If NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance Rovers spots life on Mars, how would they post the observation on iNat? Can a Rover have its own profile or would the project manager or NASA itself get the honor? Can organizations have profiles?
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there’s a prohibition on machine-generated content in iNaturalist.
technically you’re not supposed to make profiles for organizations, but i think it’s less bad to use such an account to manage joint resources than it is to use such an account to post observations and to make identifications.
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Oh this is interesting! I guess it would have to be done in the same way users post trap cam outtakes. I think the biggest hurdle would be the inclusion of a map of the moon. I can’t see it happening, personally.
I suppose it would also go against the ethos of the site somewhat, vaguely (…I guess?) - iNat is citizen science, and ain’t no way any citizens are getting up there with our cell phone cameras!
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It wouldn’t be possible to uploade it with accurate location unless a map of Mars is added… and I’m not sure how that would work. Date would be a problem too, what time zone should it use, considering there is no standard?
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It would need to be described taxonomically first.
And that’s a whole other can of worms.
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It could be added as “Life”, but it would get pushed to casual because of location accuracy.
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This
isn’t correct. Organizational accounts are ok, see
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/two-accounts-for-the-same-user/35150/5
I think that this would be ok actually, as it seems very analogous to using a trail cam or a drone to take a picture. As long as the pictures are directed/controlled by people at NASA, there wouldn’t be an issue. The prohibition on machine-generated content is for a machine that actually posts observations to iNat without human involvement.
The main issue with posting an observation on iNat would be that there is no way to specify an off-Earth location.
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And describing the new taxon!
Not entirely the same issue, but we had a discussion about hypothetical observations from the International Space Station a while back!
Perhaps we are dreamers, but someday… 
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It would be the first record on the new exoNaturalist website.
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Dates could be standardized using the Modified Julian Day system, which I believe waa the original inspiration for the Stardate concept in Star Trek. At other than relativistic velocities it would be pretty straIghtforward.
Develop a consensus for a prime meridian for measuring longitude on Mars (maybe running through Olympus Mons?) and pick a system for designation of the planet (maybe a prefix 3 for Earth and 4 for Mars) and Bob’s your uncle. Maybe designate a stellar prefix as well, just in case its needed, down the road. That could be one for our sun or perhaps something based on stellar coordinates. The logic could be extended to larger scalea as needed.
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Well… there’s already a prime meridian for Mars. I should have guessed that.
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iNaturalist is a citizen science project and online social network. AIs or cameras are not social, they are just programmed to act so, and unless they are considered and declared conscious by law they are not citizens. 
People at NASA who are running the cameras can have an iNat account and post, if Mars is part of google maps.
I suppose the location accuracy issue for an off-earth location can be overcome if you make the accuracy radius big enough… I’m just imagining Nasa posting this with a random earth location and a 225 million km accuracy radius now.
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It has apparently had one longer than the earth has…
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But apparently not the one used currently, which parallels (sorry) the history of prime meridians on Earth.
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I don’t post under names for my various cameras nor does it matter who made the camera. It would be posted under some human who ‘gathered’ the image under whatever rules are appropriate similar for game cameras.
(yes, location, time, and species would be additional issues).
The location could be that of the terrestrial antenna that received the data, along with an elevation calculated from the signal delay.
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we could shorten it to eNat
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