Posted on 02/24/2005 3:20:15 PM PST by Yo-Yo
Scientist argues case for life on Mars
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online
Thursday, 24 February 2005
A theory from a European Space Agency scientist, that methane-producing microbes are alive on Mars, is about to get its first airing in a scientific forum.
The theory, by Professor Vittorio Formisano of the agency's Mars Express team, will shortly be debated at a space conference in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
Formisano, who is research director at Rome's Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Space, says he has detected gases as evidence of a vast underworld of microbes populating the planet.
He has been studying the chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere using data from the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on board the Mars Express orbiter.
In the middle of last year, the PFS, a machine developed by Formisano's lab and of which he is the principle investigator, picked up higher than expected levels of methane in the Martian atmosphere.
On Earth, methane can come from the cooling of molten rock in volcanoes. But scientists were puzzled as Mars has no active volcanoes.
The other readily known source of methane, at least on Earth, is life. This might be from methanogenic microbes, which live in hot oxygen-free areas such as sewage treatment plants, deep sea vents and hot springs.
Formisano now says he has more direct evidence that microbes are the source of the methane on Mars. He has found another gas, formaldehyde, which can be formed when methane from microbes is oxidised.
Clues from formaldehyde
He says formaldehyde lasts only 7.5 hours in the Martian atmosphere. So, if it is detectable, and if it comes from methane, there must be something producing massive amounts of methane in the first place.
Formisano says there would need to be 2.5 million tonnes of methane produced each year on Mars. He says no source other than life could explain such a high level.
"I see at the moment no other explanation than life, methanogenic bacteria, being present on Mars," Formisano will tell ABC TV's Catalyst program tonight.
Formisano also points to evidence of water, another sign of life, which overlaps with the location of methane. This includes yesterday's report of a frozen ocean on the Mars' equator.
"It is exactly in the location of where I see the maximum of methane coming out," he said, speaking from the conference in Noordwijk yesterday.
Reading between the lines
Australian geologist Marion Anderson, from Melbourne's Monash University, studies the formation of landforms on Mars and, like many scientists, is initially sceptical.
While few scientists before today will have seen Formisano's full data, much of the concern so far has been over the ability of the instrument he is using to specifically pick up the presence of formaldehyde's absorption spectra.
"They occur at exactly the same wavelength as a number of other very common gases on Mars so a lot of people aren't 100% sure that what he's found is formaldehyde," says Anderson. "It's literally reading between the lines, in some cases."
Geologist Professor Malcolm Walter of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Sydney's Macquarie University agrees.
"I know enough to know it's not easy and the interpretation is pretty dubious at the moment," he says. "I'm sceptical."
Walter's colleague, astronomer Dr Jeremy Bailey is also doubtful.
Bailey has been involved in spectroscopy observation of the Martian atmosphere using ground-based telescopes. The telescopes first picked up methane on Mars, a finding that the PFS on the orbiter later confirmed.
He says the lightweight instruments aboard the orbiter could not give very convincing data, compared with data from the bigger ground-based instruments.
Too many unknowns, say critics
Anderson says a narrow spectrum instrument more specific than the PFS is needed to confirm the presence of formaldehyde.
But even if formaldehyde is there, it would still not be evidence of life, she says. Both formaldehyde and the methane could be produced by geological processes that we don't understand because of the lack of oxygen.
"We're talking about a planet that has fluids flowing through the crust that we know nothing about, which could be reacting in different ways with the rocks that we know nothing about, in an oxygen free or oxygen poor atmosphere," she says.
"In 20 years time we may look back and say 'yes', he was absolutely right, but at the moment we don't have enough evidence and with the current budgets for NASA in the US we might not have enough evidence for quite some time."
Peers debate evidence
Neither Anderson, Walter or Bailey had seen Formisano's raw data. And organiser of this week's European Space Agency's 1st Mars Express Science Conference, Dr Agustin Chicarro, says the event will provide the first "scientific" airing of the theory.
"It has not been debated widely yet," said Chicarro by phone from Noordwijk. "So we know about his ideas, we respect them but we would like to seem them discussed in a scientific forum first before having an opinion."
Meanwhile, NASA has denied media reports last week that researchers at its Ames Research Center have found strong evidence for life on Mars.
Why push for something like this?? We've polluted one planet, no need to ruin another one.
/sarcasm
I guess I have to watch Peter Jenning's 2 hour UFO special at 8pm now. Where that dang roll of tin foil?
This is a question that can't be answered by remote instrumentation, it will probably take humans to do the decisive analysis. I don't think robots would be adequate, you would have to do in-field tests based on observations that only a human on-site could make.
At this stage of our exploration this question is about as compelling as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
Citizens argue the case for the need for this crap
Do the "Save the World" greenies know about this? Methane Gas....ugh! /humor
Small-minded ones.
The screwball dynamic duo of George Noory and Richard C. Hoagland are all over this like it's Richard's discovery. Someone needs to tell them that broken clocks are correct twice a day, even chimpanzees can shoot baskets, and pseudo-scientific ramblings regardless if proved true are still just unsubstantiated tripe. That's why your calculus teacher makes you show the work. Getting the correct answer is worthless without showing the steps of reasoning involved. In short, Hoagland is a farce. A twenty-first century charletan of the lowest order, and Noory is his stooge.
Is that the only place one would find formaldehyde, in methane? And is methane formed only from microbes? ... That we know of?
The argument is settled. I read in Weekly World News that there's life on Mars. They taught Kennedy how to drive.
I'm not trying to imply anything with those questions. I just don't know the answers.
It's the same need that moved Columbus. The human needs to explore and move beyond his cradle. To fail to grasp the significance of space exploration is not a fault of the space program.
Time to crank up the Genesis Machine, and let Ted Williams piggy-back a ride on it.
Prediction #1: Methane-producing microbial life will be found to exist on Mars. Prediction #2: The microbes on Mars will either share a common ancestor with, or else be direct evolutionary descendents of, either microbial life here on Earth or extinct forms of microbial life here on Earth.
I'll leave it to the reader to imagine the several possible scenarios that could explain how Prediction #2 could be true.
Martian flatulence ping.
Interesting. But it's for the space ping list. Not my turf.
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