Wednesday, April 20, 2005

NASA Scientist: 'Mars Could be Biologically Alive'





"Scientific teams around the globe are on the trail of methane seeping out of Mars. And for good reason: The methane could be the result of biological processes. It could also be an 'abiotic' geochemical process, however, or the result of volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the red planet."

Moreover, they've detected gobs of it over Valles Marineris -- a deep chasm that's a logical site for life because of its relatively high air pressure.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would bet $ that the Martian methane is biological not geological. (The article also notes that the overwhelming percentage of methane in Earth's atmosphere is of biological origin.) And hell, organisms don't HAVE to breathe.
--WMB

Mac said...

I think the overwhelming odds are that the methane is biogenic. NASA's playing it really carefully...

TheUltimateCyn said...

...this Mars thing is really getting creepy... wasn't that a profound thought?? hahaha

Anonymous said...

If I were a Mars scientist, my reasoning would go like this: 1) The 1976 Viking lander experiment detected life on Mars; 2) A microorganism was apparently found in a Martian meteorite; 3) Mars is now known for certain to have possessed large bodies of liquid water at some point; 4) 99 point something % of the methane in the Earth's atmosphere is biogenic not geological in origin. And Earth is MUCH more geologically active than Mars. Ergo.... It IS creepy AND profound, possibly the greatest scientific dicovery ever!