Methane on Mars may increase probability of life

[starroute]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996669

There is methane on Mars, scientists have concluded from the latest data. And one group of researchers argue there may be a lot more methane being produced than previously thought. Methane is of great interest because on Earth, almost all of it comes from living things - everything from rotting plants to bovine flatulence. But there are other possible sources of methane on Mars.

<snip>

Adding to the intrigue are new calculations by Atreya showing that dust devils and storms on Mars - known to be frequent and intense - must be producing vast quantities of hydrogen peroxide. This highly reactive oxidant was inferred to exist on Mars after the 1976 Viking experiments, but not actually detected until 2003.

All this oxidant must be destroying the methane at a very high rate, Atreya said on Friday. That could explain Mars’s uneven distribution of methane - observed by Mumma’s team and others - as the storms are local and temporary.

But it also implies that methane is being produced at a much higher rate than its present concentration would suggest. If so, cometary or volcanic sources become even more unlikely, and the prospect of a living source becomes slightly more plausible.

[soothsayer]

1. peroxide rain? cool! martians must be blonde!

[Love Bug]

2. There's a joke here somewhere.... I can just smell it.....

:evilgrin:

[damntexdem]

3. Hey, I thought that it just increased the probability of ...

cows -- not all of life. ;-)

[pmbryant]

4. New York Times has a new article on this

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/science/space/23mars.html

Methane in Martian Air Suggests Life Beneath the Surface
By KENNETH CHANG

A third team of scientists has now reported a seemingly simple discovery on Mars: its atmosphere contains methane.

But that finding has potentially profound implications, including the possibility of present-day microbes living on Mars.

Speaking this month at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Louisville, Ky., Dr. Michael Mumma, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., reported three years of observations had provided strong evidence for methane.

"We are 99 percent confident," Dr. Mumma said. "It surprised all of us, actually. We really are still scrambling to understand what it means."

Methane, the simplest of hydrocarbon molecules with one carbon and four hydrogen atoms, is fragile in air and easily broken apart when hit by ultraviolet light. Calculations indicate that any methane in the Martian air must have been put there within the past 300 years.

That then raises the question: What is putting methane into the Martian air?

There seem to be only two plausible explanations. ...

(snip)

[jakpalmer]

5. I thought that life was impossible on Mars

because the solidified core meant that there was no magnetic field to prevent solar radioactivity to burn everything ?

But I may be wrong. If so please correct me.

[mainegreen]

6. I may be off in la-la land here

but what are the odds that the Vikings brought some earth hanger-ons with them?

Probably a ridiculous notion.
:crazy:

[pmbryant]

7. I believe the Vikings were sterilized before being launched

But not knowing anything about the details, I can't say what the odds are.

:shrug: