Conundrum. Researchers can't predict why methane (red and yellow areas) is so spotty in the Martian atmosphere.
Credit: NASA
Posted on 08/08/2009 9:43:07 AM PDT by neverdem
Conundrum. Researchers can't predict why methane (red and yellow areas) is so spotty in the Martian atmosphere.
Credit: NASA
Just as researchers were once again getting their hopes up, a new study undercuts the prospects for martian life. Scientists have discovered that methane in the martian atmosphere, one of the primary signals that biological processes may be at work today on the red planet, is behaving in unexplainable ways. The results challenge the latest evidence suggesting that Mars is--or was ever--inhabited.
Mars has been a roller coaster for astrobiologists. In 1996, for example, researchers reported that a martian meteorite found in Antarctica contained traces of microbial fossils. But subsequent research discredited the idea. More recently, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) two rovers and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found plentiful evidence that liquid water once flowed on the planet's surface. But none of those discoveries has led to undisputed proof that living organisms swam in Martian pools.
The latest buzz about possible Martian life started last January when a 5-year study confirmed the existence of methane in the martian atmosphere. Methane is the strongest sign yet that biology is at work on our planetary neighbor, because it is produced almost exclusively by living organisms.
But the way the methane is distributed in the martian atmosphere argues against a biological origin, researchers report tomorrow in Nature. The methane is concentrated in a single part of the atmosphere (see picture). The problem, say chemists Franck Lefàvre and François Forget, both of the Universitaire Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, is that whether or not life is responsible for the emissions--and even if martian organisms were located only in one area of the planet--the methane should have spread much more uniformly through the atmosphere by now. The fact that it hasn't, the researchers say, argues for some sort of chemical reaction in the atmosphere that is destroying the gas before it can spread. And any reaction that destroys methane would also destroy life because the gas is made from the same types of molecules that make up life as we know it.
There's no doubt "that something is rapidly destroying the methane in the martian atmosphere," says planetary scientist Michael Mischna of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Whatever is responsible, he says, "there's no way life could survive at or near the surface if [methane] destruction occurred so quickly."
Planetary scientist Itay Halevy, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, agrees. The rapid destruction of methane on Mars is a "disturbing" discovery, he says.
There’s certainly plenty of intellectual hot air to go around.
They’re busy chasing government grants.
We should try Alpha Centuri. it’s only 4.35 ly away.
The atmosphere is thin and escapes continually, it might be possible all of it just drifted off into space...
I guess
No amount of evidence against life on Mars will deter NASA from spending billions of dollars and some number of lives to continue the search.
MARS: The Search for Life, It’s a Jobs Program!
I know for a fact that Martians only fart once a year.
Life on other planets is the secular humanists' substitute for God. It's an article of their faith that it must be there, whether they have any evidence for it or not.
NASA makes more money by looking for life and then still more money by discrediting all evidence that life exists beyond Earth. One would not like to disturb the paradigm.
Armed with the belief that life came into existence on its own here on earth then it must’ve came into existence everywhere OR maybe life on earth came from Mars.
Evidence? That’s on Mars!
I have $100 that says we will find at least microbes on Mars. Any takers? I have made this bet with several people here on FR.
There is already a lot of evidence that there is life on Mars, e.g., rocks that turn green (lichens?) in Summer and brown in Winter. The Allen Hills meteorite had clear evidence, i.e., nanofossils, in its interior. Those nanofossils are almost identical to certain Earth microbes.
BTW, how is this a religious issue? There are a lot of things in science that are not addressed in the Bible.
I didn't think that was clear at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they find microbes on Mars but I wouldn't want to lose $100 by betting on this meteorite.
Which will have arrived there on a meteorite from Earth.
"The new paper reports that magnetite, an iron-bearing mineral found in Martian meteorite ALH84001, was likely caused by inorganic processes, and that those same processes can be recreated in the laboratory, forming magnetite identical to that found in the Mars meteorite."
http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_news&task=detail&id=1090
I saw the meteorite and examined the photos at Johnson Space Center where I met the researchers. Someone may think they have “debunked” the observations. However, the nanofossils have a distinctive shape as well as the magnetite signature.
If you are 100% sure that life will not be found on Mars, then take my bet.
If you are 100% sure that life will not be found on Mars
I debunked that strawman already. Meteorites from Earth have hit Mars.
DNA analysis will provide proof as to whether microbes on Mars came from Earth or the other way around.
Note that since Earth’s gravity well is much deeper, an asteroid strike sending ejecta into an escape orbit would have to be much more powerful than a comparable strike on Mars. The energies involved (the ejecta would have to attain at least 11 km./sec to escape) would be more likely to sterilize the microbes.
I would not rule out microbes going Earth to Mars.
No takers for the bet?
1. Source the invented fact.
2. So what?
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