[meteorite-list] Fossils on Mars?

From: Rob McCafferty <rob_mccafferty_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 14:59:30 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <782108.16933.qm_at_web55204.mail.re4.yahoo.com>

Xeno biology????

If life ever began on Mars, I believe that it will still be there. The climate cannot have changed quickly enough to extinguish microbial life and it should thrive there not just cling on to existence.

I accept that the magnetite found in "martian fossils" could be a local adaptation of martian bacteria to localised magnetic anomalies and that these could coincide with methane emissions discovered recently.

What I object to is the constant use of these principles (though I accept them, I do not believe them) to suggest that we cannot send a manned mission to Mars.

The very idea that a martian microbe could be pathogenic when it would be clearly adapted to a cold dry environment is absurd.

I would bet my life on Mars being sterile.
Even if I turned out to be wrong, I'd go double or quits on any Martian vector being unable to attack a Terran organism kept in an environment akin to it's home (eg humans at room temp and pressure)

Rob Mc

 



--- On Wed, 5/5/10, E.P. Grondine <epgrondine at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Fossils on Mars?
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Wednesday, 5 May, 2010, 22:25
> Hi Phil -
>
> In the original scans way back when, the PHA's were found
> bound inside the fossil walls. So my estimate is yes.
>
> What few realize is the potential hazard from any
> descendents of these fossils carried back to Earth, and what
> that means in terms of manned flight to Mars.
>
> No amount of shouting, arm waving, or hypothesizing is
> going to solve this problem. Its going to take long range
> rovers suitably equipped.
>
> E.P.
>
>
> ? ? ?
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Received on Wed 05 May 2010 05:59:30 PM PDT