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Ammonia Could Indicate Life On Mars

Posted by michael on from the interplanetary-slime-mold dept.

Young Master writes "Just seen this story on good old Auntie Beeb, apparently traces of ammonia have been found in the Martian atmosphere. Ammonia doesn't last long on Mars, so it must be constantly replenished - it could be active volcanoes (none yet found), or it could indicate life..." Along with the detection of methane, Mars is starting to look a lot less dead than had been supposed.

4 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Underground lava seems more likely. by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So far the PFS has observed a depletion of carbon dioxide and an enrichment of water vapour over some of the large extinct volcanoes on Mars.
    Ammonia is not a stable molecule in the Martian atmosphere. If it was not replenished in some way, it would only last a few hours before it vanished.

    An underground lava theory seems much more plausible than microbes hoarding nitrogen. Underground lava beneath the extinct volcanoes could be releasing the ammonia into the atomosphere and thus explains how it is replenishing so quickly. Without other specific evidence of microbial life I really think we should just not get our hopes up, at least not yet.

    1. Re:Underground lava seems more likely. by cephyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think this explanation, based on evidence, is equally as likely as the non-bio explanation, the lava tube one. However, Mars is thought to be relatively geologically dead, so an active lava tube this close to the surface (close enough to vent ammonia) would seem unlikely to have avoided detection by now. So a deeper, more sedentary lava bulge, warming the rock and allowing anaerobic microbes to survive of the heat seems to me to be an equally likely proposition. EITHER discovery would be fantastic.

      --
      Moo.
  2. Life was inevitable by apikoros · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am not at all suprised at this. I always regarded life on Mars as being inevitable for the following reasons:

    1. There is no place on this planet that we have not found bacterial life,
    2. we know that meteorites can travel between the two planets as we have found rocks of Martian origin in Antarctica.
    3. if all rocks of earth origin contain bacteria and rocks from Mars can reach earth I would *expect* that life had travelled from earth to Mars via the same mechanism in reverse.

    That the meteorites found in Antarctica contained fossil bacteria only makes the case stronger.

  3. Life vs. the Volcano by doconnor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of the few planet like bodies we've observed we know of two with active volcanoes (Earth and Io) and one with life. However, we haven't really looked hard for life and there are several places where we are planning to look, including Mars and Europa.

    While it would be far more exciting to find life then lava, I'm not sure the data backs the assumption that volcanoes are far more common then life.

    We know there are only 2 planets/moons with volcanoes, making them a little rare. We know there is 1 planets/moons with life and serveral unknown. Our very palimerary evidence suggests volcanoes are twice as common as life.

    We have evidence that life appeared on Earth as soon (by geological time scales) as it was possible to sustain it. There is debate on whether the life experiments on Viking come out positive or negative. Now we have methane and ammonia in the atmosphere.

    Perhaps it is our arrogance that insists that we are so special, life of other planets is unlikely.