Earth
Science C Odd Mallory
Bates
Current
Event 2/24/14
“Ancient Martian Lake May Have
Supported Life”
Chang, Kenneth. "Ancient Martian
Lake May Have Supported Life." The New York Times 9 Dec. 2013: n. pag.
NYTimes.com. 9 Dec. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/science/space/on-mars-an-ancient-lake-and-perhaps-life.html?ref=marsplanet&_r=0>.
Before December 9th,
2013, scientists had no evidence to prove that life had ever been possible on
Mars. However, on the second Monday of December, scientists reported that
around 3.5 billion years ago Mars had a large, freshwater lake that may have
been inhabited by life forms. This new data came from the Mars rover Curiosity,
which landed last year in the same crater believed to once hold the lake.
Scientists don’t know whether or not life has ever appeared on Mars. John
Grotzinger, a geology professor from California said that “all the essential
ingredients for life were present” and that if microbes similar to those on
Earth had lived in that ancient Martian lake, “they could have been sustained,
prospered, grown, [and] multiplied.” All of this comes from two mudstones that
Curiosity picked up and drilled into earlier this year. The data was sent back
to Earth, where scientists found out that the structure, chemistry, and mineralogy
of the two rocks were “extremely earthlike.” Nowadays, Mars is frigid, arid,
and full of radiation, but during its first billion years, it was much wetter
and warmer. NASA chose for the rover Curiosity to land in this crater because
when in orbit, some readings picked up the presence of clay, which is only
formed with waters of a neutral pH level. Several elements that are critical
for life on Earth were identified by Curiosity, such as carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen. With all of this new and very useful information, scientists are now
beginning the search for organic compounds, the building blocks for life, as
well as introducing new methods to estimate the ages of rocks on Mars.
Discoveries on Mars are relevant to
both scientists and the general public alike. The fact that Mars might have
sustained life billions of years ago is important because it answers many
questions that scientists and the public may have about the planet. Educating
ourselves about our home planet and its neighbors is important so we can be
aware of what is happening. Also, although it may be a long shot, if Mars once
supported life, it may be able to support life again in the distant future,
something that could potentially solve the crisis of Earth running out of its
limited resources. Either way, scientific discoveries in regards to Mars are of
high importance.
I thought that this article was very
well-written. It was factual, concise, and interesting to read. I had no idea
about anything that was happening on Mars, so it was enlightening. My one
criticism would be that the author should have included more about the impact that
the discovery of Mars once having a lake would have on the science world, and
also on the general public. If we can find that there was once life on Mars,
could we possibly live there in the future? Could microbes be sent there to
test if life could be sustained? The article was great, but left me with a lot
of question about the future of Mars.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGreat choice of article!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that was also really interesting about their Martian soil analysis was that it fit the age predicted based on the cratering. Scientists can estimate the age of an object in our solar system based on the amount of cratering. The more cratering, the older the object is. The soil analysis matched their predicted age, giving confirmation to this technique.
You did a great job summarizing and explaining why this analysis of a few tablespoons of soil is significant! It's amazing how much information scientists are able to gather from the work of Curiosity.
You should check out its Twitter account!
This is very well-written blog. I very much enjoyed reading it and learning about Mars and what it was possibly like millions of years ago. I was particularly fascinated by reading about the possible life that was on Mars.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading it because it had so much detail. The blog really shows that you took the time to really read and analyze the article. Your personal opinion was very direct and honest. I was impressed with your choice in the article because it was a great topic and it made the reader just want to keep reading. I was also impressed with your summarizing of the article you chose. You did not put too much detail to make it sound boring and wordy, you put in a perfect amount of information for the reader.
I think one thing I can suggest is break up the first paragraph into two, it seems just a little bit too long. You could break it up at "Nowadays, Mars is frigid..."
Overall enjoyed this blog and it shows that you put a lot of effort into it.
Mallory did a stellar job with this current event. Her summary was really clear and easy to understand; not once was I ever confused. Her use of quotes was also wonderful. It was nice to get a direct professional opinion, in addition to Mallory's summaries and paraphrases. Not only that, but her reasoning for relevance was pretty spot-on. The fact that Mars once inhabited life is huge, and makes modern/future life on Mars seem so much more plausible.
ReplyDeleteI was very interested to hear about the Curiosity rover, since I had just done my own current event about a discovery of Opportunity, and wanted to see how the two rovers compared. I agree with you that these kinds of articles about Mars, no matter how informative, always seem to be lacking information. In addition, I had no idea that such a small sample of soil could tell us so much about the whole planet! It really is amazing what the modern world has done with technology.
If anything could be improved for future current events, I would probably recommend personalizing the connection to society today a tiny bit more. Does this knowledge effect our daily lives, and if so, how?
In response to your question about whether or not future human life will be possible on Mars, my personal opinion is yes. My question is: Is it worth it? If we really, really wanted to, we could probably find a way to bring water to Mars and make its conditions habitable enough, but I'm guessing it would be monstrously expensive and the quality of life would be fairly poor. Nonetheless, I still believe we should search for ways to make this a possibility. I agree that this would solve many problems, including our overpopulation and lack of resources, as you said. Not just that, but it would be really cool!
