Ammonia Could Indicate Life On Mars

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.

Comments

Underground lava seems more likely.

[garcia]

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.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[Ignignot]

Or maybe the microbes are like some of those anaerobic heat loving kinds they find in volcanic fissures here on Earth. Maybe the only place where life can survive is the volcanoes?

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[Thud457]

I just like to say "alien pee".

/thank you

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[cephyn]

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.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[cephyn]

there's no proof, but we dont have the seismic monitors in place on the ground that could detect magma chamber shifts and the like. We've only been able to look for BIG changes. Little ones might go unnoticed. Mars is a big mystery still, there's just not enough direct observation being made to say anything for sure.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[Progman3K]

OK, but if there is volcanic outgassing, we'd be seeing other trace gasses along with ammonia, I expect. Are those present too?

I'm not absolutely sure about the chemical composition; but should there be increased dust that can be identified as coming from the interior, along with other elements like sulphur? I know sulphur may also be present in the case of life, but there must be some compounds which exclude one or the other possibilities.

If ammonia is alone, then it would confirm the life hypothesis, I expect.

On a side note, if there IS life over there, it may be the biggest news and the greatest gift to mankind ever: It might serve to finally get nations and peoples to realize that provincialization is stupid, and we're all in this together.

Good lord, I've never prayed God and asked him to grant me a wish, but in this case, I do.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[cephyn]

Is earth vulcanism a good model for mars? I don't know. Different rock composition might make for radically different magma gasses. Are volcanos on Io similar to terran? I don't know...but I bet they're rather different. And of course, vulcanism on Triton is RADICALLY different than terran....so who knows what gasses a Martian volcano would release.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[torpor]

... what if we get to Mars, find microbes, look into the microscope, and they all look like this!

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[Rei]

There's still that pesky issue of "what *active* volcanoes are there on mars"? By all standards we've observed so far, it's a geologically dead planet. We've seen no active plate boundaries, no visible earthquakes or vulcanism, and - perhaps even more concerning - the planet has no sizable magnetic field.

I don't buy the life explanation either, though. Whenever there is chemistry going on in a planet that we don't yet understand, there's this natural tendancy to yell "it must be life!". There are many reactions which can produce ammonia gas. For example, there's the decomposition of ammonium salts by alkaline hydroxides or lime, the decomposition of magnesium hydroxide with water, etc. I'm not sure if any of these processes are applicable anywhere on mars, but "life" is not the only way to make ammonia.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[tsm_sf]

The article mentioned, though, that ammonium breaks down rapidly in the atmosphere. The only KNOWN explanations for the (apparently replenishing) amount detected are volcanic activity or the presence of life.

Thus spake the BBC =p

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[dnahelix]

"Whenever there is chemistry going on in a planet that we don't yet understand, there's this natural tendancy to yell "it must be life!". "

Tendancy? We've only seen chemistry on other planets (& moons) a handful of times, and I don't remember anyony yelling 'it must be life!' This is one of the grossest over-generalizations I've read all day.

I don't know where the ammonia is coming from on Mars. If there even is any; from the article: "Ammonia may have been found in Mars' atmosphere" But to just not buy an explanation, because you think it is just too implausible or because it turned out not to be false in another instance is just stupid.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[BasilBrush]

Let me explain. The parent poster has a soda pop in the basement, and after several months he opens it, and is surprised to see it fizzing with carbon dioxide. He avoids the obvious explaination that the factory injected the soda pop with CO2 and explains the effect by imagining tiny trolls living in the cans. Tiny trolls also known as yeast, or indeed "the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."

Wait, that's not it. The explaination is this: We detect ammonia on Mars so we obviously jump to the conclusion that it's "the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water", whilst completely missing the ammonia factory constructed by "intelligences greater than man's" to generate fuel to propel pods to planet earth!

No that's not it either. I was just testing the the combined intelligence of Slashdot mods to see if they would spot a HG Wells quote hidden in the middle of otherwise unrelated material.

Actually it was a warning that as we busy ourselves about our affairs on slashdot and and looking through microscopes at soda pop, we are being watched by martians. But don't worry, if you manage to find an old enough home made soda pop in your basement and open it in the martians face, it'll defeat him everytime.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.

