ForcaTech Blog

Life being on Mars now or at some time in the future has become a definite possibility with he discovery of water–and evidence of water–as well as methane on Mars. Now biologists have discovered microbes that can withstand extreme heat, cold and other harsh environments with little to no moisture–conditions much like Mars.

Methanosarcina barkeri is the most versatile survivor. It isn’t picky about where it lives and can even create its own organic molecules from scratch using phosphate, sulfur and some other minerals found in soil and nitrogen from the atmosphere. M. barkeri can even create its own energy solely from hydrogen and carbon dioxide–both of which are believed to be on Mars.

Biologists are to begin rigorous testing on the microbe to see just how much it could handle and see if it could truly survive on the red planent. I for one can see this going horribly wrong if the microbe is modified by a shaky hand or too close to a giant laser.

One day biologist hope to do a real world test with the microbe on Mars.

Google has hopped on the bandwagon celebrating the Moon landing anniversary by adding the Moon to its list of planets.

You can now visit the Earth, Mars, Moon and view the sky using the now inaccurately titled Google Earth desktop application or browser plugin. With most of the Moon you can zoom in uneccessarily close allowing you to see a bunch of grey. You can, however, zoom in to places of importance and see information about the landmark, see a 360 degree view or see replicas of the equipment that was/is there.

Below is a screenshot of the Apollo 16 site that I took zoomed at 6 different levels. Google adding the Moon to Google Earth is–I am sure–them preparing for us to begin populating it in the next year or two. But are location based services up and running for the Moon?