

Mars methane discovery hints at presence of life  - gibsonf1
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4243321/Mars-methane-discovery-hints-at-presence-of-life.html

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rms
This source is a little less sensational:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/scie...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4243321/Mars-
methane-discovery-hints-at-presence-of-life.html)

~~~
pg
Thanks. I swapped it in. That Sun story was ridiculous.

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froo
So NASA is hinting at life on Mars because they may have discovered the
presence of alien farts?

A big win for science.

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thamer
From the article: _“Methane is a product of biology. For methane to be in
Mars' atmosphere, there has to be a replenishable source”_.

From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakes_of_Titan> : _The lakes of Titan, a
moon of Saturn, are bodies of liquid methane that have been detected by the
Cassini space probe, and had been suspected long before._

Why would methane be a product of life on one body and not on another? What is
special about Titan?

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froo
I thought scientists had already been arguing about the existance of life on
Titan?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)>

or more specifically

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7716>

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rbanffy
There is no amount of life that could generate those, forgive me, titanic
amounts of methane ;-)

If there is some life there, it must be either very efficient in generating
methane or very good at hiding itself ;-)

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thamer
Well, the Earth itself has been transformed by life! Most of the oxygen in the
atmosphere comes from billions of years of photosynthesis:

\-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#Photosynthesis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#Photosynthesis_and_oxygen)

\-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_atmosphere#Evolution_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_atmosphere#Evolution_of_Earth.27s_Atmosphere)

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rbanffy
Most probably, a big chunk of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from last
month's photosynthesis - we use it to make CO2 and green stuff converts it
back, so, it's always brand-new oxygen we see. But free oxygen indicates a far
more active biosphere than lots of methane would and I get your point -
methane makers are much lower profile than oxygen makers.

As for Titan being covered with life... We really don't know if the lakes we
see from space aren't giant amoebas waiting patiently to eat any humans that
land on their beaches and just cleverly pretending to be lakes. ;-)

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tower10
No offence but I'm not even going to read a scientific news story on The Sun
:)

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henning
I fully expect us to find organic life on another planets sooner or later.
However, I have my doubts about intelligent life. They could very well be less
technologically sophisticated, in which case it might do more harm than good
to interact with them (cf. Prime Directive).

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utnick
the odds are in your favor

out of the millions of species on earth, only one is technologically
sophisticated. And the others aren't even close to being there.

A crazy long series of luck or intelligent design got us to where we are.

~~~
stcredzero
Intelligent species tend to kill each other off. Note that we aren't the only
hominids. Note what we are doing to the most intelligent of our cousins. Note
what we did to the Neanderthals.

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Allocator2008
Seems this comes from either:

1) Volcanoes 2) Methanogen microbes

Since no active volcanoes are around, the article posits the more likely
explanation is the microbe one. Not sure the half life on methane. Could this
methane be lingering from whenever volcanoes were last active? If so, the more
parsimonious explanation is the volcano one. If the half-life of methane is
too fast for the methane detected to be left-over methane from ancient
volcanoes, and if further we are quite certain there are no active volcanoes
there now, then perhaps the most parsimonious explanation for the methane
would be methanogens living beneath underground ice. If we can rule out the
volcano theory, then the next step would be to send Bruce Willis over there to
drill for methane and the methanogens that produced it.

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ngvrnd
Methane doesn't come from volcanoes, or from organic life; it comes from
primordial deposits of hydrocarbons from the formation of the planet, released
by heating of the deposits or sublimation, or whatnot. If there is life, and
it is carbon based, then it subsists on these deposits and the evolved methane
might be a waste product. I think the speculation is way off in the
stratosphere here. I think further analysis is called for before drawing any
conclusions.

Further, there is always this to consider:
<http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf>

