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Life on Mars

danarhea said:
NASA scientists believe they have found overwhelming evidence that microbes do exist on Mars, underneath the surface.

If, indeed, life does exist on Mars, then life must exist elsewhere in the Universe.
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Must? No.
Probably? yes -- but that was indicated by live -here- not, there.
 
rhinefire said:
I love this. It has already been proven mathematically life on other rocks in our universe exists. This great discovery will hopefully shut the non-believers up. Don't worry all you religious nuts, your Gods will survive, after all God is faith not scientific fact. "Onward science solidiers marching off to facts."
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Not sure how life somewhere other than Earth in any way disproves religion.
 
WI Crippler said:
If we discover microbes, is it ok if we go ahead and Terra Form the planet anyways?
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You have the Genisis Torpedo. You can do what you want.
 
Southern Man said:
How does that answer my question? :confused:
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Well unless there's biological activity on Neptune, methane does not require life to be produced. Additionally, Mars has a great deal less methane than several planets that definitely do not have and have never had life on them.
 
Now more than ever we need to supercharge our effort to land there ASAP for the Russians will be close behind. God knows we don't want Martian Communists! :rwbdonkey:rwbelepha
 
Southern Man said:
Is there a physical chemical reaction that makes methane? I was under the impression that it required a biological catalyst.
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Water can react with Rock and vulcanize, which can create methane.


I watched the thing.

What there seems to be is three specific areas that can be found to be Methane vents that occur in the Northern Summer, but not at other times (mar's seasons repeat over a two year span)

This methan has a very short life expectancy, much shorter than that of Earth's methane. They believe thta there may be the presence of oxidization molecules such as Hydrogen Peroxide that contribute to the shorter lifespan, or perhaps methane consuming microbes.

In total, the three vents are producing a massive about of methane, and are localized in to these regions, which are in the middle northern lattitudes.

Ther ehave yet to be found rpesence of toher chemical markers to explain this release of methane by way of either geological or biological menas.

If it is geological, the assumption would be that there should aslo be Sulfer Dioxide, as is found with terrestrial volcanic vents.

If there is a biological factor, then other gasses would be present that have yet to be found.

There may exist a third reasons for this methane release, as of yet undetermined, but further study is necessary.

Also, this methane relewase may not be being produced at teh moment, but instead is some sort of trapped preexisting methane that is being released by some means.

The question as to how the methane got there is quite intriguing. As well as the fact that it coincides with the northner summer. Will we see something similar in southern regions when the southern summer rolls around?

This is not like methane existing in the atmosphere, as it does on other plnets. During other seasons, there is far less methane in the Martian atmosphere than was recorded in this case.

The three hotspots are also indicative of a methane release point, and the levels in the atmosphere are not constant, as is the case with other atmopheres where we see large quantities of methane.

Nor is it uniform. This, combined with the relatively short life cycle, is why the determination of venting was possible.

The methods used were also quite interesting. They isolated a sliver of the planet and perfromed a spectrographical analysis of this strip, taking 30-50 spectra at a time, and repeated the process every 60 seconds.

I didn;t take notes, so I may have botched some things while explaining them. Sorry if I did.
 
Kernel Sanders said:
Well unless there's biological activity on Neptune, methane does not require life to be produced. Additionally, Mars has a great deal less methane than several planets that definitely do not have and have never had life on them.
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Did you see the NasaTV program?
 
Goobieman said:
You have the Genisis Torpedo. You can do what you want.
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Is that what I found when I got around to mowing my lawn. Guess I should tell the kid to not use it as a fort then.
 
WI Crippler said:
Is that what I found when I got around to mowing my lawn. Guess I should tell the kid to not use it as a fort then.
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Yeah. The neighbors might not like it if it went off.
 
Kernel Sanders said:
Well unless there's biological activity on Neptune, methane does not require life to be produced. Additionally, Mars has a great deal less methane than several planets that definitely do not have and have never had life on them.
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The only other method of producing methane is by vulcanization, which does not exist on Mars.


