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Biological Activity on Mars
visination.com writes "Recent ground based observations of Mars have confirmed the presence of water and methane. The 300 year life time of methane on Mars is short, giving scientists reason to beleive that Mars may be biologically active." From the article: "Every one of these longitudes shows a very substantial enhancement in the equatorial zone...So this is a very intense source of methane on Mars in this region. It also requires a very rapid decay of methane...more rapid than photochemistry would allow..."
K'breel, speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
When challenged by pro-life activists present at the conference, who asserted that the invaders were living beings just as we are, and that we did not have the right to arbitrarily exterminate an entire species, K'Breel replied tersely:
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why does it feel like our scientists are just chasing after the wind when it comes to the search for life on Mars?
Great, we discover extraterrestrial life and it smells like farts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
not gonna say it... too easy.... not gonna say it
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
From the article: "The methane could be the result of biological processes. It could also be an "abiotic" geochemical process, however, or the result of volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the red planet." Not to burst your methane bubble or anything.
Given recent Photographic Evidence, the presence of chocolate compounds would seem to necessitate biological activity.
You know this eliminates the possibility of terraforming Mars, don't you. We'll have "Save the microbe" campaigns every time a mission is sent there.
Deleted
I suspect somebody in the telescope room farted, polluting the spectragraph results. Now a 2 Billion fruitless methane mission will be sent up just because some guy had the Delux Bean-a-Mania burrito.
Table-ized A.I.
Okay, firstly, I am not a follower of any major religion, and I have not read the bible, so that is the purpose of this question...
After reading that article, and then reading another article advertised on the same page here I was starting to feel as if i would be surprised if we DIDN'T find evidence of life on mars. Anyway, I was just wondering what remifications such a finding would have on the bible followers. Is there any reference in the bible as to whether life on other planets exists. Almost every scientific discovery is met with religous opposition, so I was wondering if anyone had any opinions from the religous area. Does the bible say anything about life on other planets?
Scientists recently found large amounts of methane gas around Uranus.
There are some rather strange images from the Mars Orbiter Camera that don't appear to show geologic activity at first glance and do resemble bacteria beds or something organic. We need to go investigate!
And after further investigation several single celled life forms were recovered from the martian surface. Initial test results suggest the average martian microbe is TEN TIMES more biologically active than their earthling slashdotting counter parts.
One thing I haven't seen discussed but would like to, is to what stage could life have evolved in the period that it was particularly ripe for life? In that time frame, could there have been significant multicellular life? Significant enough to leave interesting fossils? It has been a lifelong dream of mine to go fossil hunting in an old river or lakebed on Mars. I'm young, so I might still realize it (even though highly, highly unlikely), unless the period of wetness on mars didn't last long enough to have any hope for such things. I'd settle for piloting a probe equipped with a little pick and brush. Fingers crossed.
I understand the one-step-at-time approach NASA is pursuing with regard to the search for life on Mars, but it strikes me a little odd that the methane concentrations on Mars are being measured by telescopes based here on Earth. Why haven't current orbiters been equipped to sense this in a more direct fashion. I would think exact precise chemical composition of the air would be a high priority. In fact, how sensitive would the Viking data have been on showing possible methane concentrations in the atmosphere? My recommendation to NASA: more emphasis on chemical analysis in future missions. Yeah, I know the Rocket Scientists are probably already thinking this. Hopefully this new data will get the proper equipment funded for the next Mars shots. And yes I know everything is a trade off and we do chemical analysis as part of every mission to some degree. But damn, we have to use scopes here on Earth to get this data?!?
Letter To Iran
I knew I should have kept those Slim Whitman CDs my grandmother left me.
What is that 300 year figure from? Wouldn't the use of 'half-life' be more appropriate?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Every one of these longitudes shows a very substantial enhancement in the equatorial zone...So this is a very intense source of methane on Mars in this region.
I believe I may have the solution! If you'll kindly lower your nose to my personal equatorial zone, and pull my finger gently, I'll show you what I mean...
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Great...now we have to design the probes to withstand headcrab attacks.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
We also have "Save the rainforest" campaigns. The rainforest is full off unknown species but that doesn't stop the vegetarians from turning it into a giant soy plantage (It's Troll Tuesday right?).
The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
Thanks for sharing, Mr. President.
An tha beasties live in active volcanoes!
...
Tis like I were tellin ya, bout them strange underwater dragons wot lived beneath the waves in Davy Jones locker, feastin on the heat of the volcanoes that go down straight ta Hades
.
