UKH

Not yet conclusive, but the discovery of organic matter is the closest thing yet to the discovery of extraterrestrial (former) life.

https://spaceexplored.com/2022/09/15/perseverance-rover-finds-organic-matte...

In reply to john arran:

Oh, that... I initially assumed that The Queue had been extended to there.

In reply to john arran:

Could just be remnants of GT85 from the assembly process. As any cyclist knows, that stuff gets everywhere.

In reply to john arran:

Thanks, but once again we are left with "could be associated" and "we are only left to speculate" (quotes from the article). So the article title is a bit misleading to me 

In reply to john arran:

I think there is a big step to go from organic molecules to life.

Organic molecules often form naturally under specific conditions, but for those compounds to come together to form a membrane, genetic code, and a nucleus containing all the data needed to function and reproduce is just mind boggling.

I know a lot of the compounds naturally want to form things that are needed for life. Like lipids naturally attract together in a curved shape so will naturally form to make a membrane.  I don't remember the other compounds but there was a similar explanation for DNA etc, but it still feels a bit like taking a random pile of dirt, throwing it onto the floor and though the miracle of chance and probability it lands in a way that makes a tiny self replicating robot. Magic.

So I wouldn't read too much into the organic compounds. In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't find any eventually.

In reply to montyjohn:

When thinking about potential candidates for Nick Bostrom's 'Great Filter' events, I very much hope you're right! https://nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf
tldr: any evidence for independently evolved life on Mars is potentially terrible news for humanity as it increases the probability of a Great Filter in our future ie. self annihilation! A barren Mars on the other hand, is great news as it increases the probability of a Great Filter(s) in our past.  Ergo increased chance of cosmic endowment ahoy!

In reply to montyjohn:

Agreed. If there is any life on Mars, it's a God-awful small affair!

In reply to John Stainforth:

Especially to the girl with the mousy hair...

In reply to john arran:

I'm disgusted by this attempt to install bolted belay anchors on Mars. Who should I complain to?

In reply to Ram MkiV:

We've already passed through the great filter.

Right?

In reply to montyjohn:

One can hope so but it's far from certain.  Finding life on Mars or anywhere else in the solar system would shift the dial, somewhat depressingly, in the 'probably not' direction.  Also, as Bostrom points out in the thing I linked above, there's nothing to say there aren't great filters in both our past AND future.

In reply to Ram MkiV:

Of course it's also quite possible that there are no great filters at all, and that we just happen to be the first in our galactic neighbourhood to reach a relatively advanced stage. In which case, given a few more millions of years, there could be lifeforms roaming everywhere.

In reply to FactorXXX:

But her mummy is yelling, "No!" 

In reply to john arran:

Possible but highly unlikely.  We're certainly early in the Universe's history but there's been a sufficiently large time window that 'lifeforms roaming everywhere' would, in the absence of any great filters, be pretty much guaranteed by now.  As it is, we see and hear absolutely nothing... 

In reply to Ram MkiV:

Are you aware of the Dark Forest theory?

In reply to broken spectre:

Krikkit!

In reply to broken spectre:

I wasn't.  I have heard ideas and thought a bit about game theory applied to space faring civilisations but normally arrive at more optimistic conclusions than the Dark Forest theory!  Having had a quick look, it seems every day/hour/minute that passes and we don't find ourselves intentionally extinguished by something/someone out there makes the theory more likely to be wrong?  100+ years of radio leakage and best part of 50 years of intentional signalling seems like plenty of time to spot us and snuff us out... and that's without considering the millennia of 'early warning' atmospheric biosignatures (impossible to mask) and/or sci-fi future surveillance devices and methods a technologically advanced civilisation might care to use.

In reply to Ram MkiV:

Fair enough, but what I don't understand is why there needs to be any particularly tricky (great filter) stages of development in the first place. If every stage has a low but approximately similar probability, we could still be where we are now and see nothing 'out there'.

It makes intuitive sense that some steps would have a higher failure rate than others, but I'm not convinced there's any great need for a stopper move somewhere on the route for us not to have heard of any successful redpoints. (Well it is a climbing site, after all!)

In reply to John Stainforth:

Best comment you’ve put up for ages. 

In reply to john arran:

Though there are a few promising candidates for early individual stopper moves (eg. single cell life getting going in the first place, multi-cellular life evolving, etc.) I'd guess that could well be right.  So long as the probabilities multiply/compound then isn't that functionally the same as a 'single event' great filter though?  Just a more temporally spread out one...   Fine by me!
I guess ultimately, if you select a planet at random, earth-like or otherwise, you want the probability of that planet evolving life capable of achieving our stage of development to be of the order of 1 in hundreds of billions.  If that's not the case, based on what we see (ie. nothing), fairly soon we're doomed.
 

In reply to Ram MkiV: Honestly I don't think a lot of Bostrums great filters stuff.  Physics, time and distance are rather more important.  

Most of the so called stopper moves have been passed more than once, and the record likely doesn't record completely enough to catch the others failing to stop

In reply to wbo2:

Both the advent of the eukaryotic cell and development of chloroplasts appear to be singular events.

Substantial steps that occurred only once in evolutionary history.