# So What Did Rover Drag Home?????



## Gordian Knot (Dec 4, 2012)

Simple Organic Compounds. That's what! This could indeed be HUGE.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...er-mars-organic-compounds-space-science-nasa/


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## Brian G Turner (Dec 4, 2012)

Organic compounds are so widely distributed through our universe that, frankly, it would be a surprise if Mars was chemically nothing more than rust and carbon dioxide.

To me, anyway. I know we live in a time where Earth is still seen as the centre of the universe, just not geographically.


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## Galacticdefender (Dec 5, 2012)

This is more significant than you'd think. It shows that relatively complex chemical processes were taking place on Mars, and it opens the possibility of highly complex organic compunds, and in turn, life.


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## Vertigo (Dec 6, 2012)

Yes and no. Simple organic compounds have been found in various places including the cores of meteorites. They do not need life to form nor do they necessarily lead to life. However they do indicate that the necessary conditions for life _may_ have existed in the past. So yes significant but really no more so, and possibly less so, than Curiosity's discovery that there was almost certainly a significant mass of standing water in Gale Crater in the past.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 9, 2012)

I wonder how likely it is that scientists, by combining the elements of life, will ever create life?

The real issue is that the possibility of life originating spontaneously from its elements is compared to a monkey with a typewriter creating the complete works of Shakespeare by accident, etc.

Still ... the universe is a big place.


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## Huttman (Dec 9, 2012)

Complete opinion here; I think the universe is choke full of life. That being said, I'm not sure if it were _necessary_ for scientists to create life from non-organic material.

As for the universe have _intelligent_ life in it, I'm not so sure. Look how rare it is here on this planet. OK, I jest, it is not intelligence that is lacking here on Terra Firma.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 10, 2012)

Huttman said:


> Complete opinion here; I think the universe is choke full of life ...


 
I think so to.

But it's very unlikely to be hydrocarbon based organic life. Life upon Earth exists in the bodies/cells/forms equipped to the conditions here (in the goldilocks zone). 

There may be life in ALL space: life we cannot recognize as such, from our own limited dimension and perspective. It may be invisible/unknowable to our own organic hydrocarbon based senses of perception.

I personally don't believe something as powerful as 'life' is going to limit itself to existing within water dependant hydrocarbon based forms ...


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## Huttman (Dec 10, 2012)

Rock eating silicone based life perhaps? _"What am I, a doctor, or a bricklayer?"_


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## Vertigo (Dec 11, 2012)

The only problem with that is that hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and carbon is 3.5 times more common than Silicon. Consequently I still think hydrocarbon based life is much more likely to occur than any other possibilities.

Remember the first completely synthetic life has already been created by scientists (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10132762) back in 2010. It was truly created from scratch, from entirely synthetic DNA and not from any existing cells.

I'm not sure that any other self replicating molecules, other than RNA and DNA, have yet been found or created.

Therefore I am left thinking that the belief that there are likely to be other totally different types of life out there is based solely on faith. As yet there is no evidence to support that theory. Equally, as yet, there is no evidence to support the theory that there is any other life at all out there. Maybe there is, maybe not, but we currently have no evidence either way, other than the fact that we still haven't found any evidence for other life within our own solar system, which certainly contains a pretty wide ranging selection of environments. If the universe is full of life and if that life is likely to be significantly different to our own, existing in very different environments, then I would have expected us to have detected it by now within our system.

I remain hopeful but not optimistic. I believe that it might be such a fluke thing that it is possibly very rare indeed. Maybe only once per galaxy, or galaxy cluster. Remember that the majority of most galaxies are simply so densely packed that the levels of cosmic radiation falling on any one planet is simply massive. And again we have no evidence that any form of life can survive conditions like that.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 13, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> ... Remember the first completely synthetic life has already been created by scientists (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10132762) back in 2010. It was truly created from scratch, from entirely synthetic DNA and not from any existing cells ...


 
_That --_ to me -- is huge


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## Bowler1 (Dec 13, 2012)

I feel like the Godfather being pulled in…

It seems everywhere we go in space these organic compounds have been found. This could just be in our local area of space and it could be life from Earth infecting local space but I find that unlikely. The only other conclusion is that space is full of these organic compounds. That being the case the seeds of life must be everywhere.

Now Vertigo good buddy, I’m not going to dispute that galaxies are densely packed and that for the majority of planets in any galaxy, life will be zapped to a radioactive sludge before it has a chance to start. However, not all planets are going to be in this densely pack region of the galaxy, which is usually the core/centre of the galaxy. Oddly enough, Earth is not in the centre of the galaxy and we’re way out on the edge on a spiral arm. I’m going to plant my flag and say life would normally develop in the safer edges of a galaxy, well away from the very nasty cosmic radiation.

That still leaves quite a lot of material knocking around for life to get going on. The assumption that we’d be able to spot other intelligent life has lots of problems with it. We’ve only really been looking for life in the last 100 years or so, you could change that number, it’s not that important. Human life has existed, us the Homo Sapiens, for around 250k years, with 50k years for human culture. Our technology has only evolved to the point where we can peer into the depths of space with some understanding in the last 100 years or so. If a human from today went back in time just 2,000 years ago, landing in a jet plane and jumping out to say hello to the Romans they’d have thought us gods. So yes, we are looking into the depths of space, but do we know what we should be looking for? 

So I think life will be falling out of the trees all over, with every 20th to 50th sun (away from the galaxy core of course) having a planet with life. Intelligent life will be there as well, but we have to assume intelligent life is a quirk of nature, as life has been on earth for eon’s and it’s just been us so far. So evolution it would seem does not like big brains or we’d have furry neighbours eating banana’s fighting with the lizard next door over the state of their lawns. This has not happened, it’s just us I’m glad to say. So, planting my flag again, there will be lots of life out there but intelligent life will be rare. 

How rare, who knows. But a lot more common than one per galaxy.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 13, 2012)

_... Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA._

_The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell ..._

Excuse me clipping from the internet article posted by _Vertigo_. Somehow I still have my doubts here. It looks to me more like biological/genetic engineering, test-tube baby, cloning sort of stuff -- than actually CREATING life.

Surely life, by definition is viable and self sustaining. Why does it need to be transplanted into a LIVING host cell, in order to function?

But I lack knowledge. I would have thought the true creation of artificial, viable life would be heralded with more fanfare?


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