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Martian Methane May Be Created By Lifeforms
Following our recent discussions about the growing evidence pointing to possible life on Mars, reader skywatcher2501 writes with news of a study that has ruled out one possible explanation for the levels of methane seen on that planet — that it might be replenished by disintegrating meteors entering the atmosphere. So two theories remain: either the gas is created as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water, or it is a by-product of a lifeform's metabolism.
That it is life. I've said it before so I won't reiterate with a long post, but if there's life on Mars, that proves life isn't just unique to Earth. This planet isn't a fluke. If there's life on Mars, then it can be *anywhere*
What an amazing thing that would be.
Almost as good as the BBC TV series...
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
"So two theories remain: either the gas is created as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water, or it is a by-product of a lifeform's metabolism."
Or C: There is some, as of yet, unidentified method of methane production.
... get ready to hear this word a lot: "cross contamination" from the bombardment period.
I know - I know. I'm not advocating it - I'm just saying: Don't be surprised.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Well from a purely scientific standpoint I'd say there's merit in preserving and studying life forms that have evolved in complete isolation from anything on Earth.
Wouldn't you?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I saw recently that NASA was leaning towards judging structures on a few meteorites as organic in nature. Meaning, we could have been derived from, or seeded life on Mars. Multiple times.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
"Decay" implies the breakdown of biological tissue by... you guessed it, micro-organisms. In places where there is not much bacteria, like the antarctic, things that die do not decay noticeably over hundreds of years or more.
So, I doubt decay from dead things is producing the methane.
And ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the argumentum ad hominem.
Let us take a moment to ponder this posters ability to take a tone of superiority, all the while unawares of the stupendous amount of ignorance being displayed by his own statement.
Truly a remarkable creature.
Mars has about 1/2 the radius of the Earth and about 1/10th the mass, which means a significantly smaller gravitational field, even at the surface (about 1/3 the gravity at the surface, and remember that it falls off proportionately to the square of the distance from the center of mass).
While Mars doesn't have a magnetic field any more, I suspect that the reason that Mars's atmosphere is so much thinner than our own has more to do with the lack of mass and corresponding gravity well to hold the gases in than it does the solar wind blowing it away. Recall that Mercury has a magnetic field, and it doesn't really help the planet hold its atmosphere. And lest you think that's because it's so close to the Sun, and thus the subject of stronger solar winds, I'll point out that Ganymede also has a permanent magnetic field and a very thin atmosphere, but its surface pressure is so low that if it were created in a bell jar here on Earth, it would be considered a vacuum.
I'm not sure which country that you live in, but where I live, the press and the scientists aren't controlled by the government.
The press is a much more complex subject. So I'll talk just about the scientists. Many of them are doing "pure research" of the sort that is unlikely to produce a profit in the near future, if ever. This covers the LHC and all sorts of other things. Because their work isn't expected to be profitable, those scientists are not financially self-sufficient. Most (nearly all?) of them receive government grants in order to fund their work. Who receives those grants and what kind of work gets funded depends ultimately on the politics of the time and the mainstream scientific theories of the time. So, you can only deny the control that government has over scientific research if you discount the power of the purse, and I submit that doing so would be a mistake.
I'll give a recent example. In 2001, George W. Bush used his political influence as President to decide that the government will not fund research on stem cells if those stem cells are derived from frozen embryos. This was pure politics and occurred not because of scientific objections, but because people with pro-life views had moral objections to this method of research. There were already existing stem cell lines that had already been harvested; regarding these from the point of view of pro-lifers the damage had already been done, therefore Bush did allow scientists to work on these existing stem cells. Whether you agree with that decision or not, it amounts to the political micromanagement of scientific research enforced by the power of the purse. So yes, the government has a great deal of control and they can exercise that in a purely budgetary fashion without passing a single new law.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein