Slashdot Mirror
Methane Survey Reveals Mars Is Far From 'Dead'
astroengine writes "The first planet-wide studies of methane on Mars — incorporating billions of measurements made by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft — shows gas concentrations peak in autumn and plummet in winter. Scientists have found significantly higher methane concentrations in the Tharsis, Elysium and Arabia Terrae regions. Tharsis and Elysium are home to Mars' most massive volcanoes and Arabia Terrae has large quantities of subterranean frozen water. This indicates the gas could be generated by geological or biological activity. 'It could be geology or biology, but it is not coming from another source. There is a seasonal pattern, so it could only be a local origin,' Sergio Fonti, with Italy's Universita del Salento, told Discovery News."
Martians label Earth "stupidest planet ever" for measuring their farts billions of times...
I think the unspoken belief in the scientific community is that it's pointing very heavily towards life on Mars, but the rule of thumb in science is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and claims don't get much more extraordinary than the claim that life has been found on another world. Necessity and prudence require that the experts couch their language and manage expectations until we can gather that extraordinary evidence. Since there are other ways that the methane could be formed, in particular geological activity (which in its own way is pretty extraordinary considering Mars' lack of a magnetic field has long been seen as a sign that it is a geologically dead world, lacking a molten or semi-molten core), until incontrovertible evidence has been gathered there will always be the need to list alternative explanations, no matter how much they piss on the parade.
Quite frankly we're not going to know until we find some Martian life, and that's going to take a good deal of time. We're decades away from being able to gather direct evidence, unless we get very lucky.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Someone call Mazlan Othman asap!
FTFA: 'It could be geology or biology, but it is not coming from another source.'
Another source like what? Comets hitting the planet? Isn't geology pretty freaking broad for a category?
That's like looking at a rock on the Earth and saying "Well, we are pretty sure that it either formed here on earth, or it is a meteorite."
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I think it's pretty certain that there is life on Mars now, as NASA didn't take any extraordinary measures to eradicate all possible forms of life from the probes until 1995 and the Mars Orbiter. Earlier, a memo was issued, but not much was done. Up to 10^5 possibly surviving microbes were permissible on the earlier crafts, if I remember correctly.
It's a shame, as the planet can never be uncontaminated and studied as a truly lifeless planet.
If life is responsible for the seasonal methane fluctuations, I doubt very much that it could be explained by anything hitching a ride on our spacecraft.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We have tons of methane mined daily right on Earth. We burn it off at the source because we can't be arsed to pipe it anywhere. If you can't even be bothered piping it from an oil rig, why would you fly it through interplanetary space? I know, bad form, serious reply to non-serious post ;)
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
It would be another step back from the "we-are-the-sole-reason-for-the-universe's-existence" mindset. Reducing humanities self-centered leanings leaves some more room for a "we-are-a-part-of-the-universe" attitude that tends to promote a more responsible approach to resource management.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Of course the episodic bursts of methane came form the global surveyor that surveyed the planet: as every middle schooler knows, "whoever smelt it dealt it".
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
You start by not defining living systems as any specific type of chemistry, but rather certain activities; ie. metabolism, reproduction/replication, respiration, excretion. While the only systems we know of that do that from observation is carbon-based life on Earth, we can conceive of alternatives, whether simply using other forms of carbon chemistry, or even possible silicon-based life.
The risk, of course, of very generalized definitions is that you could catch chemical activity that isn't life, but I think the above tests would be close enough to be highly suggestive that the chemical interactions you're seeing are biotic in nature, regardless of the precise form the chemistry itself takes. I think we're sufficiently good enough of recognizing this things to not confuse even simply living systems with more mundane chemical processes like crystallization, oxidization, etc.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.