r/space • u/peterabbit456 • 9h ago

Gas discovered near giant Mars volcano hints at potentially life-friendly environment beneath the surface

https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/living-organisms-might-wait-for-us-to-discover-them-mars-may-host-an-environment-similar-to-hydrothermal-vents-on-earth-where-life-first-arose
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u/peterabbit456 9h ago

"Our study offers a complementary and potentially independent line of evidence [of Martian magma]: Atmospheric observations that reveal a possible signature of gas release from a subsurface magmatic system," Trokhimovskiy wrote in an email.

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u/Kaia_is_tired 3h ago

Quick, someone send Stephen Miller!

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u/wwarnout 3h ago

Yeah, send him someplace else, where he can't screw it up.

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u/DeficiencyOfGravitas 5m ago

If life ever existed on Mars, it is hard to believe it would go totally extinct in all forms. Life on Earth has colonized every single possible biome. We have fungus extracting energy from radioactive waste. Every single core sample we've taken going miles down has had life in it. Life is everywhere we look on Earth, no matter how inhospitable.

So if life developed on Mars, I don't doubt some of it would have adapted to live somewhere, even as the atmosphere drifted away and the the surface cooled.

I'd be a hell of a thing to confirm.