Martian Methane: sign of life?
First heard this on the air last night. Old news?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1076583.htm
In reply to:
The other more controversial theory is that living bacteria, similar to that on Earth, are producing the methane.
Does this mean that there is a possibility that there will be more inanely stupid people spawned into the cosmos? 
RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! The Martians are coming, the Martians are coming!
Rev. Alimae
There is methane on both Jupiter and Saturn. Anybody care to
speculate that there ever was life on either?
Hmm...very interesting thought, I will have to do some checking and see what I can come up with. I will let you know.
Thank you for the suggestion Bill.
As for speculating...I am sure there probably was, just not of the biological make up we are used to.
Rev. Alimae
I've read some decent sci-fi involving life on Jupiter. Don't know how good the biochemical research was, but. I certainly don't know enough to argue for or against the hypothesis. I'd reject the possibility of oxygen breathing water-based life.
In reply to:
Jupiter (and Saturn) has no solid surface, like the Earth. Rather the density and temperature increase with depth. The lack of solid surface need not be a deterrent to life, though, as many aquatic animals (e.g., fish, jellyfish) never touch a solid surface. There has been speculation that massive gas-bag organisms could exist in Jupiter's atmosphere. These organisms might be something like jellyfish, floating upon the atmospheric currents and eating either each other or the organic materials formed in Jupiter's atmosphere. this was located at http:// www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-6.html
and then there is the other site of:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/life/J_environment.html
Now if were we discussing life on the moons that would be a different matter all together.
As for Saturn you might want to check out this site at http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/life/S_environment.html&edu=high
And yet again if we are discussing life on the moons then it would yet again be a different matter.
There does seem to be a lot of SciFi books written concerning life on either of the two giants, but so far there is not scientific foundation.
But I personally would like to think that in some form, though definitely not biological in the terms we understand then, that there is life on either of the two, just because I like to entertain odd thoughts such as this.
Rev. Alimae
Actually, you need to actually read and consider what the article says. Jupiter and Saturn (and especially Titan) are methane factories, but the methane is created by chemical interactions in the atmospheres of those planets or was an original constituent of their atmospheres.
What the scientists are saying is that methane is not generated from chemical interactions in the Martian atmosphere - the ingredients and the climatic requirements for the generation of methane are completely absent. That leaves two sources for the methane: Volcanism, of which there is no current sign, or some primitive form of life which inhales CO or CO2 and releases methane as part of its respiration cycle.
This is significant if the second option is the one which is true, which must, by deduction, be the case if there is no volcanism on Mars.
Unless, of course, there is some third way of generating methane which the scientists don't know about, but.
Thanks, Cap.
There may be a third possibility, but the Mars mission's scientist's speculations aren't wild, and certainly interesting.
Well, my previous post was culled from other people, me not being a chemist. But the "third way" just might turn out to be that there is free methane in the Martian atmosphere in quantities too small to be detected by remote spectometry. Anyone know about this stuff?
Alimae, could you explain what you mean when you say any life on Jupiter would be non-biological? After all bios = life logos = study of.
Bingley
Bingley,
I do appologize for that, I ment as in oxygen breathing water-based life. I should have clarified and did not.
On a side note, I will not be on as much as I have been, which has not been much at all, due to the fact that I start my new job in the work force today. But I will do my utmost to keep up with everything that is going on in our esteemed forum.
Rev. Alimae
Alimae, good luck in your new job. I'm sorry to hear that you have to join the real world--I try to avoid that as much as possible...
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, insel. I would've missed it otherwise.
