Signs of Biological Life Discovered on Mars and Mercury

By JG Vibes
theintelhub.com
December 5, 2012

The possibility of extraterrestrial contact has been pondered for ages but in recent history there has been an incredible amount of public interest in the topic.

Until recently the discussion of extraterrestrial life has been a very underground topic.  In the beginning of the 21^st century the sightings and other evidence that supports extraterrestrial life became staggering.  The scientific community has even been making incredible progress in the search for life supporting planets and alien organisms.

Just in the past week the first signs of life have been reported from both Mars and Mercury.

Discovery News Reported that:

“NASA dispatched the Curiosity rover to Mars to look for organics, but a probe orbiting Mercury has beaten it to the punch.

New results from the MESSENGER spacecraft not only confirm that the planet closest to the sun has ice inside shaded craters near the north pole, but that a thin layer of very dark organic material seems to be covering a good part of the frozen water.

Both likely arrived via comets or asteroids millions — or hundreds of millions — of years ago.”

Lead MESSENGER scientist Sean Solomon, with Columbia University, told Discovery News that:

“It could easily have been delivered by comets and asteroids, along with water ice, and may even have darkened in the Mercury environment in response to the intense radiation and space weathering. Certainly the darkness of the covering material was a surprise and the explanation that seems to fit all the data is that it’s organic material. It’s quite interesting,”

Days later signs of life were reported on Mars as well.  National Geographic Reported that:

“NASA‘s Mars rover Curiosity has detected several simple carbon-based organic compounds on Mars, but it remains unclear whether they were formed via Earthly contamination or whether they contain only elements indigenous to the planet.

The possible discovery of organics—or carbon-based compounds bonded to hydrogen, also called hydrocarbons—could have major implications for the mission’s search for more complex organic material.Speaking at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, Curiosity mission leaders also said that the compound perchlorate—identified previously in polar Mars—appeared to also be present inGale Crater, the site of Curiosity’s exploration.

It would not necessarily mean that life exists now or ever existed on Mars, but it makes the possibility of Martian life—especially long ago when the planet was wetter and warmer—somewhat greater, since available carbon is considered to be so important to all known biology.”

There has been much controversy about the findings on Mars, and there has been little talk in the media at all about the findings on Mercury, but the implications of both are huge.  Life, and the possibility of life, is far more abundant in this universe than we ever imagined.

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Read more articles by this author HERE.

J.G. Vibes is the author of an 87 chapter counter culture textbook called Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance, a staff writer and reporter for The Intel Hub and host of a show called Voluntary Hippie Radio. 

You can keep up with his work, which includes free podcasts, free e-books & free audiobooks at his websitewww.aotmr.com

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