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Still More Evidence of Life of Mars
dirtyhank writes: "According to this article a group of Hungarian scientists have found another potential evidence of life on Mars. Apparently some groups of dark spots spread every martian spring. They say this could be caused by photosynthetic organisms."
If there was photosynthesis there should be measurable amounts of oxygen. However, the fact is that the Martian atmosphere contains about 95.3% carbon dioxide and 2.7% nitrogen, with the remainder a mixture of trace gases.
Even if the life processes were quite different from those on earth, you would expect a different mix of gasses than this one.
Based on what we know about life what you say is fairly true. However, it is what we don't know about how life is formed and in what forms it may take that will be clincher in discovering life other than our own. We know that for life to exist in a form that we know it, we need conditions that are similar to what we find on earth. However, there is no evidence to support a conclusive claim that life cannot exist in environments that are dissimilar from where we exist. Life may very well exist on mars, but it may be in a form we have yet to discover. Scientist are always looking for water as signs to point to the possibility for life elsewhere. Maybe there is another ideal chemical combination that may also harvest life.
that would assume that these things would produce a lot of oxygen. Seems to me that if there is life on Mars; it's pretty sparce at best. Besides which Mars has a fairly eliptical orbit - making for a very long and cold winter, which I would guess means that life would probably hybernate for the majority of the martian year. It's possible that the small ammount of oxygen life would make during it's breif season could wind up being absorbed or dissappated the rest of the year.