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.'"

Comments

Uh-oh!

[LordK3nn3th]

This Crazy Wacko, Hoagland, is going to have a field day on this. He believes in all sorts of NASA coverups and apparently has a small following. He was mentioned recently on slashdot, as well, as the famous "Bad Astronomer" debunked some of his BS...

Re:And if they find sulfur...

[elberserko]

And we already have evidence of belching martians too:

Well, what about...

[Professor Cool Linux]

Who's to say we haven't taken any bacteria to mars the past few Yrs.?????

Re:Well, what about...

[Hakubi_Washu]

Assuming we didn't take them there deliberately, one has to assume there can't be many. Those few might resist the unsupportive environment, though it is unlikely for them to prosper (Given that earth microbes are quite resistant, but would need serious adaption/evolution to accomplish more than simple survival). So, IF we have taken microbes there and some of them even survived, how likely is it that they already have a measureable impact on a planetary scale atmosphere? I personally tend to think it is most likely to find either active volcanism on mars or some sort of algae...

Doesn't have to be life

[cybermace5]

Methane is already pretty common in the universe. Given the amount of craters on Mars, the simplest explanation is probably that a methane-laden asteroid or comet hit Mars at some point.

What happens when life IS found

[nurb432]

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.

Or they may just dismiss it as ' well, we don't consider that blob of bacteria life ' and move on believing man is the center of the universe, and continue to pummel their un-believing neighbors in a neighboring state.

Of course, depending on which book you use at the time...

Terraforming Mars?

[kilogram]

According to this article at The Guardian, NASA is actually thinking of creating earth-like conditions on Mars. Will I get to visit Mars in my lifetime? My expiration date is sometime in the years around 2070.

BTW, has anyone seen Red Planet?

Re:Terraforming Mars?

[Cognitive Dissident]

There is one very important question to be answered if Mars is going to be terraformed and I have never seen anyone even ask it. We know that the smaller (and closer) moon is going to crash into the planet in 'a few thousand years' at the current rate of orbital decay. So what happens when we build up the atmosphere (assuming we find a way to do it) to many times its current density for human habitability? Isn't this inevitably going to increase the drag on that satellite? Figuring out how much it will increase the drag would seem to me a very important issue. We might make the thing crash in only a few centuries instead of millenia if we create an earth-like atmosphere on Mars. Millions of tons of rock crashing down on the surface will not be a 'plus' factor for habitability. Solutions to this problem could be as tricky as terraforming. Should we 'force' it to crash before terraforming? Or try to boost it further away? Or maybe it could be broken up and either crashed in smaller pieces or boosted away in smaller pieces.

Outgassing stopped 4B years ago?

[craXORjack]

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."

Is he assuming that geological activity stopped 4 billion years ago? I believe it used to be assumed that Mars core had cooled to a solid state long ago, but a NASA release just last year concluded that the core is indeed still molten. But maybe the crust has cooled so much and become so thick that there are no plate tectonics to break the surface and release primordial hydrocarbons.

So Many Strong Inicators...

[schnarff]

...so little actual exploration happening now.

Seriously, I applaud the efforts of the rovers and the orbiters. They're doing a lot of good science, and we should be proud of what they've shown us. But at the same time, human explorers could do so much more, for not a heck of a lot more money (this $1 Trillion price tag that's been floating around is bad journalism at its finest). I say that all of this good news should serve as impetuous to get people on the surface of the Red Planet as soon as possible!

To all those people who worry about cross-contamination, come on...the two environments are so different, the chances that a microbe from one could survive in the other are basically nonexistent. Besides, it's been proven that unsterilized meteorites have been moving from one planet to another for several billion years now, so if cross-contamination was ever going to happen, it already would have.

Safety of sample return missions?

[CreateWindowEx]

If we did find some sort of microbial life on Mars, how confident can we be in our ability to keep it from spreading to Earth until we understand how it works, especially given how even some terrestrial phenomena such as prions have only been identified recently? Any time two ecosystems that have disjoint for a long time come into contact, often one side will "win", such as the mass extinction of South American marsupials or the uncontrolled growth of rabbits in Australia. (I'm also concerned that we may have already contaminated Mars with earthborn bacteria).

The lack of obvious artifacts on Mars makes me doubt that there is or probably has been any kind of sophisticated life, but there's still the chance that their microbes could kick our microbes' collective asses...

I'd feel a little better if the first experiments were done remotely...

Can somebody explain something?

[sbaker]

The article says that methane in the atmosphere would decay over a few hundred years - so something is continuously renewing it...and that something is very likely to be life. Furthermore, we know (I think) that these hypothetical Martian beasts would have to be living underground in some very salty water.

OK - I can buy that - but I've been reading a bit about this subject - and I happened on this article:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_mo nd ay_040308.html ...which is talking about weird bacteria on Earth and how they manage to survive deep underground in salty water:

"On Earth, organisms do thrive deep underground -- hundreds of feet below -- without a single ray of sunshine. They live off chemical energy instead, like methane or hydrogen produced in chemical interactions between water and rock."

Wooaaahhh. Hold ON a minute. "methane ... produced in chemical interactions between water and rock" ???

If methane can be produced between rock and water (eg: of the salty kind presumed to be found underground on Mars) then isn't the signature of 10 parts per billion of Methane in the atmosphere of Mars merely a further indication of underground water?

That's not what the 'experts' are saying though. Clearly I'm missing something - but I don't understand what.

Help?

Re:Can somebody explain something?

