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Asked by Dylan Lynch to Aisling, Colin, Laurence, Ned, Niamh on 3 Mar 2016.
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Ned Dwyer answered on 3 Mar 2016:
I think it very unlikely. Its possible some very basic lifeforms lived there many millions of years ago but there is no evidence to say more advanced life forms have been there
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Niamh Shaw answered on 4 Mar 2016:
Well water has also been found on comets and other organic matter too. And we all formed from organic matter. But heres the thing- what do you define as a ‘being’? I’m going to ask you to think differently about what a human being is, in terms of living in our Universe- what is it to be a ‘being’ in our Universe- Is it an ‘alien’ with bones and skin and brains etc? Or is it a lichen, an organism that lives with a fungus? Both things are ‘beings’ in my opinion. So the fact that water and bacterial-like lifeforms have been discovered on Mars is really great, and to me they’re the ‘beings’ that we need to be talking about. Because thats how we evolved- from these simple lifeforms. Millions and millions of years ago- we evolved for optimal conditions on earth, as did many other animals that we share our planet with- a breathing system to avail of an atmosphere composed of 20% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, bones formed to withstand a gravitational force of 9.8 m/s2, skin that protects our organs from a star that shines light almost 149 million kms away.
So what I think is, it is highly unlikely that there are any other ‘beings’ in our local interstellar system that look anything like the ‘beings’ similar to Earth, BUT there may be lots of organic matter out there that has evolved to survive on their planets, comets, asteroids and any other space debris that we will meet in our future years of space exploration. So the discovery of bacteria-like life forms on Mars is huge – and very exciting!
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Laurence O'Rourke answered on 8 Mar 2016:
Hi Dylan, I don’t think so but would love to be proved wrong. Hopefully someday in the future when an astronaut lands on Mars and finally gets to study the soil and ice (located in the polar regions) then something amazing will be found to show that we are not alone in the solar system for life. At this present moment though, there exists no evidence to suggest there is any other lifeform existing outside of the Earth; it’s all pure theory and assumption and hype.
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Colin Shirran answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Hi Dylan, I don’t think any bacteria (germs) have been found on Mars. There was a meteor found on earth which was determined to have originated as a piece of rock that came from Mars, presumably it was shot into space from an impact on Mars, which it was thought had evidence of fossilized bacteria within it but I don’t think that was ever proven to be what it actually was. If we did dsicover bacteria currently living on Mars or actual evidence that there once was bacteria on Mars then we would have proven that life does or did exist on Mars. That would be a huge thing for us to discover. Since we know that there currently is water-ice on Mars and there is evidence that it flows on the surface during certain seasons, there may be a possibility that there is currently some bacteria living below the surface of mars at a certain depth. If that’s the case then it would be very possible that even more life existed on mars billions of years ago when there was lots more water on it’s surface. At the moment we don’t know and it’s going to take a lot more research on the surface to determine this. I hope we do find some!
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Aisling Shannon answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Hi Dylan, Probably not what we would term “intelligent life” but possibly little tiny organisms.
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