Its completely logical to look for life on mars; its the closest climate wise to earth, there's evidence to support water on mars, and finally the fact that we didn't know any better. If you think about it, for a person living in the dark ages of science it would seem normal for every planet to have life. Though, after careful observation its clear that there are loads of requirements if you want to have life somewhere, this is a topic for a different post though.
There is something interesting that i noticed while reading an earlier chapter which i found half ironic, half sad that it took us so long to make this amount of progress. Sagan was talking about the difference between scientific minded people and normal people, and one of the things he mentioned was at a dinner party he'd discuss things about people rather then concepts and ideas. One of the things that he talked about was asking the question of when do you think a rover will be sent to mars? I laughed when i read this; here a book that is 30 years old, talking about something achievable 30 years ago, and we took this long to send the curiosity rover to mars. I think this really tells about the priority of scientific discovery in modern day times. We'd much rather argue about imaginary lines on the ground then make meaningful discoveries unfortunately.
Even though mars has been the source of some unfortunate let downs involving life it has had quite the reputation when it comes to astrology and mythology. Mars was named for the God of war in Greek mythology. Mars was the most prominent and most worshiped of all the Gods in Greek mythology. Mars has also had quite a name when it comes to astrology. Mars is known as the planet of energy, action, and desire. Its been said that mars is what gets us out of bed in the morning and what gives us the power to do anything. Mars is our anger, our passion and all of our might. So, all in all i think mars has been held in high regard among people, in spite of the huge let down in terms of being a life bearing planet.
I think how we have observed the extreme conditions life can withstand only here on Earth shows how much of a miracle life really is. From the artic to volcanoes, there is some form of life. And yet, no one has discovered life on a planet whose conditions aren't that much unlike our own. Logically, if there is life here, there should be life there. And yet there isn't. I'm fascinated by how living things can adapt to conditions here but not exist anywhere else. It's just really cool to think about. Good chapter.
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting. Even though we did not discover life on Mars, do you think it would be possible to live there? If it has a relatively close climate and already has water, I believe it to be possible. Sadly, we are arguing about imaginary lines rather then promising discoveries as you said. NASA's funding got cut so we could spend more on the military, yet there is so much more in space that could possibly unite us. Maybe one day we will set our priorities straight. Great job!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how much we have discovered, pretty interesting actually. But we haven't found what were looking for, life, like us. We all hear the rumors floating around of different universes with planets just like our Earth, and were looking so far out, we may just need to look a little closer to home. Really interesting.
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