World Implications if NASA Finally Admits to Life on Mars

I disagree up to a point. I doubt there will be a definitive moment when NASA realizes they got one. First thing they would be looking for is verification of the data, other possible reasons they see what they see. This will bring in members of the wider scientific community. You would then start to hear whispers of something interesting starting to appear at the dedicated astronomy forums out there. At some point the government would run a controlled information release cached in lots of vague language so people become aware of something interesting, possibly totally exciting.

If we look back to 1967 we can see exactly how it will play. A signal was detected and seemed to defy any known process. It was even tagged LGM - 1 (Little Green Men) It took about a year but they figured it out, realized it was natural and sadly LGM naming was dropped and the pulsar entered our language

 

But you better hurry, the old girl is looking decidedly pale these days. I am not sure she has many years left in her

 

Makes sense, but I wonder how long the govt would restrict NASA from bringing in the wider scientific community. ***EDIT*** Ok I see what you mean. But then I wonder if certain protocols are in place to prevent too much of the wider scientific community appraised of certain situations.

 

I dont know but I suspect the nature of the evidence will play a big factor. If there is Martian standing front of the camera with Earthmen Go Home sign - panic will ensure. If it looks like a moldy bunch of ruins from 8 million years ago, the reaction will be much more relaxed

 

Religion would take quite a devastating blow.

 

Unless aliens have it all figured it out, and I doubt it, there will always be a mystery. Even in science. People will seek God in that mystery.

 

Revelation is about celestial bodies, but not in quite that sense...

 

And of course it's the ol "NASA and all the nations of the world" are in a conspiracy to avoid world-wide panic!'.... as in over many decades of sightings yet there is no 'tangible' (something one can touch or put their hands on) proof available to anyone in the public....Must be that those aliens are just so damn smart & cagey that 'we caint ketch them' in a bottle!

I've seen alot of Mars pics of he surface and the one and only 'intelligent' looking thing (the sphinx-like face) was further examined and found just to be a surface feature with shadows giving it the appearance as such.

I could believe primitive life at the basic level on Mars during its history (being much smaller than earth and outside the Goldilocks Zone); but an advanced civilization leaving nothing monumental behind ---even with all the dust storms, something would eventually be exposed just as on earth---we still find exposed dinosaur bones in the deserts, exposed by the winds.

 

HA HA HA HA HA!! " You tube" as evidence

 

I don't think it would help some of these people on here - you have to know which end to look through!

 

And my favourite

 

Panic.. I think people would mostly just be very excited if extraterrestrial life of some sort were discovered. It would get people fired up and interested, eager to learn about it. And sure, it would give the religious something new to digest..

But seriously, who would panic? What is there to panic about? Unless we're talking about an alien invasion fleet or some such silliness, I don't see how anyone would panic over it.

It's a shame that some people really do seem to be a complete waste of space and oxygen.

 

Your favourite does provide food for thought. After all, Mars is likely a victim of climate change, as is Venus, but both managed to become as screwed up as they are from a life-support perspective without any human action.

 

And so Climate Change is a natural process and shud be expected?! It's possible that it may be slowed down by human intelligence & effort; but 'mother nature' can wield a big hammer as a major controller of it on this earth (and with the Sun)!

 

Baloney. It would be considerably less damaging than WWI and II.

 

I doubt that very much, that's why it's called faith. Look how many of our scientific ''theories'' have been shot to hell, but at the time most believed,,some totally. Why would anybody think Religion is any different?

Some might say...''Well, that theory came from sound scientific research'' Sure,,,,,or at least they thought so, they ''believed'' it did. As long as we have the ''singularity'' then there really isn't much more to sound scientific theories than anything else in my opinion, and I'm no religious nut..

 

Lets face it,,,If Mother Nature says it's over,,,,it's OVA!

 

Venus' situation seems to have been almost exclusively geologic

 

You're saying its geology made it the environmental monstrosity it is today?

 

Yeah about 200 million years ago the entire crust basically melted down and the planet was resurfaced from top to bottom. A theory being kicked around is due to the lack of tectonic activity volcanoes became so heavy the collapsed back into the upper mantle produce lava floods of cataclysmic violence

 

he who laughs last laughs best , pal !!!!!!

 

Interesting indeed.. Are we talking about the lack of plate tectonics sinking the volcanoes first, then, before the planet became so hot as to have a nigh-molten surface overall? I've only encountered the idea elsewhere of the runaway greenhouse effect being kicked off by water vapor, which subsequently would have raised the global temperature enough to cook a lot of CO2 out of the rocks, leading eventually to the present situation where the water vapor has been lost but there's this remaining thick, heavy CO2-heavy atmosphere.

Actually, one thing that I wonder about is the presence of all that atmosphere today while Mars has lost so much, presumably to the solar winds. I fail to understand how Venus kept so much of its atmosphere while Mars lost so much over the same period. Venus doesn't have much of a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere either, after all. To my mind, that leaves only its gravity to hold onto that atmosphere. This makes me doubt the idea of Mars losing its atmosphere to solar wind alone, even if its gravity is only about 1/3 that of earth. Venus's mass is also apparently a bit lower than ours, which only makes the situation even more mysterious.

 

Venus is both much larger than Mars (almost earth size) meaning more gravity, and closer to the sun, so cooling wasnt a factor as it was for Mars.

 

It is POSSIBLE - but then almost anything is POSSIBLE

Now whether or not it is PROBABLE - that is a different story!

 

And he who relies on You tube for information is destined to be misled

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It is one of the hottest places in the solar system simply BECAUSE of the runaway greenhouse effect