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Methane on Mars?
mbone writes "Two independent groups are claiming the detection of methane in the Martian atmosphere, one using the
Mars Express orbiter,
and the other using ground based telescopes. This detection, if confirmed, would be of great significance for the search of life on Mars, as Methane will not last long in the Martian atmosphere and thus must be renewed, presumably either by biological processes or by volcanic vents, which would be a good place for life to develop. The leader of the ground based astronomy team, Michael Mumma of the Goddard Space Flight Center, when asked if the methane was biological in origin, said 'I think it is, myself personally.'"
It is slowly coming closer. The day we actually find that source of life on another planet. It is beautiful and logical and perfectlly of sense to understand and grasp that we will some day find life, but the day we actually do discover it. That will be an amazing day simply for the achievement. Though anything we find on mars will be very simple (single celled things? bactiera? virii?) it will nonetheless be something.
It is life.
Mad, adj : Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. Ambrose Bierce - The Deveil's Dictionsary
If this turns out to be what it seems to be it is a dream come true. I wonder how this might affect future missions. Hopefully they will start digging at last and not only look for indirect signs of life such as water.
There were some experiments onboard the Viking landers that showed some odd results but weren't invested any further.
The fact that the fine rovers are unable to detect life is a shame I think. They were designed to search for water only, I know. But they should at least have been equipped with minimal biological experiments too, just in case. I can't wait for a samplereturn mission...
Why should there be religious ramifications to finding bacterial life on Mars?
I reckon they'll just update their religions as these discoveries are made. It's happened before: we developed planes that could fly above the clouds and see no heaven, and they moved heaven to space. We've explored space, and they've.... moved it elsewhere.
Religion will still survive, perhaps unfortunately.
Comments like this just demonstrate how clueless many atheists are about others' beliefs. (I don't buy much of it either, but at least I know what I'm not buying.) Nowhere in the Torah, the Gospels and Epistles, the Quran, or any other holy scripture I'm aware of, does it say that there is no life outside this world. No contradiction means no problem. To most theists, the discovery of life on Mars would just be yet another example of the wonders of God's creation.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Y'know, maybe the probability of life isn't that low. Sure, it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling that from all those billions and billions of star systems out there, only a handful of them have the perfect conditions to support life. As we look at more planets it may be revealed that life is pretty dogged and determined. Maybe it arises almost anywhere there's water and a bit of sun or lightning.
Personally, I'm hoping that life is found on every hunk of rock we come across. It will destroy those notions that we are alone in the universe, and more importantly, remove the arrogance on humans towards the rest of the planet and maybe we'll treat it better.
On the flip side, if we never find life then maybe it will still shock us enough that we take care of this little niche of ours.
Enough with the fart jokes already :\
Are you lot 9 years old?
I'm no geochemist, but it really seems to me like they're jumping the gun on this one. We *know* Mars had volcanic activity which can produce methane, and we don't know that there isn't any currently. We know **nothing** about life on Mars. Parsimony dictates that we presume geo(areo?)chemistry or volcanism until it can be clearly shown to be of another origin.
On the other hand extraterrestial intelligence would be a much thornier problem (as far as Christianity is concerned, in any case) - did the aliens have the original sin and redenmption, etc.
RTF whole quote:
Asked whether the continual production of methane is strong evidence of a biological origin of the gas, Dr Mumma said: "I think it is, myself personally."
He added: "It's difficult to imagine that primordial methane [from geological activity] would continue outgassing for four billion years [the age of Mars]. This looks very intriguing."
Doesn't sound reckless to me. Sounds more like informed speculation.
FreeSpeech.org
Basiclly he hypothesis that god is the thing that is beyond that which we can comprehend around us.
Therefore (My extrapolation of Decartes reasoning) until we can understand and control the creation of the universe there will always be room for "God".
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
If these new findings weren't found by the rovers, why has this just now been discovered? One of the sources of the discovery was from earth. Is it because mars has been so close to earth recently? No mention of this in the story.
These scriptures don't mention God creating the Azores either. Nobody seemed to freak out when some sailor landed there.
Public interest in Mars == greater support for NASA funding. The public doesn't care about rocks, they want to hear about life. So, to keep the public interested, NASA is now couching everything in terms of discovering life. You're not being 'eased into acceptance' of the idea of life there due to some slowly uncovering conspiracy, but rather because it's in their best interest for you to be excited about the idea of life there. It's PR spin, pure and simple.
Your fuel cells will not work well with only methane...you will also need a source of oxygen.
Exponential growth is a best-case situation. In a harsh environment, bacteria replicate very slowly.
Whether they divide once every century or once ever 20 minutes, their growth is still exponential. Biological systems only stop growing exponentially once there is serious competition for resources or space.
I will love to see the ramifications to the worlds religions when life is actually found. The fall-out will be grand. With some luck it will put into proper perspective all the in-fighting that has been caused by 'holy wars' over the centuries.
If the discovery of a universe that is about a dozen billion light years large and a dozen billion years old, of 60ft cold-blooded monsters with banana-sized teeth, of nuclear fusion, of evolution, and of all that didn't change religion, the discovery of bacterial life on Mars won't either. In fact, most people will probably neither know or care about it.
I think most religions do not insist on literal interpretations of their texts.
Worse, they tend to insist on interpretations by an approved "authority" within the religion. In short, they then make up shit like "the Earth is the center of the Universe" or "homosexuality is an abomination before God" or "aliens are Godless animals". Then someone comes along who isn't talking shit ("Earth Orbits Sun, says Galileo; "Your Own Priests Fucked Me" boys say) an instead of admitting a mistake of Godly proportions, the authorities covers things up and insists on a holy war to destroy the non-believers.
We have found a number of meteorites that are of martian origin. There should be a similar number of Earth origin meteorites on Mars. Mars had surface water at various times. Earth life has most likely already been planted. I would not be suprised if any place in the solar system that has liquid water already has forms of life derived from Earth. Show me life on another star system.
When I was young, I had to rub sticks together to compute.