The Very Real Possibility of Life on Mars

An exploration of the mounting evidence that Mars may have had in the past, and still may have, microbial life. This is important because we are mere years from humans setting foot on Mars, and the question of microbes on Mars will need to be immediately addressed before we colonize that world.

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[JohnMichaelGodier]

Hello everybody! A late night (for me) release to prepare us for 2025. I was late in finishing this video because of a misbehaving computer, but all is back on track! There will be one more video before 2025 to celebrate New Year's Eve and then we march forward. It's going to be an interesting year in science, and I can already say the year will start strong, and the compilation of ten science stories for January is already coming together and very strong. Imagine for a moment. Do animals experience fads and fashions? It seems they do, more on that in early January. And now a question for the audience. Do you think it wise to put human boots on Mars BEFORE we know if there is active life on that planet? Best wishes, JMG.

[bkillinm]

Thanks for another banger John. I hope you decide to never stop putting out YouTube content. I will be here to a watch for the rest of your career.

[sven.-mae]

I want to see microbial life on mars within my lifetime

[eprams]

Maybe oil on Mars?!!? Time for a dose of freedom!

[FireThemAll]

This is one of only two channels I watch regularly, that I wait until the end to read the coms. Top tier content. Love this channel. Thank you 😎

[Jon_From_Coventry]

Imagine if we find fossils there, of dinosaur-level creatures. Oh my god it would be so exciting. It would be exciting to even find microbial life evidence too for sure, but something big would just be amazing. Any form of life there changes everything in terms of our understanding about ourselves and the universe.

[mushroomsteve]

I have wondered if the reddish streaks on Europa could be caused by bacterial mats.

[dustindavis]

I personally wonder if there is a chance that something akin to planetary dwarfism occurs, where the general lower abundance of materials in the atmosphere, and general lower atmospheric pressures, could cause life to start itself out on a much smaller pathway. Then, through evolution over the eons, the general smaller life maintains presence and through the drying out of Mars and loss of materials, they have become incredibly small, mostly dormant analogs of life. Only springing to life and breeding when processes around them start up?

[amenoum]

All life was probably smaller on Mars, the habitability on Mars was spatio-temporally compressed, time effectively flowed faster in both geology and biology, lifecycles were shorter and organisms were smaller. Any non-complex life that remained near surface may have also remained small. If that's the case, putting human boots on Mars shouldn't be a problem, as one could distinguish between Earth's and Martian life. On the other hand, with a decrease in diversity/pressure and geological perturbation, the remaining life may have grown bigger. However, I don't think we should delay sending humans to Mars as, with that, there's at least a chance at resolving ambiguity.

[adcaptandumvulgus]

Wouldn't it be tragic if Earth and Mars are in a perpetual cycle of each ones population dies and much later, the other discovers it was wiped out from old viruses. Hopefully not,

[MnemonicHack]

It's pretty obvious to me that there's enough evidence. You can only question so much before the questioning becomes irrelevant and an impediment to progress.

[elikirkwood]

Each one of these pieces of evidence taken in a vacuum are ambiguous, but when you combine all of them together it does start to seem unlikely that there was never life on Mars

[maxfastest]

Even so, humans would have a very harsh life on Mars.
Its a huge pipedream considering how screwed up we are .

[edwardlulofs]

From my studies of Probability and statistics, I see two strange patterns:
1) the concept of entropy. Most people understand entropy as a trend towards chaos. That’s oversimplified. Entropy can create structures. This happens with the flow of energy. Energy is flowing everywhere.
2) It has been known for 100 years that Probability and Statistics can be applied to ecology. It causes diversification.

Then it follows that anywhere that energy flows, it creates structures in matter. And causes those structures to diversify.

So it seems to me, with energy flowing everywhere in the universe, the creation of life seems likely to be common.

So I see the probability of life on Mars happened or is still possible.

[harlanbaker]

Mars has so many "well this specific thing happens in the presence of life 9/10 times" that itll be a relief to actually find something definitive. Like i want to give Mars the title for effort but i know we cant yet.

[samuelbucher]

9:50 "...but weirdly, this one has features. Creature features, featuring... the Creatures"

[gregthegroove]

I believe that one day real humans when they are able to explore, will find artifacts of a past civilization, somewhere on that planet. I for one, would be so excited if that happened.

[matthewtheobald]

If early Mars did not have life, it really raises a lot of questions about how life is created, because by all accounts, a terrestrial planet with active volcanism, oceans of liquid water and an atmosphere, should allow for life to evolve.

[kingnarothept]

Unironically I would die a happy human if we even find a fossilized remnant of bacterial life on Mars.

Also will Intermission in D by Miguel Johnson (background creepy music) ever make a return👀?

[lostyt]

Based on recent LUCA data, it looks like life on Earth got started essentially immediately, all the way back during the Hadean, potentially even before the late heavy bombardment. So it really seems that abiogenesis is easy, but complex life is really hard.