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Seriously, just because life exists in biological and temperature extremes, as was recently discovered by researchers here at the University of Washington - Huskies represent! - doesn't necessarily mean that there has yet been proven to be life on Mars. That requires something to validate the hypothesis, like a mars rover, or a manned space flight, or some other validation. We only have emissions and temperature readings, which could be caused by other things, given our lack of data to date.
But kudos if it is life!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
He went on to describe how bacteria are routinely found in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and how meteorite impacts are almost certain to propel them into space. Furthermore, he described how many species of bacteria form spores, and that these spores were known to tolerate high temperatures, low temperatures, radiation (!), and exposure to a vacuum for an extended period of time.
In essence, bacteria can make the trip to Mars. The only question is whether or not Earth bacteria can survive there.The ESA "mothership" that deposited Beagle 2 all over the Martian landscape has a spectrometer and it has been observing methane releases for some time. The ESA has been unsure, though, whether it was due to life or geological activity. Trust NASA to go with the more exciting option, with no more data to go on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I for one welcome our biologically active martian overlords.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Martians will have to get used to saying:
"I for one welcome our new Terra-ist overlords!"
1. Build Mars colonial Mission
2. Begin Terra-izing Mars.
3. ????? (Encase resident Martian lifeforms in epoxy souvenir blocks)
4. PROFIT!
Woo hoo I found step three!
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Can't wait for the next update! Hope it fixes all those contradictio... er, bugs.
You must think in Russian.
So....many....fart jokes....must...resist urge...to ...So after all the hype, 1st contact ends up being an alien saying "Come on, pull my finger." .....couldn't....stop...bad....joke....brain....ca n't ...process.......all....too...many....
Turk: Let's play Steak. J.D.: What? Turk: Steak. The 1st person to finish their steak is the winner of Steak. -Scrubs
SCENE: Rooftop. Lightning flashes occasionally. Thunder rumbles.
... my creature ... *biological activity!*"
DR. FRANKENSTEIN stands over the lifeless form of THE MONSTER. THE MONSTER is strapped to a gurney, with electrical apparatus attached to various points on his body.
[Lightning Crashes]
Medium shot: DR. FRANKENSTEIN looks skyward, raises hands, imploring.
DR. FRANKENSTEIN: "Give
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/12257_M artian.html
According to this highly respectable news page, a Russian boy is a martian and he can tell you all about life there.
Case closed. No need to spend more money going there.
What exactly is it that they are implying with this quote about decay - "It also requires a very rapid decay of methane... more rapid than photochemistry would allow". As I understood it, the presence of methane was indicative of life, because you'd expect any atmospheric methan to photodissociate withina few hundred years of it - therefore there should be very little of it. They mention this abnormally rapid decay is required, but it doesn't seem at all clear why? Can anyone shed some light on this? I'm very disappointed in /. today... If I could have I'd have moderated about 90% of this whole discussion offtopic... :/
I really don't think that he meant that he was standing by the river, the clouds opened up, then he passed out and channeled with god who made him halucinate or dream something completely irrelevant but that just so happened to perfectly describe what he would have seen if he had seen flying saucers with portholes carrying lifeforms from the sky, disturbing the clouds as they came down. Since he neglected to mention that he passed out and hallucinated or dreamed, I think we can assume that he was describing what he saw and "vision of god" is a literal translation.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Dr. Vittorio Formisano is/was the principle investigator of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer used by European Space Agencies Mars Express probe.
:)
From reading the spectrometer, he believed it was evident that methane, ammonia, and formaldehyde can all be found in the martain atmosphere. Where as methane will last a few hundred years in the atmosphere, formaldehyde will only -eight- hours.
I'm not a scientist, but from what I've read, all 3 gases are strong indicators of life. While I know that the methane could be produced by volcanic activity on Mars (as mentioned elsewhere in the thread), Mars is a geologically dead planet. There is no sign of any such activity.
The presence of all 3 gases on a geologically dead planet would seem to be consistent with planet having some microbial life. As Mars entered its Spring, the levels of all 3 gases were found to rise as well. Of course, more life, more gas in the atmosphere.
It was also noted that the gas levels rose sharply over Mars' frozen oceans as spring approached. Perhaps some simples forms of life were frozen in the oceans? It could also be that the frozen oceans sit over some geological vents, trapping some methane.
But again, as far as anyone knows Mars is still a geologically dead planet.
Sorry if this doesn't make much sense... but gas indicating life in the martian atmosphere is OLD news, and there are far more compelling gases (like formaldehyde) that exist in the atmosphere. If it only lasts for 8 hours, something there is reproducing it.
