Who doesn't like gazing at the stars? Whether you're a hopeless romantic, a geek scientist or deep-thinking philosopher, it is hard not to be amazed at an uncorrupted view of the night sky. I still remember one occasion driving through the Italian Alps when I opened my eyes and lost my breath at the sight.
Even as a kid my favorite show was "Star Trek": "Space – the final frontier ... to boldly go where no man has gone before." I mean, how cool is that? But if geeky space stories and sci-fi drama don't getcha, close-ups of the real thing will.
Some of the most amazing pictures I have ever seen come from NASA probes. I am so enthralled with astronomy; I actually had a difficult time choosing between the study of outer space and inner space (molecular biology). I chose the latter but have always retained my fascination with the stars.
Much to my interest there was plethora of space-related news last week.
An asteroid nearly 100 feet in diameter made the closest approach to Earth ever recorded – a mere 26,500 miles away. (For a little perspective, the Moon is about 238,000 miles away from Earth.)
In a lucky shot of the Martian sky, the rover Spirit caught a UFO on its camera. Astronomers say it could be a meteor or a spacecraft left in orbit from a previous mission to Mars.
Billionaire Paul Allen donated $13.5 million to help fund the ongoing search for intelligent life in outer space. This brings Allen's total donations to the project to $25 million dollars.
Of course, the biggest news of all was that the latest rover on Mars, Opportunity, has achieved its main goal of detecting the past-presence of water. This has created quite a maddening buzz in the scientific community. So what exactly is the evidence?
Well, like a dormant crime scene, the evidence is in pieces. For example, there are craters that look like dried lake beds and channels that look like dried riverbeds. There are lava-like rocks with cracks and cavities likely created by seeping water. There are recently discovered "blueberries" embedded in stratified bedrock, which are similar to structures on Earth that form inside wet rocks. There is also a substantial amount of a mineral in the bedrock that only forms in the presence of trapped water. And there are images of odd ripples and angles in the bedrock, indicating sediment was pushed around by flowing water.
But the piece de resistance appears to be evidence of rocks not only modified and altered by water but also formed in the water, perhaps in a shallow salty sea. Specifically, rocks were found similar to those on earth that are formed by a process of evaporation of seawater. NASA scientists suggest that this indicates a shallow salty sea once pooled on the now-frozen surface of Mars that could have supported life. They claim this discovery has profound implications for astrobiology.
In response, many NASA-funded scientists are ecstatic. In short, they assume the presence of water is a necessary condition for life. And since a great many of them also assume life evolved on earth, they believe it must have evolved on other planets as well. That means they view the discovery of the past-presence of water on Mars as a twofer. First, it's a big return on the billions of dollars poured into space research. Second, it brings believers in evolution one step closer to refueling the weakening presumption of this theory on earth.
The question is "Will they find any signs of past or present life on Mars? If they do, what will it really mean?"
By now it should be painfully obvious that for many, space exploration and the search for life on other planets reflect not only man's quest for adventure and knowledge but the search for why we are here and how we arrived. In other words, discover life on Mars; prove evolution; disprove God.
As evidenced by their comments, researchers are already and unabashedly setting the stage to claim evolution was at work on Mars. To which I can only say this is where I part company with many scientists and space enthusiasts.
The bottom line is life cannot rise from inanimate material. No one needs a Ph.D. to know that a rock sitting in a pool of salt water will not produce life – no matter how many times lightening strikes. So if signs of life are found on Mars, what are the other possibilities? There are at least four:
Intelligent design;
Contamination from one or more of the many space probes we sent to the red planet;
Catastrophic plate tectonics that could have launched volcanic rock from earth eventually landing on Mars; and/or
Fragments from a collision of a large asteroid with earth jettisoned into space from the impact.
In any case, the explanation is not an automatic eight ball in the side pocket of evolution. There are alternatives. So wouldn't it be refreshing if NASA scientists could disentangle the evidence from their religious worldview?
Bookmark this story with del.icio.us
Digg this story
Furl this item
Have you Reddit?