Complex organic matter in Mars

[_DoubtingThomas]

NASA found evidence of complex organic matter preserved in Martian surface. I think the discovery increases our chances of finding alien life somewhere in the solar system.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/3 ... /1096.full

[_subgenius]

yeah, your inclusion of "complex" is misleading and unsupported. You must be one of those religious scientists that skews their work with their faith-based opinions and dreams.

[_Maksutov]

yeah, your inclusion of "complex" is misleading and unsupported. You must be one of those religious scientists that skews their work with their faith-based opinions and dreams.

If you could or would read, "complex" is used several times in the presentation. By researchers, not subgenius trolls. You must have something like a OCD for saying stupid crap. Or maybe stupidity is your superpower, it stuns bystanders or leaves them convulsing with derisive laughter.

[_subgenius]

yeah, your inclusion of "complex" is misleading and unsupported. You must be one of those religious scientists that skews their work with their faith-based opinions and dreams.

If you could or would read, "complex" is used several times in the presentation. By researchers, not subgenius trolls. You must have something like a OCD for saying stupid crap. Or maybe stupidity is your superpower, it stuns bystanders or leaves them convulsing with derisive laughter.

of the 4 occurrences, too bad it never uses "complex" to actually describe the found organic material.
Using "complex" only inasmuch to describe what they found could be like..."trace", "reminiscent", "suggests", etc...

but i guess "complex" can mean all sorts of things when one is trying to convey an abstract dream or fantasy:
but for clarity:
"Certainly, if ancient life was the organic source, then despite sulfur incorporation, the material has been altered sufficiently, such as by diagenesis or ionizing radiation, to obscure original molecular features more consistent with life".

nothing says science like wishful thinking...congrats, you have the childhood fantasy of every kid in 1950....and dude, trolling is the only hope your tedious thread has for life, which ironically is less likely to occur than if it were at the bottom of a millions of years old lake bed on Mars.

[Guest]

The petty, contrarian, and often clueless contributions of subgenius are tiresome, no doubt, and are therefore usually ignored in this home.

However, in this case, I just couldn't help myself. Organic compounds on Mars, or indeed anywhere else in the solar system or interstellar space, are clearly evidence that increases the likelihood of extraterrestrial life.

To appreciate this fact, one needs to understand just a bit more about the chemistry of carbon than subgenius apparently does.

Please see below.

[_DrW]

By definition, organic compounds are comprised of hydrogen and carbon - elements number 1 and number 5 in terms of molar abundance in our galaxy.

Other atoms of relatively high abundance in the galaxy (top 10) include oxygen (#4) nitrogen (#7) and sulfur (#10). These latter three, along with chlorine, commonly occur as "heteroatoms" (i.e. not carbon or hydrogen) in organic compounds.

Carbon's ability to form stable molecules in pretty much any reasonable environment is demonstrated by the presence such materials as organic liquid lakes (methane, ethane, etc.) on Titan, organics in the water geysers from Enceladus, amino acids in meteorites, and significant concentrations of heteroatomic organics like isopropyl cyanide (C3H7CN) in interstellar space.

Carbon forms remarkably stable (and complex) aromatic and long chain aliphatic molecules with hydrogen, which often incorporate the heteroatoms mentioned above. This kind of reactivity (kinetic stability) is what gives rise to the complexity of organic chemistry. The number of known carbon compounds exceeds some 10 million and the theoretical number of organic compounds is arbitrarily large.

Complexity achieved by certain of these compounds eventually allows for chemical self replication (especially through autocatalysis) and eventually gives rise to simple life (in the case of Earth probably archaea), slightly more complex life (bacteria), and later highly complex life (archaea + bacteria => eukaryota) - and we are off to the evolutionary races.

This is a long way of saying that I agree with the OP's characterization of the evidence from the GCMS analysis of Martian geological materials as indicating the presence of complex organic molecules. The authors simply referred to these as macromolecules.

(Had subgenius bothered to look up the definition of a macromolecule, he would not have made such a fool of himself.)

Looks unlikely to me that that these macromolecules are of biological origin, but the spectra are evidence for complex, probably partially aromatic, and clearly heteroatomic, organic molecules.

[_Hawkeye]

So basically, subgenius is stupid.

Got it.

[_DrW]

So basically, subgenius is stupid.

Or at best, subgenius.

[_Brackite]

Another robotic sepacecraft is heading towards Mars, and it is scheduled to land there this November.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight

[_Brackite]

Another robotic sepacecraft is heading towards Mars, and it is scheduled to land there this November.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight

And this robotic spacecraft just recently landed on the red Planet.

NASA's InSight craft lands safely on surface of Mars after 'seven minutes of terror'
After 301 million miles of travel at a cost of $850 million, scientists hope to learn more about what's beneath the surface of Mars

NASA’s InSight landed safely on Mars on Monday afternoon, with scientists now hopeful they’ll get a below-the-surface look at the Red Planet.

Shortly before 3 p.m. ET on Monday, scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, cheered, hugged and traded high-fives as their prized craft safely landed on the Red Planet and started sending back its first images.

This never gets old,” said jubilant chief engineer Rob Manning. “What a relief. Fabulous, fabulous.”

Shortly after touch down, InSight beamed back its first photo from the Red Planet, confirming that the lander is healthy after plunging through the Martian atmosphere.

In a tweet of the picture, NASA said: "Wish you were here!"

InSight will spend the next few hours cleaning its camera lens and unfurling its solar arrays.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnew ... ncna940061