Apparently, the only way to know definitively what is producing it, is to go dig up the soil. So... good luck on that ever happening. Apparently we have to build a base on the moon first.
Considering the fact that he used the word "living creatures" instead of people and he clearly described vehicles and they clearly resemble flying saucers with portholes, we can safely say that if he was having a hallucination or dream, he was having one about flying saucers with non-human pilots.
Since this occurred thousands of years ago and nothing in this dude's life could have possibly seeded his imagination in such a way as to make him hallucinate about advanced technology and non-human pilots, we can also safely say that if he did dream or hallucinate this vision then either he had seen or heard about something like this before or he was seeing the future through prescience or divine inspiration.
Taking this a bit further, if we assume that flying saucers (let's just call them UFOs) and non-human intelligences are works of 20th century science fiction, then we are ready to draw conclusions about this dude.
Either
(A) Ezekiel was, through prescience or divine inspiration, having dreams, hallucinations (visions) of phenomena that does not exist, that exactly matches the UFO phenomena from 20th century science fiction and ascribing this as god
or
(B) Ezekiel was having dreams, hallucinations (visions) of some phenomena that was known at the time that, through pure coincidence, exactly matches the UFO phenomena from 20th century science fiction and ascribing this as god.
or, if we assume that UFOs are real (not just science fiction)
(C) Ezekiel was truly seeing (or having dreams or hallucinations based on his or other's experiences), real UFOs and non-human pilots and he believed them to be of god.
or, lastly,
(D) Ezekiel really did have a dream or hallucination of god and it is just coincidence that his view of god matches our modern view of UFOs and aliens. Which scenario makes more sense? Use Occom's razor.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
A Mars researcher currently working with data from the Opportunity rover told me a couple weeks ago that he and some colleagues calculated what it would take to produce the levels of methane observed on Mars.
Their results? Three cows. Seriously.
I have no idea how accurate those calculations were, but he's a smart guy with more degrees than I have.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
John F. McGowan III, "Oil and natural gas on Mars," in Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology III, Richard B. Hoover, Editor, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4137, pp. 63-74 (2000).
Oil and Natural Gas on Mars
ABSTRACT
On Earth, according to conventional theory, the largest, by mass and volume, identifiable trace of past life is subsurface oil and natural gas deposits. Nearly all coal and oil on Earth and most sedimentary source rocks associated with coal, oil, and natural gas contain molecules of biological origin and is proof of past life. If Mars possessed an Earth-like biosphere in the past, Mars may contain subsurface deposits of oil and natural gas indicating past life. Life might still exist in these deposits. Subsurface oil and natural gas on Mars would probably cause seepage of hydrocarbon gases such as methane at favorable locations on the Martian surface. Further, if Mars contains substantial subsurface life, the most detectable signature of this life on the Martian surface would be gases generated by the life percolating up to the surface and venting into the Martian atmosphere. In this paper, systems that can detect evidence of subsurface oil and gas, including ground penetrating radar and infrared gas sensors are explored. The limitations and future prospects of infrared gas detection and imaging technologies are explored. The power, mass, and volume requirements for infrared instruments able to detect venting gases, especially methane, from an aerobot is estimated. The maximum range from the infrared sensor to the gas vent and the minimum detectable gas density or fraction of the Martian atmosphere - as appropriate for the instrument type - is estimated. The bit rate and bit error rate requirements for transmitting the data back to Earth are also estimated.
Got that? Ok.
The inner-edge diameter is circumference/pi = 30/3.14... = 9.55... cubits
The difference between the ring's inner edge diameter and its outer edge diameter is thus about .45 cubits; to get the thickness of the ring we divide
by two (because the ring crosses the diameter twice), so .225 cubits, or about 4.05 inches, given an eighteen-inch cubit.
Note that a handbreadth is usually defined as about four inches, so we know the numbers add up; you can take it apart and get pi from it by working backwards:
The inner-edge diameter is equal to the outer-edge diameter minus (thickness * 2), thus 10cubits - .45 cubits(i.e., 2 handbreadths) = 9.55 cubits.
Their value of pi would be the inner-edge circumference (30 cubits) divided by the inner-edge diameter (9.55 cubits), thus about 3.14....
[The reading "pi is exactly three" is based on the weird idea of measuring the tub as a circle rather than a ring.] [and of course your mileage will vary based on the proportion of the cubit you use to your handbreadth, but let's gloss over that for now...]
People with pure hearts can go to a whole new world.
"God doesn't just go far out; He goes far in"
That's what Mary said too.
By the way, your belief system is a fairy tale based on a book of lies.
Have a nice day.