Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous.

Join our community today!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Seeding Mars; planting Earth life on Mars (accidently)
Topic Started: Jan 29 2010, 04:43 AM (1,266 Views)
Toad of Spades
Member Avatar
Clorothod
 *  *  *  *  *  *
If somehow during the process of sterilizing a rover to be sent to Mars too search for life, either someone got lazy and didn't do the process correctly, or a particularly hardy kind of bacteria hitched a ride after the cleaning, a few Earth bacterium got stuck inside or on it. It was then arrived on Mars and dislodged itself then made its way under ground. Ironically, the rover wasn't looking deep enough and there were Martian microbes several thousand feet below ground. However the bacteria adapted to the underground condition and alot of action was undergoing. Chaotic ecological disturbances were underway culminating in them feeding on the same resources competing with each other evenly. Then, after a while, the Terran and Martian microbes incredibly, coexisted in harmony.

Then several hundred years later, with no means to go as deep to find either kind of these life forms, scientists announced that there was little possibility that there was extant life forms on Mars. Then a few thousand years later, mankind tried to convert the planet into a second earth by making the planet warmer, and somehow adding more mass to the planet, kickstarting plate tectonics, internal processes, as well as adding water. After a period of time, the planet ended up like that of a Precambrian Earth. The planet would be uninhabitable for a few billion years, and even then, surviving that long would bring advancements that would render living on a planet useless for terraforming. The project was a disastrous failure. They left the planet as is, expecting it to remain a life-less stagnant pool.

After around a few hundred million years, mankind was forced to leave the solar system to adapt to life in space and to contact other intelligent life. Feeling sentiment for their homeworld and its life, they replenished the Sun's reserves in order to extend its lifespan and heated the core a bit more to keep the mantle from hardening, in the hope that more intelligent life would be produced, and they left life on Earth to continue to evolve without them.

Ignored, the lifeforms on Mars eventually migrated to the surface. 2 billion years later, something remarkable happened. Symbiosis had created a microbe with features of both that eventually derived enough that it resembled something totally unlike either anscestor. When a cataclysm wiped out the primitive anscestors, the derived microbe survived and its descendants flourished. They underwent a process similar to Earth adapting to a planet that eventually had an environment with oxygen and was a double Earth. Complex life started and various types of complex life emerged, even "animal"-like forms.

Than after 3 billion years, mankinds' super-advanced descendants returned to show their many newfound space buddies their planet of origin. They returned to a major surprise, their solar system had two Earths! They could only tell which was Mars and which was Earth by their orbit. However this was only from a distance. Getting closer and sending probes, the planets had similar appearing and functioning biospheres with markedly different life forms. At the microscopic level, they are very different as well.

Scientists were puzzled as to where the life on Mars came from. They merely assumed that life arose from their long lost project and that over time it went under similar processes like how life on Earth appeared, or somehow life was expelled from a meteorite from Earth. Little did they know, that life was there all along, from both planets.


What do you think of this? Also how likely do you think it is for hardy Earth bacteria to adapt to underground life on Mars, as well as coexisting with the life already on Mars?
Edited by Toad of Spades, Jan 29 2010, 04:52 AM.
Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer.

Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kain
Member Avatar
Adolescent
 *  *  *  *  *
If I remember correctly, bacteria provided the Earth's atmosphere with oxygen. So, the process of making the atmosphere of Mars similar to Earth's, would probably just take a few thousand years, instead of millions.

Also, I don't think our descendants will go to all the trouble to add mass on Mars. They will probably provide a strong magnetic field to increase gravity using some gigantic electromagnets, and melt the core. The magnetic field will prevent the core from freezing again, since it will be in constant movement.

Another option would be to create a large moon in orbit around Mars and let the tidal forces do the job, instead of melting the core.

Also, by adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, you can increase both the pressure and the temperature. But first you need the magnetic field, so that Solar winds will not blow the atmosphere away.
Everybody wants to find a buried treasure chest.
But no one wants to bury one... If you do, be my guest.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

I like the idea, but I can't help feeling that if they have the technology to make the Sun burn for longer, then, for example, stripping away the new Martian atmosphere after failure, and starting again would surely be easy?
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

Two earths? Mars is barely half our size.

'twould be easier to terraform a close super-earth, i think.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
I doubt that the probe sterilization process could be messed up easily. I also doubt any microbes could make it through.

