Or at least not dead.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jan/HQ_09-006_Mars_Methane.html
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GoddersUK
My five year mission: To boldly split infinitives that no Niner has split before!
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Charles
Welcome Change
Incredibly interesting.
C -
harumscarum
out of memory
and it only took a kazillion dollars
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Minh
WOOH! WOOH!
We already knew this... duhharumscarum said:and it only took a kazillion dollars
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Bas
It finds lightbulbs.
As soon as the green flashes start, we destroy all cold medicine, okay?
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littleguru
<3 Seattle
It is possible a geologic process produced the Martian methane, either now or eons ago.
Well... It is really vague what they found.
"We observed and mapped multiple plumes of methane on Mars, one of which released about 19,000 metric tons of methane," said co-author Geronimo Villanueva of the Catholic University of America in Washington. "The plumes were emitted during the warmer seasons, spring and summer, perhaps because ice blocking cracks and fissures vaporized, allowing methane to seep into the Martian air." -
Charles
Welcome Change
But the important fact, which is not vague, is that methane is a volatile gas which quickly gets destroyed in the Martian atmosphere... So, some process is putting it in the atmosphere at rates that suggest it still exists... Geologic or Biologic, something is going on deep inside Mars that is surprising. What I don't understand is how spectroscopic analysis of the Martian atmosphere missed this. Why now? What about 20 years ago?littleguru said:*snip*
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littleguru
<3 Seattle
Yeah. It kind of comes late. That's also making me wonder if it is really something to be excited about. Also, I think it really has to do with the geologic stuff that's going on and not with little green people that life on the Mars... but I might be wrong.Charles said:
But the important fact, which is not vague, is that methane is a volatile gas which quickly gets destroyed in the Martian atmosphere... So, some process is putting it in the atmosphere at rates that suggest it still exists... Geologic or Biologic, something is going on deep inside Mars that is surprising. What I don't understand is how spectroscopic analysis of the Martian atmosphere missed this. Why now? What about 20 years ago?littleguru said:*snip*
C
It would be cool do find life outside of earth. That might finally proof that we are not the center of the universe and it would be also very cool to see what excatly lifes on other planets. -
Charles
Welcome Change
If there is life on Mars (or, more probable in my opinion, on Saturn's moon Titan) and it is carbon-based, then it most likely (almost positively) will be microbial. Only microbes can evolve in acid-like condtions or extreme temperature environments. There are most likely some form of organic or even inorganic "germs" and "bacteria" on other rocky planets. Thing is, they typically have no built-in capability to conceive, so they aren't able to build interplanetry spacecraft to fly to new worlds and new civiliaztions, to boldly go where no microbe has gone before, to search out new cracks and crevices to colonize....littleguru said:
Yeah. It kind of comes late. That's also making me wonder if it is really something to be excited about. Also, I think it really has to do with the geologic stuff that's going on and not with little green people that life on the Mars... but I might be wrong.Charles said:*snip*
It would be cool do find life outside of earth. That might finally proof that we are not the center of the universe and it would be also very cool to see what excatly lifes on other planets.
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littleguru
<3 Seattle
Well... that's all clear. Otherwise we would already have noticed. But it would be still interesting to see how that life is constructed. It would be interesting how they vary from bacterias that life on mother earth.Charles said:
If there is life on Mars (or, more probable in my opinion, on Saturn's moon Titan) and it is carbon-based, then it most likely (almost positively) will be microbial. Only microbes can evolve in acid-like condtions or extreme temperature environments. There are most likely some form of organic or even inorganic "germs" and "bacteria" on other rocky planets. Thing is, they typically have no built-in capability to conceive, so they aren't able to build interplanetry spacecraft to fly to new worlds and new civiliaztions, to boldly go where no microbe has gone before, to search out new cracks and crevices to colonize....littleguru said:*snip*
C -
Hows this new? Methane on Mars was detected over 5 years ago.
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Charles
Welcome Change
The fact that it remains in the atmosphere means something is replenishing the gas. This is news. Very interesting news. Mars has been thought to have an atmospehere in a state of gaseous equilibrium unlike Earth's highly dynamic atmosphere which is in a state of disequilibrum (in fact, remotely detecting the state of equilibrium of planetary atmospheres via spectroscopic analysis is one way to build assumptions about the likelihood of active geological and biological systems operating on the planet in question...). Mars has been thought to be geologically "dead" as well. Methane gas entering the Martian atmosphere means it's not just the cold red rock we thought it was.daSmirnov said:Hows this new? Methane on Mars was detected over 5 years ago.
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BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.
Errrr... Problem is...Charles said:
The fact that it remains in the atmosphere means something is replenishing the gas. This is news. Very interesting news. Mars has been thought to have an atmospehere in a state of gaseous equilibrium unlike Earth's highly dynamic atmosphere which is in a state of disequilibrum (in fact, remotely detecting the state of equilibrium of planetary atmospheres via spectroscopic analysis is one way to build assumptions about the likelihood of active geological and biological systems operating on the planet in question...). Mars has been thought to be geologically "dead" as well. Methane gas entering the Martian atmosphere means it's not just the cold red rock we thought it was.daSmirnov said:*snip*
C
There are no scientific proofs what methane is made by anything "life". Even on Earth...
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Charles
Welcome Change
Umm... Earth is chalk full of organisms of all shapes and sizes that produce methane as a result of metabolic acitivity. Humans are among them...BlackTiger said:
Errrr... Problem is...Charles said:*snip*
There are no scientific proofs what methane is made by anything "life". Even on Earth...
The proof is everywhere.
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GoddersUK
My five year mission: To boldly split infinitives that no Niner has split before!
e.g. http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-cow.htmCharles said:
Umm... Earth is chalk full of organisms of all shapes and sizes that produce methane as a result of metabolic acitivity. Humans are among them...BlackTiger said:*snip*
The proof is everywhere.
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Not to be a nuisance, but that's affirming the consequent. If A (life) then B (methane), B therefore A isn't a valid argument. Sure, it makes life probable, but doesn't exactly constitute as proof.Charles said:
Umm... Earth is chalk full of organisms of all shapes and sizes that produce methane as a result of metabolic acitivity. Humans are among them...BlackTiger said:*snip*
The proof is everywhere.
C
That's all I'll say Well, that, and "Cool! Methane!"
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littleguru said:
Yeah. It kind of comes late. That's also making me wonder if it is really something to be excited about. Also, I think it really has to do with the geologic stuff that's going on and not with little green people that life on the Mars... but I might be wrong.Charles said:*snip*
It would be cool do find life outside of earth. That might finally proof that we are not the center of the universe and it would be also very cool to see what excatly lifes on other planets.littleguru said:It would be cool do find life outside of earth. That might finally proof that we are not the center of the universe...
I don't understand the motivation behind this thinking. Why do we need to demonstrate that we are not special? What advantage would that give us? It reminds me of an opinion column in Discover Magazine recently that suggested the Universe was created by a superior intelligence that exists within the Universe, rather than outside of it. It was suggested that this would finally remove any hint of the supernatural. But I've got to ask, why is it our goal to remove the supernatural? Isn't Science supposed to be about gaining understanding in an unbiased manner? Seems like everybody has a goal they want to see Science achieve. They want it to dethrone God apparently. Whatever happened to following the data wherever it leads?
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