Studyphysics Discussion Forum
Talk about the Book of the Month, Discover Magazine, and get extra marks!
“An infrared scanner aboard the probe detected scattered deposits of water minerals”; “The presence of a thick 100 mile wide puddle of ice in a hidden crater, detectable only via radar, is buried one mile beneath a region where liquid water seems once to have flowed.”
I think that if life ever formed in mars, it could have gone underground since there’s where water is now in form of ice. But I also question myself, was mars even warm and wet enough to support life? While doing some research I found out that European Space Agency’s Mars Express team announced that the detected minerals on Mars’ surface could only have formed from long-term exposure to large amounts of liquid water. So, that brings me to the conclusion that there was some sort of large lakes on mars’ surface. And if there’s volcanic activity as well, I think there’s a possibility that some sort living microorganisms might exist now.
I always thought there was in fact life present on other planets but within our solar system! thats pretty intense! Imagine what we could learn if we found and collected these organisms. We could guage there development and probably see how they have adapted to there martian environment. pretty exciting thoughts... but to drill into the core of a planet that far away will require some MASSIVE funding and some MASSIVE research proving that they are in fact there... or the chances would be pretty slim of it happening. Oh the possibilities 
... but heres my question... as far away as the organisms are from earth, would it be possible for us to create a biosystem good enough to preserve these organisms the whole trip back to earth? and even if we could i wonder if they could survive on earth when they do arrive.. oh imagine if they brought back a martian bacteria/virus that threatened the world.. oh boy now theres a movie idea (if it hasnt already come out) 
and i bet that the aliens on other planets...every summer...are also looking into the sky...and asking the same burning questions.... Although another question is that if there is other life besides ours..do they know about us? or do they honestly wonder about the universe...
nobody said that other life forms would be smarter or more technologically advanced then ours right.
Responding to Jennifer Antunes comment "...nobody said that other life forms would be smarter or more technologically advanced then ours right."
I agree with that completely. I think the human belief that “if there is someone or something out there, they must be more intelligent than us,” or that “they will try to eliminate humans,” is caused by Hollywood's films like Mars Attacks and War of the Worlds. (It seems Hollywood is destined to display that Mars is out to get us.)
I believe that if there were any sort of Mars Attacks type Alien's lurking in the Universe, they wouldn't be on our doorstep just yet. I say this because I think it's safe to say are no living organisms in our Solar System with the intellectual capabilities equal too, or exceeding our own and those are the closest planets to us.
Proxima Centauri (the closest star to us) is about ~4.22 light years away. If there were creatures from any other Solar System, it would take unbelievable amounts of fuel and other resources to get here, plus I don't think they would be traveling at the speed of light so on top of those resource costs, it would take years to get here. There is a good chance that there are other living organisms on another planet in our home Galaxy, the Milky Way, because there are over 200 Billion Stars in this Galaxy alone. Our Galaxy stretches over 80-100 thousand light years in diameter, about 3,000 light years in thickness, and about 250-300 thousand light years in circumference. I think it’s safe to say if there were other beings out in our Galaxy that knew more than us (technologically and intellectually), they wouldn't know about us just yet.
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I guess that would be true, we could be the most advanced civilization, but id just like to share with you all a theory i created one night while looking up at the stars. Suppose that in the milky way there are 100 highly advanced planets. They are all looking up at the stars and chatting on forums just as we are right now, but just think about it. The GREAT distance between us and them is unbridgable. They are so many thousand light years away, that by the time we reach them, the theory of relativity says that even though we have been criogenically frozen for such a length of time, time contraction says earth time has been a million years. Therefore we are long past the people of our time (possibly even our species) and also communication is impossible (because it would take the same length of time for a signal to reach earth as it did to travel there. Thus proving that the journey is definitely one way, and we would have no way to return to earth to share our findings. Thus isolating us indefinitely. 
...P.S i know this is a little off topic, but its a thought id like to run past you all and see if im alone on this one or not 
In reply to Jonathan DelMastro's question
No Jonathan, your not alone I tend to think believe a theory along those lines too.
Website http://www.caouette31.4t.com
We can't travel at that speed, but information can. Fiber Optic cable is what im talkin about of course. Fiber optic cable is amazing in the way it frees up the speed of information to near unlimited possiblities, plus there is almost zero energy loss in the form of heat. Imagine the Possibilities!
I dont think travelling at the speed of light would be a priority. I think being able to alter the space time continuum would. That way we could travel anywhere... anytime ... this way we could actually test our astrophysical theorys and what not. Besides, everything worthwhile is way to far away for the speed of light to help us out.
I just found out about an extraordinary hypothetical device "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions! It has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days. “The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field, so that the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.”
DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! THATS INTENSE!
My brain hurts after reading that!
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would you happen to know what types of gases are present in this atmosphere? i wonder if its possible for organisms to develop and rely on other gases. Like for example an animal that requires nitrogen instead of oxygen to survive
Well, I guess if anything about every happens to Earth (knock on wood) 
we could always colonize Mars(although it has a thin atmosphere and colder than Earth) But, I say if you can live in Edmonton you can live anywhere
And about the living things on mars being there but being invisible to us I assumed that if “the many worlds theory “can be applied on earth why not on mars? Remember when Mr. C was taking about how dinosaurs might still right now on earth “in other world” or parallel world. Well if you remember this theory supports the idea that the probability wavefunction does not collapse but all the outcomes exist and continue their existence in other worlds but we can never encounter any of these other infinite worlds, that’s why I said “they might be invisible to us and there’s no way to prove it”. So if life ever existed in mars, I think there might be a possibility that some kind of life is present in “other world”. This is all theoretically speaking of course or some people might just call it nuts
