Martian Life

[Bill]

Has been found in my sideburns. And smells like methane.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

yup, something's farting on mars.

[Chris McKinley]

Anybody else find this discovery to be slightly ironic in light of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds ending?

[Darthwing Teorist]

What are you guys talking about?

[Darth Rock&Roll]

recent discovery of methane gas on mars being released to the surface from below which is indicative of organisms seeing as methane is considered a by-product of organic life in the case of the type they have discovered.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Oh, ok. Maybe they got oil fields in formation there. Space programs will go in overdrive. Too bad for the natives.

[Steve James]

Paper Details Sites on Mars With Plumes Of Methane
By KENNETH CHANG
Published: January 15, 2009

In early 2003, a plume of methane gas rose from the surface of Mars. The big unanswered question is, What belched?
Related

Subsurface Martian cows are highly unlikely. But scientists are seriously considering the possibility of bacteria.

A team of researchers reported Thursday that the bursts of methane originated from three specific regions in the planet’s northern hemisphere, where it was midsummer. The gas came out at a rate of 0.6 kilograms a second, the scientists said, and the plume contained 19,000 metric tons of methane.

“This is the first definitive detection of methane on Mars,” Michael J. Mumma of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the leader of the research team, said at a news conference, “and the first definitive maps and identification of active regions of release.”

The findings appeared in a paper published online Thursday by the journal Science. Dr. Mumma said additional scientific papers describing other time periods of the observations, which span from 2001 to last year, were being prepared.

Methane — the simplest of hydrocarbon molecules, with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms — is fragile in air. It falls apart when hit by ultraviolet radiation in sunlight. That means any methane in the Martian air must be recent.

When the presence of methane was reported in 2004 by three teams of scientists, the findings generated surprise and skepticism because only a few explanations seemed to be plausible.

One was geothermal chemical reactions involving water and heat in volcanoes or underground hot springs. But evidence for recent volcanism on Mars is scarce. Also, volcanoes would be expected to spew other gases like sulfur dioxide, and those are not plentiful in the planet’s atmosphere.

A second possibility is biological. On Earth, a class of bacteria known as methanogens breathes out methane as a waste product.

NASA’s current Mars strategy is to look for signs of water and perhaps life in the planet’s distant past. “Perhaps we need to also think in terms of present-day life holding on somewhere in the subsurface,” said Lisa M. Pratt, a professor of geological sciences at Indiana University who participated in the news conference but was not involved with the research.

Even if the source turns out to be geological in origin or to have come from long-extinct bacteria, the sites would still be prime locations to look for other microbes that thrive on methane as food. “It gives us a bull’s-eye to go after,” Dr. Pratt said.

[klonk]

You all are missing the obvious. The surface temperature on Mars was lately increasing, and since we all know Republicans cause global warming, what we have on Mars is a bunch of farting Republicans. QED. (Somebody give me a science grant, please.)

[edededed]

Quick, hand them all butt plugs!