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Name: clement
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Around 1993
Question:
Is it possible for there to be life of anaerobic bacteria in the ice caps of the planet Mars?


Replies:
As far as I know, there is no evidence against such life on Mars, so the short answer is: yes.

Jade

Sure -- except that it would be pretty limited in its lifestyle - - no cable TV for this bug. Because the temperatures on Mars can reach to below -100 C at the poles, life would be extremely difficult, and the lack of nutrients anywhere except from inorganic chemical constituents in the soil or in the ice around the bacterial colonies would keep the menu fairly short. Oh, and do not rule out aerobes -- Mars has an atmosphere, though admittedly not much of one, and there are such organisms as microaerophiles and also microorganisms known as facultative anaerobes, which can grow in the presence of oxygen but which do not need it to survive.

Wordsworth


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