tag > Space
-
Scientists Claim to Spot Fungus Growing on Mars in NASA Rover Photos
The hunt for life on Mars continues, with NASA’s latest rover Perseverance using its scientific instrumentation to scan the Jezero Crater, an area believed to be a dried up ancient lake, for any signs of ancient microbial life.
But according to an international team of researchers, the space agencies other rovers may have already found signs of relatively advanced life — in the form of “fungus-like Martian specimens,” according to a new paper published in the journal Advances in Microbiology.
The team, which includes researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and George Mason University, believes they have found photographic evidence of a variety of fungus-like organisms, some resembling the shape of puffballs, a round cloud-like fungus found in abundance back here on Earth, on the Red Planet.
Their evidence: images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers as well as the agency’s HiRISE high-resolution camera attached to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
“Fungi thrive in radiation intense environments,” the team writes in its paper. “Sequential photos document that fungus-like Martian specimens emerge from the soil and increase in size, including those resembling puffballs.”
“After obliteration of spherical specimens by the rover wheels, new sphericals — some with stalks — appeared atop the crests of old tracks,” the researchers write.
The team went so far as to say that “black fungi-bacteria-like specimens also appeared atop the rovers.”
They didn’t stop there: the team also examined photos taken by NASA’s HiRISE, and found evidence for “amorphous specimens within a crevice” that “changed shape and location then disappeared.”
“It is well established that a variety of terrestrial organisms survive Mars-like conditions,” the team concludes. “Given the likelihood Earth has been seeding Mars with life and life has been repeatedly transferred between worlds, it would be surprising if there was no life on Mars.”
The team argues that these Martian lifeforms “would have evolved on and already be adapted to the low temperatures, intermittent availability of water, low amounts of free oxygen, and high levels of radiation.”
The researchers did caveat their findings, pointing out that “similarities in morphology are not proof of life,” and that “we cannot completely rule out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to Mars and unknown and alien to Earth.”
But it’s a wild conclusion nonetheless. The researchers’ peers will likely go over the paper with a fine-toothed comb, and likely shred the results — it’s not every day that researchers are willing to stick out their necks and claim to have found evidence of life on Mars.
-
Was Earth visited by intelligent life? Astrophysicist Avi Loeb believes it was
-
There Are Hundreds of Billions of Galaxies. Where Are All the Aliens? - Comic by Maki Naro and Matthew Francis
-
Technosignatures of Intelligent Aliens Could Be “Lurking” Nearby, Study Says
A group of researchers propose searching for "unusual signatures or phenomena" on the Moon, and even around Earth.
-
WAR IS A RACKET
Ship blocking Suez Canal like 'beached whale' could be stuck for weeks
It is now blocking transit in both directions through one of the world's busiest shipping channels for goods, oil, grain and other products linking Asia and Europe.
The chief scientist at AstraZeneca, Josep Baselga who was developing anti COVID-19 therapies based on his experience in cancer has died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (related: mad cow) – a rare rapidly evolving degenerative neurological disorder. He was roped in by AstraZeneca after a major scandal broke out since he failed to disclose his vast financial ties to various companies in journal articles.
Evidence of UFOs to be revealed by national intelligence in 2021 US bill
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe gave a preview of the classified information that will be released to the public regarding unexplained aerial sightings, in an interview with Fox News on Friday.
Ratcliffe explained that such "sightings" are "talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots or have been picked up by satellite imagery that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, and traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom."
Who coined the phrase "The first casualty of War is Truth" ?
-
Photosynthesis could be as old as life itself (imperial)
Researchers find the earliest bacteria had the tools to perform a crucial step in photosynthesis, showing the process previously thought to take billions of years to evolve could be as old as life itself, and suggesting other planets may have evolved complex life much earlier than previously thought
-
The Quimbaya artifacts are several dozen golden objects, found in Colombia, made by the Quimbaya civilization, dated around 1000 CE, a few of which are supposed to represent modern airplanes, and therefore to be out-of-place artifacts. In 1994, German researchers created simplified radio-controlled scale models of these objects and showed that their models, which lack some convoluted features present in the real figurines, could fly.
