NASA to announce today ,Mars methane discovery hints at presence of life on Mars 15/01/09

I think the reason most are poo-pooing it is that this is old news. We've known about methane on mars for a while now. It could be circumstantial evidence of life, or it could be circumstantial evidence of latent geothermal activity. We'll see, but it's going to take further study to find out one way or the other definitively. I don't think it's a threat to any skeptic's belief system though. If microbial life is found on mars it doesn't mean we've been visited by aliens. You can still have the right answer (that alien life exists) for the wrong reasons.

[edit on 15-1-2009 by ngchunter]

Ok I'll take your word for it over a massive team of NASA scientists and University professors - I think NOT!

Every single thing in existence fits the description of natural. The question is what process is responsible for it's creation and the experts have concluded MICROBES

Press conference live right now


www.nasa.gov...

Theres absolutely no evidence for latent geological activity on Mars though. And they do not find any other gases associated with Vulcanism also like Sulfur.
And it INCREASES the chances of us having been visited by Aliens if we can find any kind of alien lifeforms not from Earth, sorry but thats the truth. For you skeptics all you have to cling to is that no other life has yet been found so you can cast a blanket of doubt on any sightings. Proof of life elsewhere skyrockets the probability of such events happening. Again thats a stark truth I suspect you will ignore and make up another excuse for.

Why aren't my responses bumping this thread actively in the forum????





[edit on 15-1-2009 by atsbeliever]

[edit on 15-1-2009 by atsbeliever]

www.spacedaily.com...

I didn't say it had to be volcanic in nature. As phage pointed out, it may not even be geothermal in nature, but biotic origin is not the only possibility.

That depends on a myriad of factors, not the least of which is the frequency of intelligent life, as well as the possibility that it's just to difficult to travel between stars to make it worthwhile except for permanent relocation.

Wrong, skeptics rely on the fact that space travel is extremely difficult, time-consuming beyond the lifespan of any known creature, and dangerous. Many, perhaps even most skeptics believe there is probably alien life elsewhere, many I know even believe it probably exists in our own solar system in places like europa. That's a far cry from believing intelligent life is visiting us, and it's qualified by an important word "probably" not "definately." That word is important to this story as well.

I disagree. The limiting factor on any such events would be the difficulty of space travel, therefore would it even be worth it to send a manned probe to our little corner?

I think you're assuming I don't believe visitation is a possibility. I have news for you, I want to believe, my own family had a very close encounter of the first kind. I just don't happen to believe any explanation is definately true since none of them are proven or even provable at this time. I certainly don't believe alien visitation occurs on a regular basis the way most "believers" do, but at the same time I don't rule out the possibility that it has ever occured. I'm just plain skeptical. If evidence could be found to the contrary my mind is open, but I've never seen good evidence of such a thing.

Your thinking very 'humanly' there which is not your fault, but one can't assume Aliens are at the same stage of development we are? Preposterous.

Add 500,000 years..or a few million..do you really think they would still be using solid rocket technology to get across the stars!?? As it is right now we can't see much beyond that, but you have to consider that an Alien species will have a better understanding of Physic's & even have access to materials that we don't which would enable them to travel in ways we can't even theorize.
Just because we haven't thought of it yet doesn't make it not possible. Even in our primitive understanding of science there are working theories for wormholes & even ways to bend space/gravity to greatly shorten the distance & time required for travel. It takes enormous energy's but a species so advanced from us would be able to harness such energy.

Look how far we have come in 100 years, how about 1000? Do you think we'll still be using an ox & cart to get around town if there's a faster way..

"I disagree. The limiting factor on any such events would be the difficulty of space travel, therefore would it even be worth it to send a manned probe to our little corner?"


"
I didn't say it had to be volcanic in nature. As phage pointed out, it may not even be geothermal in nature, but biotic origin is not the only possibility.
"

This is actually a GOOD thing even if its what turned out to be true, certain organisms thrive in that environment and no matter what the outcome is, it shows mars is warm inside, has some kind of liquid beneath the surface and conditions that biotic life could very easily live!!!