[Rei]

The entire history of modern human perception of Mars - not just chemistry - has been to see life into it where it wasn't. First, there were the "canals". Even in scientific circles, there was commonly a view that there were "at least" species like lichens and mosses on mars. There was the viking biology experiment. There was the mars meteorite. There was the methane. There's the ammonia. I'm sure I'm missing some, too. Each time, there's this immediate "It's life!" reaction that people instinctively do, before being shown that there are many other more "Occam's Razor compatable" explanations.

BTW, speaking of the viking biology experiment, lets not forget that it showed processes that we sometimes view as life occurring in the sterilized sample, aka, abiotically.

Ain't that something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ammonia, eh? Either Mars has life or just really clean windows....

Ammonia and methane?

[Jonboy X]

Great! Not only do we know that there are aliens in Mars, but that they pee and fart just like us!

Re:Ammonia and methane?

[Hogwash McFly]

Yep, but from the opposite holes.

Re:Ammonia and methane?

[micromoog]

Speaking of, does that gold-plated record Voyager is carrying out into the great unknown contain any fart jokes? Those are pretty universal.

How do we know?

[millahtime]

How do we know ammonia doesn't last long on mars? Did we take some there and see how long it lasts?

Re:How do we know?

[kippy]

the lack of a magnetosphere and a thin atmosphere would allow more solar radiation to hit the surface. That breaks the hydrogen off of those molecules. Their presense means that they must have been made more recently than the length of time it takes to break them up.

Of course

[SquadBoy]

the Wong's have all those herds. Of course they have methane and ammonia. Duh.

Methane and ammonia: What we know about ...

[burgburgburg]

Martians:

Gassy neat freaks.

ammonia and methane, eh?

[surreal-maitland]

"folks, we've discovered life on mars, and boy, is it stinky!"

Its not that exciting

[Timesprout]

It was just the Martians giving Beagle a good clean up before they show it of to the Saturnians (they are really proud of their collection of landers on Mars).

Don't mind that..

[ParticleMan911]

It's probably just left over from the filming of Total Recall.

But...

[7Ghent]

Does it indicate the insidious presence of Mr. Clean??

Who knows what evil lurks in the shiny surfaces...

now if venus...

[Hooya]

has some traces of perfume and lipstick it would settle beyond any doubt that men are indeed from mars and women are from venus.

Re:now if venus...

[psavo]

I'd remind that any technical device sent there by man has very short estimation of uptime there..

life indicates life

[mattkime]

really the only indicator of life on mars that is going to convince me is....life on mars.

i've been disillusioned by all the rumors since the face hasn't lead to any big breakthrough.

http://www.matrixofcreation.co.uk/mars/face-on-m ar s.gif

Re:life indicates life

[blancolioni]

I bet there are areas on earth shaped like a man's dingdong

Funny you should mention that. Euro coins have an map of the EU embossed on them.

There's a reason we wish Norway would join already.

Life was inevitable

[apikoros]

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.

Re:Life was inevitable

[cephyn]

Well, actually #3 isn't a safe assumption. The gravity wells of the two planets are very different, it is MUCH harder for an earth rock to land on mars. That said, the probability is not zero. It's just much less likely than finding Martian rocks here.

Re:Life was inevitable

[painandgreed]

Not only that, but there is the theory of panspermia. Basically, spores and microbes are constantly entering the upper atmosphere and from there entering space and have been at a slow but contant rate for millions if not billions of years. if protected in a body of dust or resistant to ultraviolet light such as many spores are it's possible for them to remain viable after a trip through space. As they head out in random directions from Earth, it stands to reson that eventually some of them would have been captured by Mar's gravity and entered their atmosphere and made it back to the surface where they could begin to prosper. Some people put forth that life could have originally been birthed on Mars and made it to Earth is such a manner.

Re:Life was inevitable

[ShieldWolf]

A few deflating points:

1. There are places on earth where there is no bacterial life: try the upper atmosphere and farthest reaches of antarctica at the moment (both places as cold as Mars).

2. A human being has trouble surviving a re-entry inside a spaceship covered with heat-resistant tiles, do you really think a bacterium sitting on a rock that is heated up to a few thousand degrees has a chance in hell of surviving the trip?

3. Not all rocks of Earth origin contain bacteria, again those in the middle of antartica do not.

4. The rocks found in antartica DID NOT have fossilized bacteria. What they did have were crytalized structures that scientists figured could plausibly have been created by life. As for the famous picture: those structures are MUCH smaller than bacteria and scientists were careful not to say they were fossils.

