NASA spots fungus growing on Mars in NASA rover photos

 

mars we generally think of it as earth's  dead neighbor  too hospitable to ever foster the wide  variety of life we find back home  while this has generally been accepted  as true for decades  some recently released photos from one  of nasa's rovers suggests that  we might not be alone in the universe  welcome to fact nominal  today we'll be searching for life beyond  earth in  scientists claim to spot fungus growing  on mars in nasa rover photos  surely there's no life on mars  it seems unlikely that anything would be  able to live on mars given the less than  friendly conditions there  it's home to an average temperature of  minus  81 degrees fahrenheit immense dust  storms that can cover the planet for up  to a month  and to top it all off unhealthy amounts  of solar radiation which can easily  pierce  the thin atmosphere and damage anything  that happens to be lurking at the  surface  in other words the conditions on mars  can be likened to a  not so happy combination of antarctica  the sahara desert and chernobyl  despite all this scientists claim to  have found  life on mars the photos photos taken by  nasa's curiosity and opportunity rovers  show small white balls only one  millimeter across  which look cloudy in appearance and have  a striking resemblance to puff balls  a type of fungi that can be found back  here on earth  what's more is that over the course of  three days  these cloudy balls changed location  shape and even disappeared from  detection  entirely i don't know about you but i  certainly don't  know of many non-living objects that are  able to change their shape and size  the team that was analyzing the photos  found that there is a 98.9  chance that the size of the puffballs  was actually  changing a promising result if we're  trying to  definitively prove that extraterrestrial  life exists  so close to home on top of all this  several balls were crushed by the rover  and were found to grow back in the  tracks that were left behind  some of them even having stalks the  scientists analyzing the photos even  claimed they have found  black fungi bacteria-like specimens  growing atop the rover and that  particular fungi thrive in radiation  intense environments all of this seems  like pretty good news in the search for  life beyond earth but  are there any issues with the claims  being made by the team  sadly yes many in fact issues with the  study  the scientists that have made these  claims compiled their findings in a 2020  paper that reads  fungi on mars evidence of growth and  behavior from sequential images  this paper has not been peer reviewed a  process where scientists  intensively analyze a paper to check for  mistakes and consistencies or the  fabrication of results  as such the results won't be accepted in  the scientific community  this doesn't necessarily mean that the  results are false it  just means we can't assume that  everything in the paper is true and  jumped to conclusions the researchers  even claimed that  similarities in morphology are not proof  of life  which is a fancy way of saying that just  because something looks like life  doesn't mean  it is life another issue with the study  is with a man named  ron joseph one of the scientists  involved who doesn't exactly have the  best reputation  he is well known for his failed attempts  at finding life on mars  when he has claimed to find mushrooms  which were later found to be  rocks he's also a supporter of some  controversial scientific views  including the belief that life on earth  originated from cosmic seeds  found in space objects and that these  seats contained instruction  for how to eventually create humans  through evolution  overall the claim that life has been  found on mars is fascinating  and should be investigated further but  it might be a tad early to draw any  conclusions based on puff picks  do you think these photos are proof or  just wishful thinking  let us know in the comments below