All in all, I didn't pick this article because it was the first one I read or I thought it would be "easy" to comment on. I picked it because the author superbly explained the article, and presented it in a way extremely intriguing to the reader. Great job, Mallory! I'm looking forward to reading your next current event!
You made an impressive summary of this article. I learned a lot about how scientists believe that there may have been life on Mars billions of years ago. They found evidence of a body of fresh water, which as we all know: where there is water, there is life! This article presented the class with interesting facts about Mars and how millions of years ago it had some of the comfortable characteristics of our planet. Although, the present state of Mars is probably what
ReplyDeleteEarth was like when it was very young.
There are some unanswered questions I have though: why did that lake disappear? If Mars is no longer habitable, can it support life again or has it used up all its resources? Is that what Earth will look like when we have used up this planets resources?
Now I am interested in whether there was life on Mars and what the Martians were like. Were they fully developed or were they only single celled? The only way to make this summary better is to give me more information on former bodies of water or tunnels or blobs or nanofossils. Was there ever life on Mars and can there be again?
This blog was very good. It had a lot of detail on what Mars was like 3.5 billion years ago and actually imagining that there could have been a lake is very cool! It's very cool that we can start to believe or even imagine that maybe other people, or creatures were living on another plant like we live on earth.
ReplyDeleteThis blog was well written because as someone said earlier, you added a lot of detail to get our attention to what is happening on one of our neighboring planets. It's going to be very interesting to see what organic compounds or building blocks these scientist come up with to try and figure out if there was actually life on another plant.
The question that I have would be why did the lake dry up? Is there not enough oxygen to maintain life on mars anymore? With a lake possibly being discovered what other things could have/ are still on mars.
Well job, you really got me interested in this subject!
I love the article you chose considering I am very interested in Mars myself. I think your current event was very well written and you clearly explained everything you were trying to say. I think it’s amazing how NASA was able to send up Curiosity. The picture’s Curiosity is able to take are breathtaking and to know that one day we might be able to go to Mars is really cool. I hope scientists keep working to find out what kinds of life forms were able to live on the freshwater lake on Mars so many years ago, so that we can know if it safe for us to maybe go and live there one day. I also think it’s interesting how Curiosity has been able to stay on Mars for a whole year and is still continuing to take pictures and it is able to gather information, which it is then able to send back to Earth. Curiosity has detected carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, mudstones, etc. With all the progress we are making, I think that by 2025 we will be able to send people to Mars to even live. Scientists are looking for organic compounds currently, as you said, which they say are the “building blocks of life.” So, I’m assuming that if these are discovered on Mars, we will have made a huge step towards the future.
ReplyDeleteI love how you didn’t try to use fancy words from the article and made it very clear and simple, because this way not only is it easier to understand, but generally it’s a lot better and shows us that you clearly understood what your were reading. I know that for right now they have the Mars-One plan, where they are planning to send humans to go live on Mars in 2025. They say those humans will never come back, but they will get to live on a whole other planet! The only suggestion I would make is maybe you should have looked into more how Mars was before and how it came to be, “frigid, arid, and full of radiation.” You said before there was a lake that could have supported life forms and previously Mars was wetter and warmer. What caused the changes?
You did a really good job. You explained a lot of information very well. You mentioned details about the rover drilling into rocks which made the write-up more interesting. Also, I have heard about two years ago that there used to be a lake on mars so this is really cool to be able to see that NASA has confirmed it. Another thing that I liked was that you did not use a physicists vernacular which made the write up all that much easier to understand. One Other thing that I was wondering was how long it will take for people to be able to live on mars. Also, what difficulties are scientists facing when dealing with the radiation? Overall, a great write-up. -Tim Weir
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a really good job of making the article concise and easy to follow, in a way that still kept all of the scientific reasonings in mind. The way in which you summarized the article had a clear and well-flowing combination of factual evidence, and what that evidence means, as I tend to find that most science-related articles lack the explanation as to why the data mentioned is relevant. Many writers explaining scientific discoveries throw a lot of data at a reader who may not be so familiar with the impacts of said data, so the way in which you analyzed the information made the article easy to follow, and then to comprehend the sheer magnitude of its importance to not only the scientific world, but to all on Earth, especially so when discussing whether or not Mars has the capability to return to its prior Earth-like qualities. Also, I found your overall outlook on the discovery on a larger scale very interesting. Most people end with the article's evidence, but the larger importance that is demonstrated made the article much more relevant. I was very impressed by the way in which NASA made this discovery, as I was finding it difficult to understand the way in which they learned that Mars had a large lake 3.5 billion years ago, since my understanding was that the water deposits would have already disintegrated. Also, I was very intrigued when I read that Mars used to have many Earth-like qualities; such a conclusion would then make the reader ponder if Earth may also fall victim to such a change. Although I thought you did a great job, I would have like to have seen some scientists' opinions regarding if this discovery would lead them to think that Earth will one day also have (present) Mars-like qualities. Also, what measures are scientists taking to see if this lake was inhabited by lifeforms?
ReplyDelete