Earth has a magnetic field due to the movement of molten ores beneath the crust. Neptune? You are looking at liquid nitrogen, which produces a magnetic field, and can produce methane through processes similar to that of vulcanism. Mars has absolutely no magnetic field, and there is no evidence of vulcanism at all. Methane is a relatively short-lived gas, and vulcanism on Mars would have to have been very recent to see methane produced from that process.
 
danarhea said:
The only other method of producing methane is by vulcanization, which does not exist on Mars.


Earth has a magnetic field due to the movement of molten ores beneath the crust. Neptune? You are looking at liquid nitrogen, which produces a magnetic field, and can produce methane through processes similar to that of vulcanism. Mars has absolutely no magnetic field, and there is no evidence of vulcanism at all. Methane is a relatively short-lived gas, and vulcanism on Mars would have to have been very recent to see methane produced from that process.
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A few points:

1. According to the NASA program (which already aired) on this, vulcanism may occur on a subterranean level on Mars, they do not know for sure.

2. Methane is relatively short-lived when exposed to light because of photolysis, but subteranean methan can exist for centuries

3. This was about three separate vents found to exist for sure on mars, not normal atmospheric methane.

4. There may exist methane production possibilities that are not evident on Earth, so are as of yet undetermined. We cannot automatically assume life or vulcanization are the only possible explanations for this methane. That is a false dichotmy. Circumstances may exist on Mars that are not present on Earth to create methane in some heretofore unimagined way.
We cannot jump to the conclusion that "life exists on Mars" based solely on these data. More information is necesary to make that conclusion.
 
Tucker Case said:
A few points:

1. According to the NASA program (which already aired) on this, vulcanism may occur on a subterranean level on Mars, they do not know for sure.

2. Methane is relatively short-lived when exposed to light because of photolysis, but subteranean methan can exist for centuries

3. This was about three separate vents found to exist for sure on mars, not normal atmospheric methane.

4. There may exist methane production possibilities that are not evident on Earth, so are as of yet undetermined. We cannot automatically assume life or vulcanization are the only possible explanations for this methane. That is a false dichotmy. Circumstances may exist on Mars that are not present on Earth to create methane in some heretofore unimagined way.
We cannot jump to the conclusion that "life exists on Mars" based solely on these data. More information is necesary to make that conclusion.
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What I'm getting here is that NASA said "we may have found evidence of life on Mars!" when they really meant "Hey we need to seem useful so they'll keep funding us!"
 
RightOfCenter said:
What I'm getting here is that NASA said "we may have found evidence of life on Mars!" when they really meant "Hey we need to seem useful so they'll keep funding us!"
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Please don't tell me you are against funding NASA. Cut back on the military, I'd much rather know as much about life on Mars and speak Mandarin then cut NASA out of the budget (this is a bit of a joke).

The implications this holds is astronomical (no pun intended). God seriously has a lot of explaining to do if we do find life on another planet, and the first time I see someone speak on behalf of God and his response to this I will vomit profusely.
This could quite possibly negate the validity of the Genesis story (as a historical account). Which, in my opinion, is long over due. I keep quiet when it comes to threads about creationism just because I find my opinion of it to be quite hostile. I've taken Hebrew Literature courses (Old Testament) and attended a Southern Baptist Church for 18 years, to believe in creationism seems to be the equivalent of explaining the creation of Middle-Earth-- beautiful prose, but complete fantasy.

It also makes one question what was first. Life on Earth or Mars. Not to that finding life on our neighboring planet could actually dramatically increase the already large probability of life on other planets.
 
Arch Enemy said:
Please don't tell me you are against funding NASA. Cut back on the military, I'd much rather know as much about life on Mars and speak Mandarin then cut NASA out of the budget (this is a bit of a joke).

The implications this holds is astronomical (no pun intended). God seriously has a lot of explaining to do if we do find life on another planet, and the first time I see someone speak on behalf of God and his response to this I will vomit profusely.
This could quite possibly negate the validity of the Genesis story (as a historical account). Which, in my opinion, is long over due. I keep quiet when it comes to threads about creationism just because I find my opinion of it to be quite hostile. I've taken Hebrew Literature courses (Old Testament) and attended a Southern Baptist Church for 18 years, to believe in creationism seems to be the equivalent of explaining the creation of Middle-Earth-- beautiful prose, but complete fantasy.

