TheSnowpit.com News Blog

• The finding of ice on Mars
• Examples of life existing preserved or alive in ice on Earth
• Why search for Extraterrestrial Life?

On June 20,
NASA confirmed the existence of water on Mars. NASA built the Phoenix Lander to find ice, and, having succeeded, the Lander will analyze the ice contents to find signatures of life. Even if found, however, those signatures would only be taken as probability that life exists on Mars, not confirmation. Detailed analysis would hypothetically be left to the next Lander built - with better sterilization and analysis equipment.

This painstaking step-by-step analysis is not new, even to the search for life on Mars. One could view the current Phoenix mission as following up to the 2005 European discovery of possible methane signatures and ice at the equator. Or even more recently, the discovery of silica in the ground up earth behind the Spirit Rover. And this discovery is closely linked to the possible discovery of glaciers on Mars that I covered earlier in the year.

Why Ice?

The discovery of extraterrestrial ice could be the first step to finding extraterrestrial life. On Earth, no life exists without water, and usually where there is water - frozen or otherwise - there is life. Silica, methane - these exist on other planets and on Earth, but they aren't necessary for life here like water is.

Many scientists interested in finding extraterrestrial life are also interested in finding life in ice. Preserved and/or segregated from the rest of the evolutionary chain, life in ice can offer clues to how life began on Earth. In fact, a 1999 NASA precursor study to the Mars missions started by studying preserved life in Russian permafrost.

Not to mention that solid ice at the surface could simply be hiding and insulating liquid water below. Around the same time as the Siberian study above, in 1996 Russia announced that they had discovered a liquid water lake 3km under an ice site they had been drilling at for over twenty years. The ice above the lake has revealed some interesting-looking microbes and later, when the ice just above the lake could be sampled (touting an age of at least a million years and possibly up to 15 million) many other studies began to analyze the microbes found. This ice-insulating-liquid theory extends to other planets, such as Europa, which has been long said to harbor an underground ocean.

Naturally, one must ask the question: "How can life exist in ice?" And, you would not be alone in asking. The mysteries of how life can exist for so long with no light, no obviously plentiful food, and in some of the harshest conditions on the planet, continues to baffle science. But life has, time and again, shown itself more adaptable than expected. After all, Strep bacteria lived for about three decades on the Moon, and just about as soon as NASA discovered archaea - the microbes living in volcano-type conditions - they sent them off into space too.

Why Life?

Although the search for extraterrestrial life could be easily explained by how cool such a discovery would be scientifically, many people forget how core life on Earth and its relation to the Universe is to our cultural values.

As with microbes in ice, discovering extraterrestrial microbes could lead to answers about how (and when) life evolved on Earth. The more simple DNA we have to show as evolutionary 'answers' to different environments, the more pieces we have of the puzzle. And so even life 'discovery precursors' such as nanobacteria and Circadian rhythms have been meticulously sniffed out from meteorites and space probe sensor arrays for that purpose. Even amino acids have been found in meteorites before, but no water, no life - only questions as to how the amino acids got there. All of these are exciting as pieces for the puzzle of life on Earth.

But the real discovery of life on another planet, completely separate from ours, would be the beginning of a true questioning of cultural beliefs. The Drake Equation, a theoretical calculation on how likely intelligent life is to evolve on other planets, would probably be greatly bolstered if the very first planet we looked on - our neighbor - actually contained microbes.

Not to mention that extraterrestrial life has somewhat become the indirect standoff ground between some religion and science. One could say scientists view the possible discovery of extraterrestrial life with almost semi-religious awe and expectation ("It's not a question of if, but when"). With such faith, not discovering extraterrestrial life doesn't mean we should stop looking, it just means we aren't looking hard enough. Whereas for religion, the possible eventual discovery of intelligent life would almost entirely negate the fundamental idea behind Catholic religions. Whoah.

But for now, it's only a block of ice. Who knows what the next step will bring.