The approach you should take is common-sense:

If I can kill all the bacteria in water by simply boiling it for a few minutes at ~100 celcius, do you honestly think it could survive on a rock that has is flung off the earth at escape velocity through the atmosphere, across the freezing vacuum of space and then plumetting through the martian atmosphere and then crashing to the ground?

Re:Life was inevitable

[cephyn]

Right! But also, things blown off mars would tend to fall inward towards the sun...just as things blown off earth would. So to really get moving into an orbit that would intersect the martian one, AND then hit Mars....wooo.

But 4 billion years IS a long time. I'd be surprised if we ever found an earth rock on mars, but maybe, just maybe...

Re:Life was inevitable

[cephyn]

1) There has been life found in the upper atmosphere and in the farthest reaches of antarctica.

2) some microbes live IN rocks, some very deep, so the outer layers of rock could protect an atmospheric entry. Especially since rock-loving microbes aren't bothered by extreme temperatures, the center of the rock could still be cool enough not to cook them.

3)Not all rocks, but way more than you'd expect.

4)No argument.

Yes, I believe it could since microbes were discovered on the moon landers after they'd been sitting on the moon for a few years. Also, earth rocks blown off that later re-enter and land have microbes that could survive. There's no event in your scenario that some microbes couldn't survive.

Re:Life was inevitable

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

If I can kill all the bacteria in water by simply boiling it for a few minutes at ~100 celcius

That won't kill all the spores, which is why autoclaves operate at higher temperatures for much longer periods. And Oceanic vent-dwelling bacteria would find it posively chilly.

Re:Life was inevitable

[Teancum]

How absolutely sure are you that bacterial life is not in the upper atmosphere?

I've heard of bacterial capture as high as 50,000 feet. Do you mean higher than that? Like the 100 km altitude that Space Ship One went to?

And the same about Antarctica. How absolutely sure are you that you can't find some sort of bacterial remains or transport of some kind that can litterally be found in the middle of Antarctica? That is even ignoring the Antarctic research stations where I'm sure you can find bacteria in abundance. I've seen bacterial growth on alpine glaciers high on mountain tops, that live in conditions that are very similar to Antarctica. Antarctica is a big place, and to totally rule out anything living there is just too absolute.

Also, if you think boiling something for a few minutes in water at 100 C is going to kill bacteria, you really don't understand food science at all. What that normally does when you cook is kill bacteria and other organisms that are harmful to people. An autoclave does a much better job, but that is not normally something you would stick a chicken sandwich into.

One reason why it is suspected that bacteria could survive in space is because of Apollo-12, where the Surveyor probe, launched several years earlier, was "accidentally" contaminated before it was launched. Parts of this space probe were returned back to Earth in sealed bags, and it was detected that several bacterial cells survived not only the spaceflight to the moon, but "lived" on the moon for several years before coming back to the laboratories on the Earth. Nobody is claiming that they thrived and multiplied into huge numbers on the Moon, but they were able to survive and when put into a much more hospitable environment (like a petri dish full of agar in an Earth-based lab) they did thrive and begin to reproduce again.

Also, micrometeorites that are the size of a pin-head or even somewhat larger have been known to survive reentry without burning up from re-entry. It is not that difficult to bring things to the Earth that could survive, and certainly something the size of a bacterium could enter the Earth's atmosphere without heating up to several thousands of degrees C.

The only reason reentry is so difficult for spaceflight is because it is a cheap and easy way to reduce speed without having to fire rockets to reduce velocity for a safe landing. This has no relationship to small grains of sand that are orbiting the sun. Even a large rock will only get heated so much coming into the Earth's atmosphere, simply because the entry won't last that long. A very hard landing, but relatively quick transit time through the atmosphere. How many G's of force do you think a bacteria could take? I bet it is quite a bit more than a person could take, by about 1000x.

A recurring theme

[Sean80]

I myself wouldn't be in the least surprised if they found life on Mars.

Again and again, life has proven itself to be a real beyutch to kill. Bottom of the sea near lava vents. Antarctic wastelands which are the driest places on earth. I believe I once read about viruses which had survived in space for years as well.

I think the notion of panspermia (if I have the terminology correct) - that life first arrived on Earth after having been blown off the surface of Mars by an impacting meteor - is one of the most interesting theories out there.

Re:It has a magnetosphere

[cephyn]

From your link:

The magnetic field of Mars is 1/800 as strong as Earth's and was first recorded in 1997 by the Mars Surveyor probe.

That's barely a magnetosphere. It is there, but it's not exactly substantial...

