Quote:
Originally Posted by lbhloz
Are there any future plans to have a robot to look at sedimentry beds on Mars for fossils?
It seems all the probes are designed to look for life today; and as i see it nobody's expecting to find somthing crawling around up there, but i dont see that that means there never were (which would be far more interesting than finding some bacteria that may or may not have hitched a lift on the probe.)
Does anyone know much about the sedimentry richeness of Mars; Theres not much on wikipedia, but it seemed to suggest that the best places to look would be layers older than 4Ga; would fossils survive this long? i know the conitions are different on Mars (no current plate tectonics etc.) but the earliest unanimously accepted evidence of life on earth is just over 2Ga. Is there any chance of finding intact remains? how late on could life have survived on mars?
If we'd looked up at the sky back in the archean, would there have been a blue green marble?
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Actually, it would take a pretty heavy duty rover to do that kind of work.
Fossils are much more likely to be buried. The rover would need to excavate- and then Gently Sift looking for fragile fossils.
As it is- even spirit or opportunity are capable of spotting something that might have been uncovered with weathering. However, weather isn't quite like it is here- over on Mars, and the odds of weathered Martian Bones poking out are slim.
That kind of work may have to wait until we can land on Mars and take up the task manually.