Another thing to note about methane release is that its being destroyed at an unusually high rate, as hypothesized by one of the Nasa team yesterday, even if the methane is being produced by some unknown geology there could be organisms that use the methane as FOOD and are consuming it.
So no matter what side of the fence you sit, its a very exciting prospect for finding alien life on mars.


"That depends on a myriad of factors, not the least of which is the frequency of intelligent life, as well as the possibility that it's just to difficult to travel between stars to make it worthwhile except for permanent relocation."

Even finding 1 microbe elsewhere would increase the odds by incalculable amounts. As it is without having proof the odds are very high.We are finding more and more exoplanets with the right compounds, and even though our ability to resolve smaller rocky bodies is limited..it will come and they will be found.


"Wrong, skeptics rely on the fact that space travel is extremely difficult,time-consuming beyond the lifespan of any known creature, and dangerous."

See my point above, and again..thinking in human terms is the wrong way to go about it. If you had the energy & capability to bend the fabric of space from point A to point B, your journey would be almost instantaneous. Im not a scientist but I've heard about this theory on mainstream science outlets. From our understanding it would require great energy, but a significantly advanced race who has say a million years head start on us, would most likely be able to do that. Thats just 1 theory, but who knows what an Alien mind is capable of given huge millennia of advances.
I can't even fathom why they would come here (just curious? Science? Vacation?!) but Im guessing its no more of a significant trip than for you to drive around the corner to 7-11. Can ants fathom why we would take them home and make an ant farm out of them?! We are just ants..


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[edit on Fri Jan 16 2009 by Jbird]

how about intermittant outgassing from the comets and asteroids
that accreted to form the mass of the planet Mars...

it is common knowledge that many planet forming comets & meteors
had a hydrocarbon profile, or component in their mass.

Perhaps the outgassing phenomonem is not a copy of Earth geologic
processes (geo-thermal).... but perhaps 'cracks' intersecting the different strata which is present from when Mars had a hot molton core like Earth's.

these 'cracks' might be caused from the daily/yearly exposure to heat-cold
from the Sun, the Mars eleptical orbit, & all the mundane factors.


the 'life' origination (of methane) speculation is only 'sensationalization'...
for apparent reasons & is based on the 'there's no facts to dis-prove me' rationalization.


thanks,

We are human, and therefore thinking in human terms is the correct way. Thinking any other way falls into imagination. Now there is nothing wrong with imagining there is an alien race that has existed for 500,000 longer than we have, and can bend the fabric of time space. However, with no actual proof it exists, we simply cannot assume it is true.

There is no proof that we can travel that way, theories, but no proof. Without proof we must base our logical decisions based of the knowledge we have. That knowledge can be wrong or incomplete, but it is the set of laws we have. Anything else is just science fiction.

It does not need to be life, or volcanism that creates methane. The process which creates rust also creates methane. While that alone might not mean anything, it does hint that water is present. Which could lead to proof that life existed on Mars, or might still. Volcanoes is actually the least likely candidate in this situation.

No offense meant but finding life on Mars is not Earth shattering news. It is expected that we will find life on Mars. Now evidence of intelligent life on Mars, that would be huge.

Seeing that most of Mars' surface is oxidized and that process creates methane, that would be the most likely candidate for the methane. I would not discount simple life under the surface at all, which somehow has a symbiotic relationship with the oxidization process.


[edit on 16-1-2009 by Shadow_Lord]

No, I'm not, but one doesn't have to know how (or even if it's doable) to bend spacetime to know how much energy it would take to do so. In short, it'd make the energy of an entire star look pathetic even if the device had perfect efficiency. Likewise, one doesn't have to know how to build a rocket to know how much energy it takes to get into low earth orbit.

Doesn't matter what it's made of, even moving just the mass of a body from star to star takes an unfathomable amount of energy. Assuming for a second that one could manage to utilize the complete energy of a supernova and use it to travel to another star in a reasonable time period, it would only permit extremely rare trips which would need to be more important in nature than sightseeing.

