New organism raises Mars questions

[giza]

From http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/23/bacterium.defrost.reut/index.html:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A U.S. scientist claims to have thawed out a new life form, which he said raises questions about possible contemporary life on Mars.

The organism froze on Earth some 30,000 years ago, and was apparently alive all that time and started swimming as soon as it thawed, said Richard Hoover from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

The life form -- a bacterium dubbed Carnobacterium pleistocenium -- probably flourished in the Pleistocene Age, along with woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers, said Hoover.

He discovered the bacterium near the town of Fox, Alaska, in a tunnel drilled through permafrost -- a mix of permanently frozen ice, soil and rock -- that is kept at a constant temperature of 24.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4 degrees Celcius).

"When they cut into the Fox tunnel, they actually cut through Pleistocene ice wedges, which are similar to structures that we see on Mars," Hoover said in a telephone interview.

The ice wedges contained a golden-brown layer about a half-yard (half-meter) thick, and this layer contained a group of microscopic brownish bacteria, Hoover said.

When he looked at a small sample of this bacteria-laden ice under a microscope, Hoover said, "These bacteria that had just thawed out of the ice ... were swimming around. The instant the ice melted, they started swimming. They were alive ... but they had been frozen for over 30,000 years."

The article goes on how similar conditions may exist on Mars, which means that there may be frozen bacteria there.

I find this really amazing that there is a form of life that can survive being frozen for that long. It's almost like Sea Monkeys on CRACK.

It also has me feeling really optimistic about the chances of finding life on Mars. If we found that there was indeed life on another planet that would be the biggest discovery for mankind since... I don't know, but it'd be pretty big! I'm sure it would generate lots of interest in the scientific community, but I can see lots of backlash in the religious community as well. Some people might lose their faith (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), while others might go into a state of denial and say how it "must have been contamination on the space probes", or a "conspiracy", etc. That second reaction probably wouldn't be too healthy, and would be best observed from a safe distance away.

Comments

[cyriljackal.livejournal.com]

Who knows what kind of effect a 30,000 year old bacteria could have on something alive today.
Maybe we just read the article of the Apokalypse here. ;x)
Remember this day.