life? Does that count?

Sure, why not

[Rusty Brass]

I'm Team No Life. No stromatolites, no prokaryotes, eukaryotes... nuthin'. Life on Mars always has been a pipedream - it wasn't environmentally stable enough for long enough. I'll get interested when we turn the focus to Europa and Enceladus but they're extreme longshots too.

[Arthur]

Eventually yes, it will be fossilized, microscopic to very small organisms.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Life currently probably not. History of life no doubt.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is not other planets in the mass of space that can and still do contain life outside of earth. But not on Mars it’s just not stable enough.

[KMDPB]

Life currently probably not. History of life no doubt.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is not other planets in the mass of space that can and still do contain life outside of earth. But not on Mars it’s just not stable enough.

Yes but it was stable enough to support life at one time, so its possible that life existed on mars at one point in time and if that was the case the organism could have evolved and adapted to the harsh current conditions

[Rusty Brass]

Mars has never been stable though. Maybe (very, very maybe) it had time to create a few amino acids but even that is sketchy as we don't know how long it even had liquid water. It is extremely unlikely that anything will be found there. Mars, Earth, and Venus are thought to have formed at about the same time - around 4.6 billion years ago. The last time Mars had an atmosphere was over 4 billion years ago. The sun was dimmer then and Mars is even farther out from the sun than we are. It doesn't have a large satellite to stabilize its rotation and is thought to have more variation in its orbit than we ever have had.
So it had little energy available, a short to nearly nonexistent period of liquid water, little to no atmosphere, unstable environment at best...
You're as likely to find Bigfoot in your backyard as you are to find any sign of life on Mars.

[KMDPB]

I've seen bigfoot in my backyard so odds are pretty good!

[Rusty Brass]

The dream is real!

[Tarsun2]

as long as we dont start mining phobos and deimos (the moons of mars). i saw a simulation of that back in the 90s and it didnt go well. They had to send a guy up there to help out, there was a hug spider thing; it was just a mess. lol

[Nish]

Probably not on the surface. I'm guessing signs of past life.

I'm really hoping for something simple, probably microscopic, single cell type stuff still alive up there.

[Diomedes]

I doubt there's anything actually living with the atmosphere as thin as it is, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if they uncovered biomarkers - chemicals that are only known to form from biological processes. That's how we can date the earliest life on earth - we don't have fossils of the cells themselves, but we have biomarkers in rocks that are about 4 billion years old. As far as we know, you can't have the biomarkers without living cells, so that means there were living cells. So if we find the same stuff, or similar stuff, on Mars, that's pretty good evidence there was cellular life there at some point. Which would be AWESOME.