[Shadowlore]

Wel we do have temperature measurements of Mars. If there is volcanic activity, we would see at a minimum the needed temperatures to power it. With a lack of requisite resulting temps, and no visible volcanic activity we could safely conclude it is tectonically/volcanicly not active.

Re:Life on Mars, yeah right!

[chmod]

Actually, IMNSHO it is much more likely that there would be life on Mars than any other planet, especially extra-solar (not in our solar system)

Life tends to cluster, as the program of the same name graphically depicts. Mars is in many ways similar to earth and by virtue of this and it's proximity I would give it a significantly higher likelyhood of hosting life than planet "x"

There is a notion that life on earth was seeded from an extra solar source, like a comet. Material from Mars has been found on earth, the inverse may be true as well as a result of comet and other impacts.

A lot of thought has gone behind the notion of "Terraforming" Mars as well. The probability of success is not impossible.

73

What's the big deal about finding life?

[mark-t]

Okay... I can understand it'd be a hugely big deal if we actually find E.T., and he's not only far more intelligent than us, but also stronger, cooler, and better looking!

But what's the big deal with finding single-celled organisms on other planets? Are we in that dire a need of validation of theories about the origin of life on this planet that we're grasping blindly at the hope of "Is it here?" ... "What about here?"... "Let's try over here!"?

Quite frankly, what difference does it really make how we got here? The important thing is that we *ARE* here... and while I won't deny the scientific importance of actually knowing our own history, I am completely at a loss as to how validation of certain theories regarding it would classify as anything even close to the "most significant discovery in the history of humanity".

Personally, I'd think that label would really only deserve to go to the discovery of how to bring dead people back to life in a replicable manner (and I don't mean people whose hearts have merely stopped for a few minutes, I mean _really_ dead).

Re:Existence

[WhiteBandit]

I mean, how long did it take for them to even confirm it was once wet?

I don't think that ultimately mattered. People have been obsessed with life on Mars since it was first discovered and the possibility of canals that were built by other beings.

The thought that water once flowed on the planet wasn't really that much of a profound/thought provoking concept in the scheme of things. There is some fairly obvious evidence that has hinted at the possibility of water. (I know, that image is from Mars Express, but we've known about major valleys and canyons since at least the time of the Viking Landers).

Regarding whether we are being eased into the possibility of life being on other planets. There is a greater chance of that than trying to prepare of for the possibility of water existing on another body.

However, I think the confirmation of life would be such huge and amazing news, I doubt word of it could be covered up for very long before it got out.

Re:Viking Mission

[mbone]

I remember Viking very well, as I worked on analysis of its tracking data. They had 3 biology experiments, plus a mass spectrometer (and various other instruments for other purposes, such as weather monitoring.)

Before the mission, they published the criteria for a postitive result from each biological experiment (along the lines of, add water to Martian soil and CO2 is given off; sterilize another soil sample and add water, and CO2 is not given off). The biology tests passes _every one_ of the pre-published tests, albeit with some variations.

However, the mass spectrometer saw no significant organic molecules (and there were no obvious large critters visible through the camera). This, more than anything, made them discount the biology results. If they had detected large organiic molecules in the soil, they would have claimed life, in my opinion. Instead, they came up with non-biological explanations.

However, this was all before we knew about the ability of life to exist deep underground and buried in rocks, etc., While the Viking results are not generaly regarded as requiring life, they are certainly not against a biological explanation of the Methane findings.

Re:Existence

[kasperd]

I'd expect us to be able to see that pretty easily - eg: Totally different fundamental mechanisms for just about everything.

Even if the mechanisms are the same, there could be a difference. Many chemical structures involving carbon can exist in two different variants, that are each others mirror image. In life on earth a lot of those apear only in one variant. In some cases the mirror image of something existing in our bodies would actually be toxic. And AFAIK the torsion of DNA in every living cell here on earth is the same direction. Now even if life did evolve in the same way independendly on Earth and Mars, what are the chances that all of those structures would be the same direction in Earth life and Martian life? If we found life on Mars with DNA that was mirrored compared to our DNA, what would that tell us?

Re:Existence

[sbaker]

Wouldn't the chances be 50-50? That being the case, finding a difference would be pretty conclusive - but not finding a difference would tell you nothing.

NASA's plan for if they DID find life

[bear_phillips]

Doesn't NASA have a plan for about any contigency? Anyone know what there plan is if they DO find life on Mars? Do they go public? Do they only tell the president? Going to the far fetched. What are the odds that NASA had some time of plan (at least on paper) on how to handle seeing an ET with the rovers?

James Lovelock found differently.

[StrawberryFrog]

Several Decades ago, Dr. James Lovelock wrote:

"we examined atmospheric evidence from the infrared astronomy of Mars. We compared this evidence with that available about the sources and sinks of the gases in the atmosphere of the one planet we knew bore life, Earth. We found an astonishing difference between the two atmospheres. Mars was close to chemical equilibrium and dominated by carbon dioxide, but the Earth was in a state of deep chemical disequilibrium. In our atmosphere carbon dioxide is a mere trace gas. The coexistence of abundant oxygen with methane and other reactive gases, is a condition that would be impossible on a lifeless planet. Even the abundant nitrogen and water are difficult to explain by geochemistry. No such anomalies are present in the atmospheres of Mars or Venus; their existence in the Earth's atmosphere signals the presence of living organisms at the surface. Sadly, we concluded, Mars was probably lifeless."

So what's changed? Is the methane a trace that Lovelock's instruments couldn't pick up? Did he discount it as too small to be significant? Or did he discount it because there was no free oxygen?

Or did the bacteria arrive since then on one of our probes?