IMO, the best way for microbes to get to Mars would be through a break in the supposedly "microbe-proof" shrink-wrap that surrounds the aeroshell.

Also, terraforming of Mars shouldn't take billions or even millions of years- basic climatic alterations could be done in a few centuries (!), however atmospheric oxygen introduction would take a tad longer.

Quote:
 
'twould be easier to terraform a close super-earth, i think.


If you could get there...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

This is why we need space-time curvature fields.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Toad of Spades
Member Avatar
Clorothod
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Ddraig Goch
 
I like the idea, but I can't help feeling that if they have the technology to make the Sun burn for longer, then, for example, stripping away the new Martian atmosphere after failure, and starting again would surely be easy?

If they had the technology to replenish the Sun's reserves, they would have the technology to make living on a planet's surface obsolete. So starting over the terraforming process on Mars would be pointless.

Holbenilord
Jan 29 2010, 03:01 PM
Two earths? Mars is barely half our size.

'twould be easier to terraform a close super-earth, i think.
Yes but they increased Mars' mass before they left. They basically made Mars the same size as Earth.
Edited by Toad of Spades, Jan 29 2010, 03:47 PM.
Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer.

Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

Where did they take the mass from? I'm worried.

If they can replenish trillions and trillions of fusing hydrogen nuclei, they can frazzle a stellar system.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
Yes but they increased Mars' mass before they left. They basically made Mars the same size as Earth.


How the hell did they do that? :|

I can understand increasing the life of a star (apparently, the Sun would burn for 50 billion years if it's core were "stirred" to introduce new hydrogen fuel) provided advanced enough technology, but adding mass to a planet?

What did they do? Collide it with Mercury? Venus? Luna? Doing such a thing would surely destroy all life and surface features of the planet...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Holben
Member Avatar
Rumbo a la Victoria

Maybe they got Mercury and all the spare moons and asteroids, then said "Nobody wants these. Perhaps we should inject them into Mars?"

You wanna restart the the sun? Connect its core via a temporal link to a protostar.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
Connect its core via a temporal link to a protostar.


...

Can't we just stir the damn thing? Stirring actually works on real principles... tabletop principles...

The only problem with stirring the sun is that it's impossible unless you have unobtainium.

Quote:
 
"Nobody wants these. Perhaps we should inject them into Mars?"


Fair enough, but it'll still destroy the crust of the planet.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Toad of Spades
Member Avatar
Clorothod
 *  *  *  *  *  *
T.Neo
Jan 29 2010, 03:55 PM
Quote:
 
Yes but they increased Mars' mass before they left. They basically made Mars the same size as Earth.


How the hell did they do that? :|

I can understand increasing the life of a star (apparently, the Sun would burn for 50 billion years if it's core were "stirred" to introduce new hydrogen fuel) provided advanced enough technology, but adding mass to a planet?

What did they do? Collide it with Mercury? Venus? Luna? Doing such a thing would surely destroy all life and surface features of the planet...
I left that part kind of up to how the reader percieved it. I'm not sure of what kind of method would have that kind of effect though. Maybe that far in the future some kind of technology would allow adding mass and heating a planet internally without turning it into a molten ball of death or destroying the planet.
Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer.

Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ATEK Azul
Member Avatar
Transhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Can't they add mass by taking the asteroid belt and landing it on the planet(with ships not impacts)?

Also while I don't agree with every thing it sounds interesting.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
I left that part kind of up to how the reader percieved it. I'm not sure of what kind of method would have that kind of effect though. Maybe that far in the future some kind of technology would allow adding mass and heating a planet internally without turning it into a molten ball of death or destroying the planet.


Ok... I tend to prefer my fiction to exceed diamond in hardness... but it's your story so do as you please. :)

Quote:
 
Can't they add mass by taking the asteroid belt and landing it on the planet(with ships not impacts)?


There isn't enough mass in the belt alone.

But a planet covered in asteroids... interesting...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ddraig Goch
Member Avatar
Ar hyd y nos

Toad of Spades
 
If they had the technology to replenish the Sun's reserves, they would have the technology to make living on a planet's surface obsolete. So starting over the terraforming process on Mars would be pointless.


I think you are assuming that humanity will be happy to leave planets and live on spaceships. Certainly, any future historians won't, for a start. And neither will future biologists (assuming that there is anything left of Earth's poor old biosphere by this time).
Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · The Habitable Zone · Next Topic »
Add Reply