Scientific maverick J. Craig Venter says he is confident there is life on Mars and this week announced plans to send a “biological teleporter” to the Red Planet to find Martian DNA and beam it back to Earth.
“There will be life forms there,” Venter, who is best known for helping to sequence the human genome, said at a Wired Health conference held in New York this week.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Venter said he plans to send a machine to Mars to seek out Martian life and sequence its DNA. The alien genome could then be beamed back to Earth, where it could be reassembled in a super-secure space lab.
“People are worried about the Andromeda strain,” Venter said. “We can rebuild the Martians in a P-4 spacesuit lab instead of having them land in the ocean.”
‘Biological Teleporter’ Will Find Martian DNA, Beam It Back to Earth TechNewsDaily
Mars Viking Robots ‘Found Life’ Discovery News
New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week.
Further, NASA doesn’t need a human expedition to Mars to nail down the claim, neuropharmacologist and biologist Joseph Miller, with the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told Discovery News.
“The ultimate proof is to take a video of a Martian bacteria. They should send a microscope — watch the bacteria move,” Miller said.
“On the basis of what we’ve done so far, I’d say I’m 99 percent sure there’s life there,” he added.
ESA’s Mars Express radar gives strong evidence for former Mars ocean
ESA’s Mars Express has returned strong evidence for an ocean once covering part of Mars. Using radar, it has detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor within the boundaries of previously identified, ancient shorelines on Mars.
The MARSIS radar was deployed in 2005 and has been collecting data ever since. Jérémie Mouginot, Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) and the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues have analysed more than two years of data and found that the northern plains are covered in low-density material.
“We interpret these as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich,” says Dr Mouginot. “It is a strong new indication that there was once an ocean here.”
NASA Spacecraft Data Suggest Water Flowing on Mars
Observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.
“NASA’s Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, “and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration.”
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.
“The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. McEwen is the principal investigator for the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Science.
Black plants ‘could grow’ on exoplanets with two suns
Plants on distant hospitable planets could have developed black foliage and flowers to survive, according to a new study. Flora that would appear black or grey to human eyes could have evolved on planets orbiting dim “red dwarf” stars, according to unpublished research that is being presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales.
Viking Found Organics on Mars, Experiment Confirms Discovery News
More than 30 years after NASA’s Viking landers found no evidence for organic materials on Mars, scientists say a new experiment on Mars-like soil shows Viking did, in fact, hit pay dirt.
The new study was prompted by the August 2008 discovery of powerful oxygen-busting compounds known as perchlorates at the landing site of another Mars probe called Phoenix.
Scientists repeated a key Viking experiment using perchlorate-enhanced soil from Chile’s Atacama Desert, which is considered one of the driest and most Mars-like places on Earth, and found telltale fingerprints of combusted organics — the same chemicals Viking scientists dismissed as contaminants from Earth.
“Contrary to 30 years of perceived wisdom, Viking did detect organic materials on Mars,” planetary scientist Christopher McKay, with NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, told Discovery News. “It’s like a 30-year-old cold case suddenly solved with new facts.”
Building Blocks for Life on Mars Possibly Seen By Viking Probes, Study Suggests
Samples of Mars dirt collected by NASA’s Viking Mars landers back in the 1970s may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life as we know it, a new study suggests.
During their missions, the two Viking landers vaporized Martian dirt and scrutinized the samples for signs of organic – or carbon-based – molecules that could serve as the raw ingredients for life. At the time, all they found were chlorine compounds attributed to contamination, but the new research suggests the Viking probes’ heat-treatment may have generated these chlorine compounds from naturally occurring Martian organics, destroying them in the process.
“This doesn’t say anything about the question of whether or not life has existed on Mars, but it could make a big difference in how we look for evidence to answer that question,” study co-author Chris McKay, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said in a statement.
Argentine lake may offer clues to life on Mars
A lake in Argentina’s remote, inhospitable northwest may offer clues on how life got started on Earth and how it could survive on other planets, scientists say.
Researchers have found millions of “super” bacteria thriving inside the oxygen-starved Lake Diamante, in the center of a giant volcanic crater located over 15,400 feet above sea level.
The bacteria’s habitat is similar to primitive earth, before living and breathing organisms began wrapping a protective atmosphere of oxygen around the planet.
The conditions — which include high arsenic and alkaline levels — could also shed light on life beyond Earth.
Geological map points to ancient seas on Mars Astronomy Now
A geological map, created using data from a plethora of orbiting spacecraft, presents new evidence that lakes persisted early in Mars’ history.
The map focuses on Hellas Planitia, an area located in the planet’s southern hemisphere that is well known for its giant impact basin – the Hellas basin – which spans over 2,000 kilometres in diameter and plunges to a depth of eight kilometres.
Extreme Life on Earth Could Survive on Mars, Too
A new discovery of bacterial life in a Martian-like environment on Earth suggests our neighboring red planet could also be hospitable to some form of microbial life.
Researchers found methane-eating bacteria that appear to be thriving in a unique spring called Lost Hammer on Axel Heiberg Island in the extreme north of Canada.
This spring is similar to possible past or present springs on Mars, the scientists say, so it hints that microbial life could potentially exist there, too. There is no firm evidence that Mars does or ever did host life, however.