It also makes one question what was first. Life on Earth or Mars. Not to that finding life on our neighboring planet could actually dramatically increase the already large probability of life on other planets.
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No, I'm not. Many people are however. But the leaking of the story that "there may be life on Mars!" when the explanation is most likely geological was a ridiculous exaggeration.
 
RightOfCenter said:
No, I'm not. Many people are however. But the leaking of the story that "there may be life on Mars!" when the explanation is most likely geological was a ridiculous exaggeration.
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If the planet is alive, then the chances of there being life is beyond "probable".
 
Arch Enemy said:
God seriously has a lot of explaining to do if we do find life on another planet, and the first time I see someone speak on behalf of God and his response to this I will vomit profusely.
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It's not God's fault if people associate him with a bunch of fairy tales written by cave men.

If you're gonna to spew, spew into this:

china-smallest-teapot-02.jpg


:rofl
 
Plumes of methane gas found on Mars


The gas could be coming from rudimentary life forms -- nothing capable of piloting a spaceship to Earth.

By John Johnson Jr.
January 16, 2009

Scientists have discovered large plumes of methane gas in the Martian atmosphere, a key marker for biological processes on Earth but not convincing proof that rudimentary life forms exist on Mars.

Scientists led by Michael Mumma of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland first detected the gas in 2003, using infrared spectrometers on three Earth-based telescopes, the team said Thursday. At its peak, the plumes contained about 19,000 metric tons of methane, a large amount comparable to the seep off Coal Oil Point near Santa Barbara.




The source of the methane is still a mystery, the scientists said in a briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington. But its existence proves that Mars is not the dead desert planet that many scientists thought it was.

"Mars is active," said Michael Meyer, head of NASA's Mars program. "Whether it's geology or biology, we don't yet know."

On Earth, the natural gas that heats our homes is mostly methane. About 90% of the methane released into our atmosphere is produced by biological processes, the largest contributors being bacteria in wetlands and the burping of cattle. The methane is released as a waste product by microbes reacting to hydrogen.

But methane is not a sure-fire indicator of life. Geological processes such as the interaction of water and molten rock in volcanoes can produce methane. On Titan, Saturn's largest moon, liquid methane is so plentiful it flows in rivers. Titan is so cold that it is extremely unlikely that living organisms are producing the methane.

Although they cautioned that more work is needed, the scientists said the absence of other gases that would be expected if volcanic activity was producing the methane is one indicator that organisms could be at work.



Plumes of methane gas found on Mars - Los Angeles Times
 
cherokee said:
Plumes of methane gas found on Mars


The gas could be coming from rudimentary life forms -- nothing capable of piloting a spaceship to Earth.

By John Johnson Jr.
January 16, 2009

Scientists have discovered large plumes of methane gas in the Martian atmosphere, a key marker for biological processes on Earth but not convincing proof that rudimentary life forms exist on Mars.

Scientists led by Michael Mumma of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland first detected the gas in 2003, using infrared spectrometers on three Earth-based telescopes, the team said Thursday. At its peak, the plumes contained about 19,000 metric tons of methane, a large amount comparable to the seep off Coal Oil Point near Santa Barbara.




The source of the methane is still a mystery, the scientists said in a briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington. But its existence proves that Mars is not the dead desert planet that many scientists thought it was.

"Mars is active," said Michael Meyer, head of NASA's Mars program. "Whether it's geology or biology, we don't yet know."

On Earth, the natural gas that heats our homes is mostly methane. About 90% of the methane released into our atmosphere is produced by biological processes, the largest contributors being bacteria in wetlands and the burping of cattle. The methane is released as a waste product by microbes reacting to hydrogen.

But methane is not a sure-fire indicator of life. Geological processes such as the interaction of water and molten rock in volcanoes can produce methane. On Titan, Saturn's largest moon, liquid methane is so plentiful it flows in rivers. Titan is so cold that it is extremely unlikely that living organisms are producing the methane.

Although they cautioned that more work is needed, the scientists said the absence of other gases that would be expected if volcanic activity was producing the methane is one indicator that organisms could be at work.



Plumes of methane gas found on Mars - Los Angeles Times
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You think I care what Mike Meyer's opinion is!!? :rofl
 
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