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Would it be accurate to characterize the current scientific consensus within the field of astrobiology as arguing that there is a strong likelihood that additional planets in the solar system contain life, or at least have the necessary conditions to support some form of life, bacterial or otherwise? |
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There is so far no evidence of the presence of life on any planet besides the Earth. However, this question is at the heart of astrobiology, and there is intense interest in the possibility of life, past or present. The most likely place is Mars, where the results of recent spacecraft missions are e... Click here for more.
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Is there alien life? Didn't the mars rover find alien bacteria? Could they be visiting us? |
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It seems very likely that there is alien life, but we have not yet found it. None of our Mars missions has found alien bacteria. Finally, I don’t know what you mean by “could they be visiting us”? By definition, any life on our planet is Earth-life.
David Morrison
Astrobiol... Click here for more.
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Does NASA prepare for Terraforming Mars? And if so, how will you do that ? |
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No we are not preparing to terraform Mars, although scientists continue to do research on this topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming. The reasons we do not contemplate such actions are as follows. (1) It would be irresponsible and une... Click here for more.
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Now that we have found water on the moon will we resume looking for microbial life there? |
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Although we often speak of finding water on the Moon, this terminology is confusing. What we have found is ice in permanently shadowed polar craters. There is also new evidence of chemically bound water molecules in the lunar soil. However, we have not found liquid water, which is (as far as we know... Click here for more.
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I understand Curiosity is not looking for life on Mars, but for the building blocks of life (among other goals).
Why not look for life now? |
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That is a question that has been debated by Mars scientists and
astrobiologists for many years. You probably know that there were life
detection experiments on the first Mars landers, as part of the Viking
mission in 1976. They looked for metabolism by microbes that were similar
to what we have ... Click here for more.
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What steps are you taking to make sure that organisms from Earth, carried to Mars on Curiosity, do not contaminate the equipment and your experiments, and give false "positive" results showing life on Mars, which in fact, was carried there on the spacecraft? |
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Scientists take careful steps to minimize such forward contamination on any Mars lander. However, the spacecraft are not completely sterilized (if that were possible), and there may be a residual of millions of microbial hitchhikers on a big spacecraft like Curiosity. We are able to tolerate this de... Click here for more.
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Our search for extraterrestrial life seems very earth-centered, and for good reason. The presence of water seems to greatly increase the probability that life might exist somewhere else, and therefore the search for earth-like planets bearing evidence of earth-like life looks like a great place to begin searching. But what if there was extraterrestrial life that depended on a solvent like dimethyl sulfoxide instead of water?Can we say anything concrete about how that life might look different than life on earth? If we were looking for this type of life, how might our search change? |
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Your questions are fundamental to the search for life beyond the Earth, which is one of the central objectives of astrobiology. As you note, we have pursued a “follow the water” path in most recent discussions of searching for life. There are two very good reasons. The first is that we think we know... Click here for more.
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Recently there was reports of alien cells in the Red Rain in southern Part of India. What is your views on this report? |
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From what I have read, this is pure speculation without any basis in fact. If there were any credible evidence for alien cells, you can be sure this story would be front-page news world-wide.
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist ... Click here for more.
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I'm curious about the solar factors that make Earth habitable and how living conditions would change if these were adjusted. For example, if a planet is orbiting a larger star, say a red giant, but at a greater disance to maintain a livable temperature, how would the day/night cycle be affected? What if the planet were smaller or larger than the Earth? Would daylight on such a planet actually be more red in color? Would the sun appear larger in the sky? What factors result in our 24 hour day/night cycle, and how would life be different in a world with a shorter or longer cycle? That's several questions, but I'd love to hear a response to any one or all of them. |
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Let me focus on two questions, dealing with what it would be like to live on a planet orbiting a red giant star, and issues of the day/night cycle. The day/night cycle is easy; it depends only on the rotation of the planet, and not at all on the size or brightness of the star or the orbit of the pla... Click here for more.
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i would like to know if there is life on any other planet execpt for earth |
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So would I! The central questions of astrobiology deal with the origin and evolution of life on Earth and the search for evidence of life elsewhere. No life has been found on any other planet yet, but that is mostly because we have very limited technology for searching. Astrobiologists today are mos... Click here for more.
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