Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00490)

This article came from New Scientist posted on another group. My 
question is Why on earth would anyone want to live on Mars or the 
Moon. I could understand it if they suddenly found oil there and 
then they could spend trillions more creating a pipeline back to 
earth. Perhaps we could use it as a "convict colony" as once was 
Australia? Certainly no need for electric fences there. Perhaps 
their mental evolution would mutate into something greater than 
earthlings and would allow them to infiltrate our minds from far 
distant galaxies. 

It would be nice to know that what HPB may or may not have said 
regarding Mars could be verified, but even if they proved that there 
was once life on mars, how would that impact on us? They certainly 
could prove it is there right now. Would the new scientist believe 
that humanity has evolved through chains and rounds on other 
planets, and that we have the choice to reincarnate to planets other 
than earth.

Just wondering
Cass


6 Viking's methane
JULY 20, 1976. Gilbert Levin is on the edge of his seat. Millions of 
kilometres away on Mars, the Viking landers have scooped up some 
soil and mixed it with carbon-14-labelled nutrients. The mission's 
scientists have all agreed that if Levin's instruments on board the 
landers detect emissions of carbon-14-containing methane from the 
soil, then there must be life on Mars.

Viking reports a positive result. Something is ingesting the 
nutrients, metabolising them, and then belching out gas laced with 
carbon-14.

So why no party?
Because another instrument, designed to identify organic molecules 
considered essential signs of life, found nothing. Almost all the 
mission scientists erred on the side of caution and declared 
Viking's discovery a false positive. But was it?

The arguments continue to rage, but results from NASA's latest 
rovers show that the surface of Mars was almost certainly wet in the 
past and therefore hospitable to life. And there is plenty more 
evidence where that came from, Levin says. "Every mission to Mars 
has produced evidence supporting my conclusion. None has 
contradicted it."

Levin stands by his claim, and he is no longer alone. Joe Miller, a 
cell biologist at the University of Southern California in Los 
Angeles, has re-analysed the data and he thinks that the emissions 
show evidence of a circadian cycle. That is highly suggestive of 
life.

Levin is petitioning ESA and NASA to fly a modified version of his 
mission to look for "chiral" molecules. These come in left or right-
handed versions: they are mirror images of each other. While 
biological processes tend to produce molecules that favour one 
chirality over the other, non-living processes create left and right-
handed versions in equal numbers. If a future mission to Mars were 
to find that Martian "metabolism" also prefers one chiral form of a 
molecule to the other, that would be the best indication yet of life 
on Mars.