The conditions for a wormhole to exist in a useable and stable way make it more of a mathmatical possibility than a real thing, and even then it requires a form of matter not known to exist. Most likely none exist in our galaxy and if they do they're very very rare, not suitable for mass transit all over the galaxy for sightseeing.

But not the energy required, which is a huge tradeoff. In exchange for a short journey you must spend more energy than our entire solar system contains, even assuming such bending is doable with far advanced technology - it still does nothing to lessen the basic energy requirement. Just like building a Saturn V did nothing to lessen the basic energy requirement to get to the moon.

You assume. That's a huge assumption and that's where skeptics hang their hat. Note that it has nothing to do with the existence or prevalence of alien life.

A car needs much more energy, an energy demand we're having a hard time meeting. How is that going to get easier the more energy hungry we grow? Even fusion would be pathetic compared to what you'd need for what you're proposing. We're talking about supernova level energy here at least, that doesn't just happen to spew up from a well in the ground.

Agreed, but the subject here is whether or not martian methane MUST be biotic in origin.

No, it doesn't, because that's not the rate limiting step. The limiting factor is energy needed to cross the stars quickly.

That's a galactic size "if" I'm not willing to grant you.

reply to post by ngchunter

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Oh well then you proved me & the aliens wrong on every count. I LOSE. Your the superior intellect.

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[edit on Fri Jan 16 2009 by Jbird]

Look, as I said earlier my family did have a very close encounter I can't explain. The thing is, I'm after the truth, but you don't get there by making favorable assumptions, especially assumptions that large, just because it validates what you believe. That leads to confirmation bias and away from the truth.

There are ways a civilization could hypothetically reach other stars, but it most likely wouldn't involve "star trek" types of travel except in extreme circumstances, as in, our sun's going supernova and we have to use that energy to escape and recolonize. One could send an unmanned AI probe to a solar system in their neighborhood using technology beyond our capability but without expending unreachable sums of energy at the cost of a longer (but doable) journey, say hundreds of years to a nearby star instead of thousands or even millions. The probe could be stocked with frozen gametes of clones, selected to be the heathiest of the species, to be thawed and fertilized a few years before arrival and raised by the computer "kal-el style." It begs the question why, why not just let the computer do the job if it's that autonomous (enough to even raise children with no exposure to any real adults), in traditional von neumann style, and the most logical answer is that the test tube babies would be for colonization.

If you are really after the truth, you need to seriously spend time looking for it. By that I mean examine the Lunar Orbiter photos and also others from the Moon and from Mars see the 'truth' for yourself.

There is an enormous amount of 'truth' around - even if 90% of it is not acceptable to you, there may be 10% that may be obvious signs of life in these places. I am not talking about 'rocks' that might possibly be pyramids or 'bricks' or this kind of thing, I am talking about things (buildings, machines, etc) which should not be there if these places are truly uninhabited as NASA say they are.

Here is a bit from the Reuters story. My apologies if it was already posted. It seems that scientists are ruling out volcanic activity as the source of the methane.


www.reuters.com...

Other possibilities that I saw in another forum (and that I do not know if were already talked about in the linked pages, I haven't read them all) besides the ones already talked about are Methane clathrate, oxidation of iron minerals with H2 reduction of carbonate rocks (and Mars has the rocks needed for this) and photo-reduction of CO2 into methane in the presence of metal oxides.

As my chemistry knowledge is very weak I do not know if any of these possibilities is better than any other.

I've looked at all kinds of high resolution lunar and mars photos and have never seen anything that defied a natural explanation. There are no machines on the moon that I have ever seen aside from what we've left there.

Well, even the NASA scientist have not, as you said "concluded it was microbes". They have said they do not yet know whether it is geolocically produced methane or biologically produced:
www.nasa.gov...

It certainly may turn out to be biologically produced,and that would be hugely exciting news, or it may turn out to be produced by geologic forces. It's a bit too soon to jump to any conclusion.

[edit on 1/19/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

How nice is that, actual drops of life on the mars lander .. Sweet..






First liquid water may have been spotted on Mars