Possible Martian fossils

[blobrana]

Yep,

"There is life on Mars...", a researcher has announced
at a NASA conference - unfortunately it is just spaceship-borne contamination.

Looks like the`ve "done a really terrible thing"...

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994812

[blobrana]

Hum,
A strong signal of life on Mars has been detected by scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and the European Space Agency!

Each group has independently discovered  evidence of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane, a waste product of living organisms on Earth, could also be a by-product of alien microbes living under the surface of the Red Planet.
The detection of methane has been the holy grail of scientists studying the Martian atmosphere, as its presence could provide unequivocal proof that there is life beyond Earth.

Neither Nasa nor the European Space Agency (ESA) has publicly announced the findings....(?)

Mars Express (ESA) detected he presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere is something of the order of 10 or 10.5 parts per billion...

Methane is destroyed by the intense ultraviolet radiation on Mars because the gas has a relatively short photochemical lifetime of about 300 years, so if it is present there must be something producing it continually...

Its presence is significant and very important.
If it is present you need a source...

The second group to detect detected variations in the concentrations of methane, with a peak coming from the ancient Martian seabed of Meridiani Planum was Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who used powerful spectroscopic telescopes.
Meridiani Planum is currently being explored by a Nasa rover.
This could indicate a subterranean source of methane which is pumping out the gas, perhaps because of the presence of living organisms producing it as a waste gas.

(It's difficult to imagine that primordial methane from geological activity would continue out-gassing  four billion years.)

My question is `What took then so long?`...




[Disclaimer: i didn`t contaminate it - not confirmed]

[blobrana]

Hum,
The findings haven`t been declared yet so it may just be rumours...
(er, i haven`t found any information on the web yet)

But, assuming the reports are true, i would tend to think that if life did arise, then it would be almost impossible to eradicate from a planet.

The ancestral archaebacteria were probably heterotrophic, anaerobic, sulphur-dependent hyperthermoacidophiles that would have evolved as the climate changed (this would have been a gradual process, over a few million years)



"I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way.." [ jurassic park ]

[blobrana]

Hum,
The news is out!


BBC REPORT

"The failed Beagle 2 mission had a device that could have sniffed the Martian atmosphere for methane.

It is possible that the methane is being produced by volcanic activity. Lava being deposited onto the surface, or released underground, could produce the gas.
That explanation has some difficulties, however. So far no active volcanic hotspots have been detected by the many spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.

Scientists operating the Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (FPS) have also found the spectral signature of methane in the Martian atmosphere.
The Infrared telescope on Hawaii and the Gemini South observatory in Chile detected the gas LAST YEAR. "