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Methane on Mars. Does that mean… life?
Mars looks like it's reading from a Monty Python script: "Oi'm not dead yet; Oi'm getting bettah."
By Pete Spotts | 01.16.09
Mars looks like it’s reading from a Monty Python script: “Oi’m not dead yet; Oi’m getting bettah.”
Planetary scientists announced on Thursday that they’ve found three regions on the red planet that have pumped methane into the Martian atmosphere.
The big question now: What’s generating the gas? On Earth, it can come from geological processes. But it also comes from microbes. So, Mars could be biologically alive, geologically alive, or some combination.
The research team, led by Michael Mumma at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., gives a hint of what it thinks the source could be. But, hey, why open that envelope just yet?
Astrobiologists are tickled by the news — even though they readily agree that the processes generating the gas are still unknown.
“The implications are quite exciting if it’s not a strictly a geochemical process,” says Frank Timmes, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration in Tempe.
The first inklings of methane at Mars came via Europe’s Mars Express Orbiter. In December 2004, members of the Mars Express science team reported that they had detected methane in the atmosphere. And the results showed that the methane was not evenly distributed. Some regions displayed higher concentrations than others.
Related studies with Mars Express indicated that some areas with high concentrations of methane overlapped areas of unusually high concentrations of water vapor. Since water is a necessary ingredient for organic life, the overlap presented yet another piece of an intriguing puzzle.
Many scientists were intrigued, but remained unconvinced because the Mars Express team was pressing the orbiter’s instruments to the limits to get the data.
These latest results came via telescopes on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. The team used them to search for methane’s chemical “fingerprints” in spectra of the Martian atmosphere. And the scientists kept at the effort for three Mars years, or seven Earth years.
In 2003, Mumma’s group uncovered emissions from three areas in the northern hemisphere releasing the gas. One of the three, known as ArabiaTerra, also showed up in the Mars Express results.
The methane emissions have shown seasonal swings in concentration. Emissions have been heaviest in the northern hemisphere’s spring and summer. The pace of release during these peaks — slightly more than a pound of gas per second — is comparable to methane seeps on a well-known patch of sea bottom off the California coast near Santa Barbara.
Oh, yes, the envelope please. In the formal research paper reporting the results via Sciencexpress, an on-line adjunct to the journal Science, the team suggests that low-temperature mineral-forming processes may be the culprit at two sites: Syrtis Major and Nili Fossae. As for ArabiaTerra? They leave that one untouched, for now.
Whatever the cause, don’t be surprised if one or all of these move toward the head of the list for the US’s next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory rover. It’s currently scheduled for launch in the fall of 2011.
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2. Karanja Wagichiengo | 01.17.09
Just want to say this is very interesting findings in mars. Keep up good job. I am very interested in your reseach of the planet Mars, Thank you and good day.
3. shinar | 01.17.09
Oh My God I Never Knew About This Just To Tell You Im Only Ten But Im Very Interested in the planets oh yeh and im a girl 
I Must Read More 
4. Saba Sattar | 01.17.09
to find more about mars, scientist should dig the ground on some parts of the planets. there should be mountains or atleast a mine or a cave where they can find some answers to unanswered question.
5. Atish | 01.17.09
Until unless man doesnt step in the moon
All such questions will always makes…mysteries
8. Paul Wolf | 01.17.09
I think people are overreacting to the discoveries of water and methane on Mars. Both are simple chemicals that one would expect to find everywhere in the solar system. Saturn’s moon Titan has a methane atmosphere yet no one is claiming there are aliens living on it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in favor of life on Mars. However, I remember the world’s reaction to the “cold fusion” hoax of the 1990s, this is reminding me of that. Or maybe Y2K. I have a friend who worked at the US Patent Office, and he said the office received applications for perpetual motion machines nearly every week. We shouldn’t get carried away with believing in what we want to be true.
That said, NASA is making tremendous achievements that the public is barely aware of. If the SETI fans can help generate the interest to increase NASA’s funding, MAY THE FORCE BE WITH THEM.
9. dolly | 01.18.09
gud job ppl… though i m a maths student astrology, has always been my interest… keep it up!!!
10. Roberto Ortiz | 01.19.09
Keep on the good research work;That is the future .
Mankind need to be saved of its own foolish path toward poisoning our own planet
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1. James gissendaner sr | 01.16.09
Mars once occupied earths current orbit to the sun
Which is the key ingredient to creating a habitat compatible to induce what we know as life.