Not a flamebait, but...

[rfernand79]

I don't intend to go on a flamebait, but this kind of news seem to support Bush's "Go to Mars" space program. Yes, there are some of us who think it's great to explore Mars, but not at the expense of other resources. I keep hearing this comments on how government research funding has been redirected towards Mars... this is the flaw. I believe no resources should have been redirected, but instead, new resources created for a new project. Anyway, something to ponder...

Very interesting...

[polyp2000]

The prospect of active volcanoes is a surefire indicator that there are sources of heat. That means there could well be regions on mars with liquid water. Warmth + Water are definitely a good start when it comes to the possibility of life. Of course if there are no active volcanoes then whatever is creating and sustaining supplies of ammonia and methane is also very interesting. Either way whether ammonia is coming from volcanos or from a possible source of life both scenarios are good in terms of finding it.

Christian fundamentalists will end NASA

[Jagasian]

If NASA starts finding life on other planets, many Christian fundamentalists will most likely try to put an end to our space program, just as they have tried and conintue to try to put an end to the teaching of theories of evolution, stem cell research, cloning research, etc.

Remember Galileo Galilei. It can happen again!

Re:Christian fundamentalists will end NASA

[synaptic]

I'm not a Christian but I know a lot of them.

I think it's far more likely that Christians will say "see, God is omnipotent and created life there too".

You've got a couple different types: the ones that believe the bible is the end all, be all, written word of the almighty God himself; and the ones who believe the bible is something of a history book, with some metaphorical science sprinkled in genesis and whatnot.

Your second group is likely to believe that the so-called God, in creating the heavens and earth, is responsible for our entire universe and any other life that may exist. The first group will tell you the Earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaurs never existed, and the rest of the universe has no life and is otherwise unimportant.

It's the first group that fights against the theory of evolution, but I think both groups (and me) are concerned about the ethical implications of stem cell and cloning research. I've heard that we no longer have to murder babies to harvest the stem cells -- something about taking it from umbilical cords. That's a good first step.

It's better to be extra careful when fiddling with the very keys to our existance. Does this mean this research shouldn't continue? No. But I'll be pretty pissed (until I'm dead), if some airhead in a lab makes a mistake and wipes out mankind.

Re:Christian fundamentalists will end NASA

[pjkundert]

Christians generally don't have a problem with life on mars, or anywhere else for that matter. Belief in the work of the Christ, and theories about exactly how and when things came into being are pretty independent of eachother.

Please don't confuse the term "Luddite Maniac" with "Christian".

Re:Christian fundamentalists will end NASA

[Strange_Attractor]

haven't you heard of extreme bible thumping?
Isn't Xtreme Bible Thumping (XBT) where pairs of bible-thumpers work together to get the thumping done more quickly? They subsist on Mountain Dew and Snickers bars? I think there's an O'Reilly book or two on it...

Re:Christian fundamentalists will end NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, the Bible only records the fall of man on this planet. Jesus only had to die for the salvation of humans on this planet. We have no knowledge of the spiritual condition of life on other planets, so we cannot assume that they are in a "fallen" state, and there is certainly no need to proseletyze them, since they are not descendants of Adam, hence not under the curse.

However, if humans have been abducted and taken to live on other planets, that is a different situation altogether. *smirk*

If there is sentient life elsewhere in the universe with spiritual and physical components of their being (lets assume the Biblical perspective of humans, and of God, for the sake of the hypothesis). Then if the God of the Bible is consistent (as Christians believe He is) then He would also provide the righteous and just treatment of those beings, as well, within the frame of reference of their existence, and without the intervention of humans when/if we meet them.

The answer...cats

[mysterious_mark]

A dry sandy place with only ammonia and methane, sounds like a giant cat box, but where are the martian kitties? M

Life vs. the Volcano

[doconnor]

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.

Re:Underground lava seems more likely.,, or...

[mikael]

... somebody cleaned the sensor array with "Windex" prior to mission launch.

Nice job Mods

[Excelsior]

What I've learned from this thread is that to be modded up you need to have extensive credible knoweledge of geology and chemistry, or you need to post any excerpt from South Park's Terrance & Phillip.

Judging from the smell...

[qtone42]

...of my technical advisor's litterbox, that life could consist or stealthy, rust-colorerd felines.

--QTone, not French

The source

[c0d3h4x0r]

...it could be active volcanoes (none yet found), or it could indicate life...

...or it could be Mr. Clean's evil hideout!